Articles - Page 102

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

bmckeiver

Revolutionize your customers’ experience with sleek, performance landing pages. Increase conversion rates with fast, mobile-first pages specifically designed to stand out on the web.
Scale without sacrifice: that’s our promise. <a href="http://rallymind.com">RallyMind’s</a> revolutionary, centralized technology provides marketers, agencies and businesses with an alternative to individually managed landing pages.
Customize your base template and RallyMind will automatically create individualized variants with unique images, content and URLs. Now you can create thousands of landing pages in about the same time it takes to build just one template. Because of RallyMind’s advanced multivariable technology you can update page-specific content, phone numbers, images and custom settings via spreadsheets/APIs. This means that any changes can now be done faster, easier and error-free.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/branded-landing-page-variations466x0-is.jpg" />
See what RallyMind can do for you. <a href="http://rallymind.com/contact/">Get a free demo today.</a>
What if you were told you could go to market in just seven days? Our experienced team of engineers offers full-service support during and after migration. We stand behind this claim: If we can’t get your campaign live in 15 days we’ll waive the setup cost.
Got integrations? RallyMind seamlessly integrates with dozens of add-on business applications so that you can easily sync and streamline your data. Need data? All landing pages are fully integrated with Google Analytics right out of the gate. Customized performance reporting is available at no charge.
As the web moves toward automation, don’t get left behind. Join the many companies that have chosen to manage their landing pages efficiently, effectively with RallyMind.
The only question is: How much can your company scale with RallyMind?
<a href="http://rallymind.com/contact/">Request a free demo today.</a>

How Companies are Increasing ROIs with RallyMind's Landing Page Management Technology

mike-johnston

Yup. July officially marked the "dog days of summer" in the Northern Hemisphere. While many of us were melting under the malaise of record-breaking heat, the news has yet to cool off.
Seemingly, neither does <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/02/no-ones-invincible-fresh-mask-mandates-and-rising-delta-cases-hit-california">Covid-19 and its latest wave of hyper-contagious Delta variant</a>. The entire month was mired by headlines about hotspots and breakthrough cases that are once again challenging our world. Delta is the new version that no one wanted an upgrade to, and we're hoping for better days ahead.
But what does a prolonged Covid pandemic mean for the content and digital experience sector?
As more businesses mull the option of <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22583285/companies-remote-work-home-office-tsedal-neeley-harvard">never returning to a physical office</a> – and consumers keep buying their drones and toilet paper online – it's clear that digital experience technologies, from CMS to DXP to eCommerce, will continue to drive transformation across the economy.
This was evidenced by <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/28/contenful-raises-175m-from/">Contentful's announcement last week</a> that it had raised $175 million in a round led by Tiger Global – valuing the company at $3 billion. After posting a banner 2020, the headless CMS player has a mighty wind in its sails with the confidence of a major investment firm. With 600 employees and room to grown, this news also led the Berlin-based firm to <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2021/08/03/contentful-takes-three-floors-molson-coors-former-headquarters/">secure three floors of a Denver high rise</a>, formerly occupied by Molson Coors.
If that makes you want to crack open a digital brew, you're not alone. So cheers - and enjoy the rest of our round-up.
 
