Who's the best group to control web content publishing? Marketing, PR or IT? Why?

Add one more to the "Not IT" consensus, but don't shut them out of the high-level strategy altogether.  They do, after all, wind up still holding the keys to the car.  If your developers are planning to make magic customizing the CMS to align your business and user goals, it's all about the relationships to make it happen.  There are still infrastructure, scalability and resourcing issues to get to that dream state. That being said, the voice of IT on design or messaging decisions takes on a lot less weight than anybody else in the room.  PR and marketing have that covered, thanks.  The corporate storytelling can come from the communications team.  Everyone has a competency, and it's better to have each contribute the best they have. Still, there winds up being a lot of content created in silos between departments, product groups... and maybe even executive sponsors. Then that content gets trafficked to [insert team name here], who takes the order and pushes the publish button.  It's the big green one, to the right. Meanwhile, if there isn't a style guide, brand voice or an evaluation of the higher-level goals and value of the content, it gets back to: "Who's in charge here?!" Well, as Victoria said, there's no one right answer.  Without knowing the company size or organizational structure, the only common applicable advice to whoever gets the hot potato of publishing is this: that person/team is the publisher, not the order taker. Also meaning that awesome power of maintaining the rules, tools and evaluation of content come with great responsibilities.  As the organization grows, there are more subject matter experts, an increasing volume of sheer stuff, and a greater risk of silos.  The Holder of the Button needs to reach out.  Which leads me to a third option. Instead of one group to set and control the standards, why not get the buy-in from key stakeholders with a Web Committee or Governance Team?  Kristina Halvorson just forwarded a great link from Seth Earley's blog about this, only this week: http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Dec-10/DecJan11_Earley.html The timing couldn't have been better for your question.  Hope that helps!

As with the other commentators here, I agree that IT shouldn't ever be the primary manager of the web site. There was an earlier custom in which all things web-related were placed within IT because organizational emphasis was placed on the the technology. Also, as Andrew Duck makes clear, the demands of a news website are very different from those of a corporate website - or even blog. Though I usually hesitate to generalize, I'm going to do it here: it seems that in most small- to medium-sized organizations, the website is managed by the communications division (which incorporates both marketing and public relations). And this is the logical place for it in a small organization. I know of two very large organizations that have created web presence divisions. These divisions seem to have both an internal client-facing section (user experience/product management) and a technical-facing section with a client-facing component (operations: IA/training/editorial, etc.). I like the idea of a web presence division that can handle the full compliment of web governance needs - including collaborating with IT and guiding business divisions in the governance of their specific sections (among other things, of course).

Assuming that the PR function is part of the CMO's remit, here's my analysis: The problem with marketing *owning* the website is they're not always technically competent and therefore fail to choose good technical solutions over and above irrelevant or conflicting preferences of their creative agency. All too often Brand Guidelines trump sensible layout for example. Or, the need to present the company in a shiny positive framework reduces the will for transparent communication and therefore limits who gets to blog and tweet. Typical marketing focus keywords: brand, design, seo, multivariate testing, content, publishing control and process. Typical marketing blindsides: form-over-function, agency-lead, need for openness. The problem with IT *owning* the website is that they are a service organisation. They exist to service the needs of the business. IT are not responsible for driving sales, delivering leads and generating good PR. It isn't their core business. Typical IT focus keywords: security, web standards, measurable stuff. Typical IT blindsides: business context, identifying and attributing content ownership, design Conclusion Marketing remains the natural home of website ownership for now. But their blindsides can make the process painful.

My immediate reaction to this question was that it was similar to that which wants to know 'who's responsible for the family: the dad, the mom, or the kids?' I guess there is a temptation to say 'not the kids' as some responded ("not IT") but the fact is a company's website (or its overall online presence - hubs and spokes) is/needs to be on everyone's kpi's in a manner that is consistent with their own expertise and responsibility. This way, a suitable cms platform is perhaps a IT/product job, less than the content or news.post strategy which might fall under marketing.