Prince George’s County, Md., pumps up its Web site

Prince George’s County is using Rhythmyx content management software from Percussion Software Inc. of Stoneham, Mass., to post press releases and other information on the county’s Web site at .Press office employees don’t need to know HTML or Web design, said Vern Imrich, chief technology officer of Percussion Software.Nancy C. Lineman, press secretary for Prince George’s County executive Jack B. Johnson, said she writes press releases in Microsoft Word, then cuts and pastes the text onto the Rhythmyx Web site. She keeps the site’s URL stored in her favorites folder on a Web browser for easy reference.Lineman uses Rhythmyx to post photos to the site as well. “It gives us greater control of the Web site content,” Lineman said. “We just cut and paste the text, throw the press release onto the content administrative page, and tell it to publish the results,” she said. There’s no more running to the webmasters to get them to make changes to the text online.Three people in Lineman’s office use the Rhythmyx software, which is written in Java and uses Extensible Markup Language.Imrich called Rhythmyx a “decoupled delivery mechanism,” which he compared to a pump system. The users create the content once, and can pump it into any kind of Web server, he said.