<h2>Contentsquare Accelerates Machine and Deep Learning Capabilities with Acquisition of AI company Upstride</h2>
<h2><img style="max-width:768px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/contentsquare-upstride.png" /></h2>
It's hip to be square. And with this kind of investment capital, you can take almost anything in stride.
That must have been the sentiment at <a href="https://contentsquare.com/" target="_blank">Contentsquare</a>, a digital experience analytics platform, as they announced the acquisition of <a href="https://ww2.upstride.io/" target="_blank">Upstride</a> – a Paris-based deep-tech company. Upstride's engineers will join Contentsquare's data science and Clickhouse development team in their Paris product hub to accelerate the company's ambitious AI innovation roadmap. 
As far as we know, their offices are not located in the Eiffel Tower. Or are they...
The news isn't that surprising considering that in May, Contentsquare raised <a href="https://contentsquare.com/blog/contentsquare-500m-series-e-investment/" target="_blank">$500M in Series E funding – placing them at a $2.8B valuation</a>. At this time, Contentsquare revealed its plans to further invest in AI and accelerate innovation both organically and through acquisitions. 
"AI will fundamentally reshape our digital journeys towards better and more personalized experiences," said Gary Roth, Co-Founder, and CEO of Upstride. "With trillions of user interactions analyzed daily, Contentsquare is ideally placed to lead this transformation and become one of the world's top tech companies. We are very excited about joining such an amazing company and leveraging AI to its fullest potential!" 
As Contentsquare continues to transform the way teams use behavioral data to elevate the digital experience and transform their business, the company has also been investing in digital trust – and recently cemented its leadership on digital privacy with the launch of a cookieless version of its solution.
<h2>Salesforce Completes Acquisition of Slack</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/salesforce-slack.png" />
Unicorns unite! After one of the most anticipated and gut-wrenching battles in recent M&amp;A history, Salesforce just <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2021/07/21/salesforce-slack-deal-close/" target="_blank">announced</a> that it has completed its acquisition of Slack. 
So... what happens when the world's biggest CRM and most used business messaging platform join forces? You show everyone how to navigate a pandemic. 
With the persistence of Covid languishing over the economy, businesses are still adapting to an unpredictable "normal" and continuing to rely on digital technologies to maintain continuity and drive revenue. While much has changed in the latest Delta wave, what hasn't is the need to connect people across systems, apps, and devices – from sales to collaboration. 
This acquisition crystallizes that connection and paves the wave to a more meaningful and integrated future for Salesforce. 
"We've learned over the past year that the workplace isn't snapping back to the way it was," said Bret Taylor, President and Chief Operating Officer of Salesforce. "Together, Slack and Salesforce Customer 360 will give every company in the world a single source of truth for their business and a single platform for connecting employees, customers, and partners with each other and the apps they use every day."
With the acquisition, Slack will be integrated into every Salesforce Cloud. Together with Salesforce Customer 360, Slack will provide a single source of truth for businesses – and a single platform for connecting employees, customers, and partners in one ecosystem. 
<h2>Optimizely Named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™ for Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs)</h2>
<img style="max-width:715px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/optimizely-logo.png" />
In the DXP Game of Thrones, Optimizely <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/company/press/optimizely-named-a-leader-in-digital-experience-platforms-by-independent-research-firm/" target="_blank">announced</a> its crown as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™ for Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs), Q3 2021. 
While no dragons were involved (at least to our knowledge), Optimizely – <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-rebrands-as-optimizely-following-acquisition/" target="_blank">formerly Episerver</a> – has had a series of industry-conquering <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/search/acquisitions/field/organizations/num_acquisitions/episerver" target="_blank">acquisitions</a> in its rise to DXP domination. Their latest snack: Zaius, a Customer Data Platform (CDP) with key AI and ML capabilities and a decent industry footprint. Like other leading enterprise DXPs, Optimizely saw this acquisition as a necessity for addressing its critical data gap and improving its competitive posture. 
In its vendor profile, the Forrester report noted that "Optimizely has a highly acquisitive strategy as it grows beyond its content roots as Episerver. Compared with other vendors we evaluated, Optimizely shows strength in testing and optimization, digital commerce, and platform operations. It also has strength in campaign management, customer journey management, and platform certifications." 
All solid points in Optimizely's favor as the competition at the top gets heavier. 
You might recall that Optimizely was also recognized as a Leader for the second consecutive year in the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/" target="_blank">Gartner 2021 Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>, trailing right behind Adobe and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">Acquia</a>. But the Forrester report reorients the players on the chessboard, with Optimizely trailing just behind Adobe but outperforming the likes of Acquia, Sitecore, and Bloomreach.
Optimizely's platform received the highest possible scores in experience management and delivery, vision, delivery model, supporting services, and average deal size criteria. According to the Forrester report, "Reference customers told us that they like Optimizely's flexibility in their licensing model when expanding the set of sites… one reference said, 'Optimizely was very simple to get up and running — more so than other DXPs I've implemented.'"
Not a bad place to be as the race heats up.
<h2>WordPress Releases "Tatum" 5.8 </h2>
<img style="max-width:632px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/5x8-album-1.jpg" />
There's a moment in "Kind of Blue" where Mile Davis and John Coltrane start merging into one being, completing each other's scales and echoing one another's brassy calls. Like anything in jazz, it's the improvisation – and the unexpected composition – that makes your toes tap. 
And like jazz, the latest version of WordPress attempts to bring a little more poetic soul to its code. Whether it hits the right notes is entirely up to users now.
Speaking of... WordPress <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/07/tatum/" target="_blank">released its new 5.8</a> record last week. They're calling it "Tatum" in honor of Art Tatum, the prolific jazz pianist. It's now available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. 
Last month, we talked about WordPress 5.8's Beta and the features that it was expected to deliver, such as more powerful blocks, enhanced editing capabilities, and other <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2021/01/21/big-picture-goals-2021/" target="_blank">big picture goals</a> like <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/updates-on-wordcamp-2021-wordpress-5-8-beta-details-and-gutenberg-enhancements/" target="_blank">Full Site Editing</a>. Here are just a few of the highlights:
Manage Widgets with Blocks: The power of blocks has come to both the Block Widgets Editor and the Customizer. Now you can add blocks both in widget areas across your site and with live preview through the Customizer.
Display Posts with New Blocks and Patterns: The Query Loop Block makes it possible to display posts based on specified parameters, like a PHP loop without the code. Easily display posts from a specific category to do things like creating a portfolio or a page full of your favorite recipes.
List View: As blocks increase, patterns emerge, and content creation gets easier. As a result, new solutions are needed to make complex content easy to navigate. List View is the best way to jump between layers of content and nested blocks. Since the List View gives you an overview of all the blocks in your content, you can now navigate quickly to the precise block you need.
Edit Templates Around Posts: You can also use the familiar block editor to edit templates that hold your content. Simply activate a block theme or a theme that has opted in for this feature. Switch from editing your posts to editing your pages and back again, all while using a familiar block editor.
Global Styles and Global Settings APIs: Control the editor settings, available customization tools, and style blocks using a theme.json file in the active theme. This configuration file enables or disables features and sets default styles for both a website and blocks. 
You can see the complete list of new features and updates <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/07/tatum/" target="_blank">here</a>. 
<h2>Agility CMS Announces GraphQL Support</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/agility-cms-graph-q.jpg" />
Agility CMS, an API-first headless CMS, has <a href="https://agilitycms.com/resources/posts/agility-cms-graphql" target="_blank">announced</a> the general availability of its GraphQL API, which provides users with a GraphQL Playground Interface – where they can query content from their Agility CMS Instance using a GraphQL schema based on defined content models.
"GraphQL powers modern e-commerce and digital transformation," said Jon Voigt, CEO at Agility CMS. "With this launch of GraphQL support, Agility CMS can help enterprises to build superior digital solutions with ease." 
Developed by Facebook, GraphQL has been the query language of choice for many CMSs, especially headless CMSs. GraphQL is designed to make APIs flexible, fast, precise, and developer-friendly, and it's rapidly becoming the standard for API-based data access.

