The Twitter Engineering team (@twittereng) has just achieved an impressive 3x performance improvement for Twitter search queries, largely, it seems, by replacing Ruby-on-Rails web applications with new applications built on Java, coupled with a switch from MySQL to Lucene for the data store.

Earlier this week, thousands of Vodafone customers around the south of England lost mobile service (calls, SMS, data). The cause? Theft of equipment at one of Vodafone's operations centres in Basingstoke. It appears that Vodafone has or had a single point of failure (often referred to as 'SPOF') in its infrastructure, surprising, since SPOF is usually one of the first aspects of a complex system to be identified and removed/mitigated.

Selecting the right Web Content Management (WCM) system presents unique challenges for organisations keen to make the most of what can be a significant and strategic investment. New modes of customer engagement – from e-commerce to social media and online marketing – turn many older assumptions about WCM on their head.