CMS Monthly Recap: Salesforce Completes Acquisition of Slack, Contentsquare Accelerates ML Capabilities, and More

cms-critic-staff

CMS Critic Monthly Recap image with piano background

Zikula is the reincarnation of the content management system formerly known as Postnuke. I'm not sure why the name change has occurred or what the objective was but perhaps we can find out from someone within the project. This is an interesting project that has seen alot more activity as of late. We'll have to keep a watch on it to see how it proceeds. Let's examine this new incarnation in this Zikula Review and see if it's up to par.
After downloading and unpacking the latest release, we begin the install process and are greeted with the following screen:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zikula1.jpg" alt="Zikula Review" /> Note the quick links on the left side to the install guide and documentation, this is good. After selecting the appropriate language, we are greeted with the license agreement as shown below: <img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zikula2.jpg" alt="Zikula Review" />
Proceed after accepting the license:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zikula3.jpg" alt="Zikula Review" />
If you are greeted with anything other than the green checkmarks above, you will have to make the necessary changes requested.
We then enter the database details:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zikula4.jpg" alt="Zikula Review" /> And proceed.. Here you are allowed two options, basic install or complete. Complete installs all available modules included with the download and basic just those required to operate. It's nice that they provide the option as there may very well be some users that do not like or utilize some of the built in modules: <img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zikula5.jpg" alt="Zikula Review" /> We are then presented with the option to select a module to add to the start page. The default TOUR module is selected and since we selected “Complete” we have a large number of options which we can select from: <img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zikula6.jpg" alt="Zikula Review" /> I feel the need to pat someone on the back for providing at least 3 default theme options to choose from. This is a nice simple touch that needs to be seen more often. <img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zikula71.jpg" alt="Zikula Review" />
Personally, I find the Seabreeze theme the most appealing so I selected that one. Here's the default look of the home page:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/zikula81.jpg" alt="Zikula Review" />
Not bad, much better than some of the other ones I've seen in previous reviews. Unfortunately, this is one of the few nice themes that Zikula has going for it that I know of. I've checked their theme repository and it's not very large or updated very often. Perhaps as they begin to expand in size, this will change but in the interim unless you are a designer, you may find it hard to find a large number of themes to choose from. Having said that though, I do believe most older postnuke themes should work.. although I'm not positive on that and haven't tried. If someone could confirm, that would be appreciated.
Here is the Admin Panel. It hasn't changed much from the Postnuke days.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/rsz_2009-01-09-1231535633_1280x800_scrot.jpg" alt="Zikula Review" />
The admin panel is pretty clean and easy to use, one thing I think needs to be done more on this system is it needs to be made more userfriendly in terms of verbage and perhaps popup hints as to what some of the menu items do. When navigating the admin panel, if you are new, it can get a little confusing to figure out where things are. It certainly serves its purpose but could be a bit easier.
Overall, I think Zikula is a good CMS that needs a bit more attention to get it on par with competing systems. It's nice but is lacking in module attention and themes. Would I recommend it? Yes, but only to people that have a bit of experience and aren't new. I don't think it's quite there yet for newbies.
I would love to see the default theme that the Zikula.org site uses in their themes listing for instance and I think that a few more like that will add the right touch.
Overall Ratings:
Community 8/10 – Pretty busy community with plenty of posts. Appears to be quite active.
Expandability 8/10 -Not a huge database of modules but definitely quite a few. Modules database needs to be cleaned up and some of entries re-worded to make the individual listings more understandable. Found it a bit confusing and overwhelming.
Themability 7/10-Themes are available but as I said earlier, I think it would be best if the Zikula team could create a few nice starter themes other than the usual Andreas, etc that are so common among CMS platforms. Uniqueness is a good thing.
Useability 7.5/10 – Perfectly usable, but a bit overwhelming for the new user.
<h2>Overall Score: 7.5/10</h2>

Zikula Review - A Look at the CMS formerly known as PostNuke

Have you ever wanted to offer personalization to your users on the through your website? Are you running Sitefinity? Now you can! Telerik has announced two new connectors for their popular .NET CMS platform that are intended to offer a broader range of personalization options that have previously not existed.
<blockquote>“We live in a real-time world in which customers don’t want to wait or feel unknown or underappreciated. That’s why personalization has become so key to those organizations looking to conduct business online,” said Martin Kirov, Executive Vice President, Sitefinity division, Telerik. “Our customer base is made up of some of the largest, most well-known organizations in the world. They account for more than 70,000 users with daily web traffic in the millions. They depend on us to offer solutions to not only compete, but to strongly stand out in the face of an ever-evolving and crowded online marketplace.”</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Sitefinity  <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/cms-marketing-automation-integration" target="_blank"> Connector for Marketo </a>  —Monitors and tracks visitor behavior; increases conversions and improves sales by transferring online data (page visits, form submissions and file downloads) to build lead scores for personalized nurturing campaigns and more dynamic website experiences. Learn more about the Sitefinity Connector for Marketo  <a href="http://launchpoint.marketo.com/telerik-sitefinity/996-sitefinity-web-content-and-experience-management-platform" target="_blank"> here </a> .</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Sitefinity  <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/connector-for-salesforce" target="_blank"> Connector for Salesforce.com </a>  —Empowers the sales organization by populating the CRM with data (form submissions, recently viewed pages and file downloads) to build personalization rules and to customize and enrich the visitor’s online experience, based upon their persona type.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>“Today’s customers want an experience that is customized just for them, whether they are browsing a website or receiving an offer. The power of the Sitefinity and Marketo integration now means that these two customer experiences can be intelligently connected,” said Robin Bordoli, Vice President of Partner Ecosystems at Marketo. “Data sharing between Sitefinity and Marketo means marketers can now personalize and synchronize content and themes across all channels and touch points with potential buyers, including web content and lead nurturing campaigns.”</blockquote>
Screenshots:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pr_screenshots_marketo780x0.jpg" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pr_screenshots_salesforce780x0.jpg" />
Learn more about <a href="/products/sitefinity/">Sitefinity</a>.

Telerik announces new connectors for Marketo and Salesforce.com

There are a huge range of content management systems on the market, all of which offer some basic, yet capable content and asset management features throughout their admin panels.
However, the open-source Pimcore platform takes these options, and focuses on them in a way which results in a highly professional content, asset and document management system.
Corporations, businesses and experienced website builders know what they want from their website, they just need the correct tools for the job – and that's where Pimcore out does most other CMS. Whether its digital asset organization, or detailed performance refinment, Pimcore has it all.
Pimcore has a few key attributes worth discussing, so let's dive in.
<h2>Powerful Design Tools</h2>
Although efficient content management is Pimcore's core strength, the platform also ensures that issues of design can be dealt with in an easy, yet powerful way.
For example, you can make use of Pimcore's drag-and-drop editor, which allows you to organize and manage pages, images, documents, navigational features and plenty more. The multi-tabbed admin interface enables you to have numerous documents and pages open at the same time within one interface, which will help speed up the editing process.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-1.png" alt="Pimcore" />
Additionally, Pimcore offers a WYSIWYG editor for all major areas of your website, along with a handy preview mode. A WYSIWYG editor makes editing fun, and incredibly easy, helping you to save time on design aspects, and concentrate on the bigger picture.
The WYSIWYG editor allows you to view and edit text, images, documents, video and more, and also benefits from the previously mentioned  multi-tabbed interface.
<h2>Professional, Detailed Management Options</h2>
Pimcore seriously excels when it comes to professionally managing and presenting your data, documents and other digital assets across your website.
The management of the assets can be done both from within the Pimcore admin interface or by using the Pimcore WebDAV functionality, which integrates with you desktop. Pimcore does a good job of offering access to print as well as web ready assets for website embedding or for content distribution across not just your website, but also other digital publishing applications such as Adobe.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-2700x0.png" alt="Pimcore" />
Highly experienced website builders will also be happy to hear about Pimcore's huge potential for extendibility. Pimcore is based on the powerful Zend PHP Framework, which enables you to add an unlimited amount of properties to content, assets, objects and more.
These extendibility options mean that highly intricate search engine optimization can be carried out, detailed analytical tools can be used, and so forth.
<h2>Analytics &amp; Performance Features</h2>
Thankfully, Pimcore doesn't require you to tinker with its framework in order to get your hands on some analytics data for your website.
In fact, Pimcore has the ability to track every view or click your website receives, and then analyse the data via a useful integration with Google Analytics, Website Optimizer and Webmaster Tools.
Pimcore's integrated Google Web Optimizer tool also enables you to carry out A-B Tests, to help you develop and optimize pages and elements within your website.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-3700x0.png" alt="Pimcore" />
Performance wise, Pimcore also has you covered. With intelligent caching systems, Advanced image embedding, script minification and CDN support, you can rely on Pimcore's server strength and build quality to keep your website running smoothly.
So, if you're looking for a content management system that will provide both your website and your admin panel with a highly professional backbone, you might want to check Pimcore out.
Sound good? Find out more about Pimcore via our CMS Directory, or get your <a href="http://www.pimcore.org/">free Pimcore download here</a>.

Pimcore: Powerfully Professional Content & Asset Management

To continue with our MotoCMS featured week, I’m taking a look at the eCommerce offering of <a href="/products/motocms">MotoCMS</a>.<a href="/products/motocms"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/untitled-3_1.jpg" /></a>I’ve already touched on the platform’s design-focused approach to website building, but with eCommerce being such big business, I feel it's worth noting some of the advantages of using MotoCMS to sell products online.As of right now, the MotoCMS eCommerce widget is ready to be used with any <a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-templates/">MotoCMS 3 template</a>, offered as an optional extra. However, MotoCMS also offers <a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-ecommerce-templates/">templates with the built-in eCommerce functionality</a>.Let’s take a closer look.<h2>The Benefits of MotoCMS as an eCommerce Solution</h2>First of all, MotoCMS is a relatively lightweight system.It takes up just 64MB of hard drive space to install, and then only requires 256MB to keep running. In comparison, other popular eCommerce solutions require around 1GB of hard drive space in order to run smoothly.MotoCMS also only requires PHP v. 5.3, while other systems require at least version 5.4. Thus, if you’re looking to self-host, you can stick to lower-priced hosting plans with less hard drive space, and older versions of PHP support.In terms of backend features, MotoCMS serves up a decent offering.CatalogThis section of the MotoCMS backend contains the entire list of your products in the store.Here, users can delete old items or add new by clicking the button “Add new”. In the window that opens right after that, users can add the necessary info about the product, including its image, title, description, SKU number etc.Labels can be added to products, too. So, you can label them out-of-stock, new or sold out.Brands &amp; CategoriesIn the Brands and Categories section, users can group products into categories (e.g. Women Clothing, Tops, Bottoms, Accessories etc).Then, each category can be added into the navigation menu to help users quickly find specific products.You can also sort out your products by brands simply adding brand name list and then choosing a specific brand from a drop-down box on a product page.PropertiesIn this section, merchants can set up additional properties for their goods, like Composition (for clothes, shoes etc.) or Dimensions (for furniture, accessories).Different values for those properties can be configured too. For example, Material value may include; leather, cotton and silk.DiscountsThis one is pretty self explanatory.Promo codes can be set up in order to create discounts for items, run sales and holiday promotions, and so forth.Merchants simply have to establish a discount percentage, choose a promo code for customers to use, and then choose the time period for the code to be active.<h2>Flexible Design &amp; Functionality</h2>As mentioned in previous coverage, MotoCMS has a myriad of templates, many of which are geared towards online stores.Not only are their templates beautiful and responsive out of the box, but they can be customized with colour picking, drag-and-drop, and so forth.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/58481-big964x0-is.jpg" />Plus, eCommerce-focused widgets can be used, including; Product List, Product categories, Breadcrumbs, Search, and User Profiles.<a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/blog/en/first-motocms-3-templates-for-online-store/">Find out more about these finer features of MotoCMS’ eCommerce offering</a>.<h2>14 Day Free Trial</h2>MotoCMS already powers over 145,000 websites, so I’d say <a target="_blank" href="https://www.motocms.com/website-templates/premium/">their 14 day free trial is worth trying</a>.

A Look at MotoCMS as an eCommerce Solution

As we continued with our <a href="/products/motocms">MotoCMS</a> featured week, I've managed to have a few words with the man at the forefront of MotoCMS, Demetrio Fortman.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/untitled-3_1.jpg" />Based in New York, Fortman founded MotoCMS in 2009, and has been developing it, along with his growing team, ever since. He is also the COO of <a target="_blank" href="http://templatemonster.com/">TemplateMonster.com</a>.<h2>Introducing Demetrio Fortman</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/1a718d5-1.jpg" />To get to know Demetrio Fortman a little more, here he is in his own words.<blockquote>“With over 10-year experience in Web Development, I'm never tired of inventing beautiful and easy-to-use software solutions accessible for every kind of web user out there.I love to develop products that help people leverage the power of Internet for their business, leisure, or creative expression.I believe that one should only do something they are truly passionate about. Thus, every project I’ve ever worked on – Moto CMS, Defrozo, MotoPress – reflects my deep interest to photography, blogging, and usable Web.”</blockquote><h2>The Interview</h2>KI: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? What were you doing before the launch of MotoCMS, and how did that lead to you wanting to make your very own website builder?DF: I started in IT as a web developer. My love to computer science, programming and software development comes from the college. I was taught to create, strive for innovations and be up to date with all new in the development world.And of course, I spent much time working alone: I discovered, tried, failed sometimes. It was difficult, yet it was easy, because I derived a great pleasure from the process of discovering the subject I was extremely interested in. I learned script languages, PHP and Javascript. Since I was fond of Flash that time, I started promoting the technology (Flash MX and higher).I was grabbed by Flash, and there the issue of managing complex websites occurred. That time the most of the solutions were written by developers with PHP, “on some sheet of paper” or so. There weren't powerful WYSIWYG editors, and developers usually used simple admin panels that they had at their disposal. Basically, we had to combine many admin panels with different user logins.Sometimes it was so difficult, and we had to develop several admin panels for managing complex websites with the help of popular content management systems. So, the idea of making own website builder with WYSIWYG editing opportunity came from there. We managed to create a unique system that offered a full-fledged WYSIWYG editor up to that time.The times of Flash have gone, technologies develop rapidly, and now we have far wider opportunities for development at our disposal. My team works non-stop on creating more and more new features that we regularly add to the system. Generally, every item, every element of a responsive MotoCMS website can be edited and managed by means of our new admin panel.KI: What inspired you to enter the website building market? What do you feel was lacking before your product came out?DF: I was captured by the idea of developing a CMS that would offer me and other developers such a powerful means like WYSIWYG editor. As I already said, it was a challenge for a developer to combine several control panels for developing one website. For example, a control panel for gallery, for a shop, for articles, a guest book, and so forth.So, we had to combine all this stuff for one client. When we started developing the first version of our website builder, the main idea was to create a user-friendly platform – a website builder with simple interface that could be used even by a beginner who didn't get a thing in coding. We wanted to make website building available for everyone. Our customers' feedback was positive.KI: MotoCMS is visually a very attractive piece of software. How important is it to you that your product looks the part?DF: Extremely important, no doubt on this. I have a strong belief that external beauty should be supported by a good inner base. If you offer a beautiful wrapping, you just have no moral right to put something ugly or useless inside.Every customer should get what he or she expects from a product. And if we claim MotoCMS to be easy, user-friendly builder that means it really is. We always keep our promises. Within the latest product, MotoCMS 3, we offer our customers constant updates to the admin panel, its functionality and features. Because we know how important it is to keep up with times. And that is what we do every month – released a new update to the product.I always say to my team: listen to your customers! You should know what they really need for their website. What functionality we’re able to add to the template to make it perfect for this particular business field. We have one of the strongest and the most professional tech support team that not only has profound knowledge of the product and its use, but know how to listen and react to every request. And that’s how we get the freshest feedback about the product and what can be improved in it.Thanks to our customers, we always know what their urgent need in website building is and make our best to get that feature or functionality into MotoCMS. We had a lot of requests for a blog functionality, and today all the latest MotoCMS templates are powered with blogging features.We created an eCommerce plugin that allows our customers to turn pretty any template into a fully-functional online store. Recently we added a new category of eCommerce templates that have an eCommerce functionality built-in and are specially designed for creating online store websites. And there are still many features that our customers are asking for, so there are no limits for a better website for us.KI: MotoCMS offers pre-made websites for rather different industries. Here comes the question: what's the target audience of MotoCMS?DF: You're right, MotoCMS has templates for any sphere and that's what we are proud of. To be honest, our clients even ask us to slow the templates' production down a little bit, because it's hard to make a choice for them.Our very first goal about MotoCMS, as I already told, was to develop an easy builder that makes it real for anyone to have a personal webpage. It's cool to have an opportunity to learn, gain new experience and to make anything creative with own hands. Creating a website is a kind of challenge, though a very joyful one. MotoCMS has always been a website builder for the customers who have no degree in programming.Our platform allows photographers to make a portfolio website with a splendid gallery of photos, it could be used by business companies to have modern websites with up-to-date functionality, it’s a tool for brokers to have an online property catalog. I can continue this list with doctors, models, musicians, and so on.I will tell you one interesting thing: all our employees make a website on the base of MotoCMS on their first working day. Thus we get a feedback from copywriters, marketers, QA engineers, sales managers, recruiters. Besides it, I often ask my friends to test the newly-released features of the system and I like how they manage with MotoCMS as the new software for them.We constantly ask our customers about how they like the system and if they wish to change anything about it. We’re creating our product for ordinary people, the same as we all are.There is another part of our target audience that I’d like to mention here. These are the developers whom we offer a different way of collaboration – <a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/developers/">MotoCMS bulk discount plans</a>. Thus, web developers make websites for their clients at a good price and it takes no time to manage these sites further because of our WYSIWYG editor.I suppose that my team is moving in the right direction, especially within the latest release of the responsive MotoCMS 3, which is available for every individual who has a desire, imagination and a goal before everything else.KI: How do you plan to compete against the big players like Squarespace, <a href="/products/weebly">Weebly</a> and Wix?DF: At the time when we started MotoCMS, you could literally count on fingers the amount of website building companies. Today everything's changed. New technologies made web development more accessible than it was a couple of years ago.The number of web developers increases every year. Of course, the competition is huge. But it's only another motivation for our team to improve our product, especially when we rival with such big companies.MotoCMS makes its product better all the time. We have our 24/7 professional customer support that helps the rest of our team significantly. We forge ahead, collecting the feedback from our customers. Every new update is partly based on the suggestions of our community.MotoCMS has also very large collection of website templates. It contains dozens of categories, representing most popular businesses and activities. There are various web themes, made especially for businessmen, designers, teachers, photographers, engineers, environmental protectors and many other occupations. The website selection comprises thousands of templates for very different niches.You won't find such a diversity anywhere else.KI: I recently included MotoCMS in my list of, “Top 25 CMS to Watch in 2016”. What are the plans for MotoCMS throughout the rest of 2016?DF: Thanks for including us in your list. And I do advise you to watch us in 2016, because we are working on some huge updates for MotoCMS platform. In the days of an enormous competition we have to reinvent CMS every year to stay in the “TOP 25 CMS to Watch in….” ?First of all and frankly speaking, all the time we are working on making a website builder easier for our customers. I am talking about the new system of creating and editing a website – ready content blocks. It's not a revolution on the market, but our competitors have either content blocks with minimal editing features or more complicated admin panel with advanced options. We plan to give our customers both: easy to add and edit ready content blocks and an advanced mode for webmasters.Some of our customers need their own hosting for huge eCommerce solutions or websites with a big database. But more and more customers want just to enter their name, email and domain and get the website alive. It's really easy and gives you an opportunity to make a fully functional website in a few hours. We plan to give our customers both self-hosted product and SaaS solution due to their personal needs.There are plenty of less huge, but still worth mentioning, updates on the go: <a target="_blank" href="http://translate.motocms.com/">translation of MotoCMS</a> admin panel on more than 30 languages, update of our brand new <a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-ecommerce-templates/">MotoCMS Ecommerce templates</a> and much more. Stay tuned!KI: And finally, the MotoCMS template library has thousands of well designed options. Do you personally have any favorites?DF: To tell the truth, it is one of the most difficult questions. I know that every template in the MotoCMS library is a great piece of work because everyday I see how templates are made. And it’s really hard to highlight some of them at the expense of others.When I started MotoCMS, I had (and still do) a big passion for photography. Photographer’s portfolio templates are still ones of my all-time favorites. They offer a lot of features not just for showing your photos off, but for blogging, selling your services as a professional, hanging out with customers in social media.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/motocms-54909586x0-is.jpg" />My favourites from among them include:<ul><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/53735.html">http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/53735.html</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/53239.html">http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/53239.html</a></li></ul>I also love our medical website templates for their clean design and logical structure. Minimalist design is still one of the best options for a website, and medical templates are the purest illustration of this. And business – I see those templates as multi-purpose that can be used (with some tweaking, of course) pretty for any business sphere.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/motocms-53228613x0-is.jpg" />My favourites from among them include:<ul><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/53228.html">http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/53228.html</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/53732.html">http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/53732.html</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/54909.html">http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/54909.html</a></li></ul>Today we have <a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-templates/">200+ designs of MotoCMS 3 responsive templates</a> for any business and personal need. And more to come.They include the coolest trends in web design but can be customized with ease to support the owner’s idea of a perfect website. Since their customization is a no-brainer even for non-techie, they always look great and functional on screen. Take a look at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/gallery/">our client’s projects</a> in the gallery – you’ll see that a great website design is really easy.

An Interview With MotoCMS CEO Demetrio Fortman

Best Video Experience

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Koken users have been gifted their second update in under three months this week, as Koken 0.10 was officially released.
Following up from the early July release of Koken 0.9, the latest update builds upon the already powerful photography CMS.
New features include dynamic timeline-esque presentations of recent work, effortless featured image incorporation, template updates, and more. So, lets take a closer look.
<h2>Tidy Timelines</h2>
Koken's new Timeline feature keeps track of everything you publish and upload to your blog or website, including your latest snaps, videos, essays, albums and more, all within one aesthetically pleasing stream of content.
Your website visitors will now be able to quickly and easily scroll up and down your Timeline, exploring the latest updates in a linear fashion, designed for easy browsing.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-1.png" alt="Koken 0.10" />
The Timeline automatically groups your content by day published, and keeps itself updated whenever you upload images, videos, public albums and new essays. Timeline even updates itself whenever you add new content to old albums.
<h2>Featured Images Made Easy</h2>
The Koken 0.9 update introduced featured images for essays, but Koken have now improved on this fairly recent function, by automatically creating featured images from Vimeo, YouTube, Hulu, Flickr and Instagram.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-2.png" alt="Koken 0.10" />
All you need to do is upload and embed the image or video into your essay as usual, and Koken will do the rest. This all means that adding featured images to beautify your essays has never been easier using Koken.
<h2>Smarter Filters, Categories and More</h2>
The latest Koken update also brings about some other smaller, yet equally important when it comes to organizing and managing your content throughout the Koken admin panel.
For example, a new “Independent” library filter allowing you to quickly find images and videos which have not yet been categorized. Also, Koken 0.10 introduces some smarter tag and category pagination, making it easier to browse through essays, images and videos which have been organized under certain tags or categories.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-3.png" alt="Koken 0.10" />
Additional enhancements include visual improvements to Koken's “Pulse” Slideshow component, auto-updatable plugins, intelligent essay draft saving, and much more. All in all, with Koken 0.10 being released in such close proximity to the previous update, it's safe to say that the guys over at Koken have done a good job improving their platform, again.
To find out more about Koken 0.10, or to explore the features we've mentioned above in more detail, check out Koken's official release notes via their blog.

A Look at the Koken 0.10 Update

<a href="http://www.atlassian.com/">Atlassian</a> has introduced Confluence 4.0 with a number of new enhancements. One of the most impressive changes is the addition of their new editor:
<blockquote>
A new streamlined toolbar puts new users at ease with familiar editing operations exactly where they're expected. A single editor makes for a more reliable experience for your users and saved work that looks exactly like what was crafted in the editor. What you see is really what you get.
</blockquote>
Check out this screenshot of it in action:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/add-plugin1_scqxrk.png" />This new editor also converts your wiki markup automatically to rich text. Other improvements include additional keyboard shortcuts, macros and buttons on the toolbar to make editing content that much easier.
Another unique new feature is the @mentions capabilities. Similar in a way to the functionality that Facebook and Twitter have incorporated, @mentions allows you to engage others in conversation while editing a post or replying to a comment.
Here's a great video showcasing some of the features:
[[confluence4]]

Atlassian introduces Confluence 4.0

<img title="textpattern" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/textpattern.png" />You heard it right, a new maintenance release fixing bugs and glitches has been released by Textpattern. You can read about the specific fixes at the <a href="http://textpattern.com/weblog/332/textpattern-cms-408-released" target="_blank">Textpattern</a> website.
Here are some additional resources for Textpattern enthusiasts:
<a href="http://textpattern.com/featured" target="_blank">Textpattern featured sites</a> – This area of their website highlights specific sites based on Textpattern that have done well.
<a href="http://welovetxp.com/" target="_blank">We Love TXP</a> – This is a community-driven site that also highlights some fan favourites.
<a href="http://txpq.com/" target="_blank">The Textpattern Magazine</a>
And the obligatory screenshot:
<img title="Textpattern CMS" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/textpattern-php-20301.png" alt="Textpattern CMS" />

Textpattern has released version 4.0.8

<a href="http://www.elcom.com.au/">Elcom</a> has announced version 7.5 of their content management system and with it, some new social functionality has been integrated.
As well as enhancements to key features within the system; Elcom are excited to be launching an enhanced layer of Social 
functionality across the system.
<img style="max-width:224px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elcom_7-5_social.jpg" />
The new social layer provides intuitive and easy to use Facebook like functionality, giving users the ability to publish status updates, share information, comment and invite colleagues or members. This builds on the elcomCMS’s existing social features which include blogs, forums and wikis.
Commenting on the development, Anthony Milner, Elcom’s Product Director said “Bringing FaceBook like functionality to the enterprise concerns some HR teams but in reality an effective and well managed social layer can significantly enhance productivity through improved communication and collaboration. It can also reduce the need for formal meetings, expose hidden expertise and improve communication across geographically dispersed teams. ”
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elcom_7-5_youtube.jpg" style="max-width:224px" />
In addition to the Facebook like Social features, Elcom have also introduced a framework to easily integrate external content such as YouTube. This allows authors to automatically extract and store video metadata as indexed objects without the need to actually store the video asset on their site. The content can then be integrated with the elcomCMS’s taxonomy engine, dynamic content widgets and search. This provides a quick and powerful way to enhance existing content with external content; and reduces the duplication and maintenance often associated with managing multiple content sources
For marketing and campaign managers, Elcom have also integrated in version 7.5, the outstanding email marketing software, Campaign Monitor. This is a third-party online email marketing tool that lets marketers send “professional and engaging email campaigns, track results and manage subscribers”, to provide powerful email campaign management.
Elcom’s Marketing Manager, Lee-Sia Yuen added “This is great release for marketing and communication professionals. The email marketing, rich media and social capability will help to remove noise and improve communication channels between clients, prospects, channels and even internally”

Elcom 7.5 brings Social Functionality and More

The Mac versus PC debate seems to have cooled off in recent years. Gone are the days of Apple computers being viewed as specialty machines for graphic designers and tech newbies, with Windows machines being the only way to get “real” work done.
Today, most software – whether it’s for games, accounting or design – is available for both platforms. Beyond that, much of the work we do is processed and stored in the cloud without relying on the inner workings of our operating systems at all.
So, does that mean operating system is no longer a consideration when choosing a content management system?
Not so fast.
While the majority of the work you do on your website through your CMS will take place inside your browser and not on your desktop, there are still a few key considerations to account for when choosing a CMS.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mt-operating-systems-and-cms-choice-1700x0.jpg" />
<h2>Source Code Language</h2>
Ideally, your CMS works as advertised day in and day out. In the best case scenario, you only interact with the user interface of your CMS and never have to make adjustments or go troubleshooting inside the source code of the application.
But what happens if something goes wrong? Does your team have the skillset and expertise to craft a solution?
While many content management systems offer similar functionality and features, the underlying bones can be very different. Consider Umbraco, which runs on the .NET application framework developed by Microsoft. The source language of .NET platforms is likely to be C# (as it is for Umbraco), which is a Windows language.
On the other hand, PHP-based platforms like Drupal and Joomla, along with Perl platforms like <a href="http://www.movabletype.com/" target="_blank">Movable Type</a>, are considerably easier to work with across different operating systems.
Again, on a day-to-day basis, you’ll likely be dealing with the user-facing side of your content management system, which is totally operating-system-independent. If, however, you’re doing your own work on customizing the source code of the CMS or fixing application issues, you’ll want to make sure you’re operating on a platform that’s compatible with your company’s machines.
<h2>Browser Inconsistencies</h2>
There are very few web browsers unavailable to either Mac or PC users. Regardless of your operating system, you’re free to use the likes of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and more to surf the web and, more importantly, to make edits to content inside your CMS.
There are, however, some subtle differences between Chrome for Mac and Chrome for Windows. The same applies to Safari, Firefox and the rest of the bunch. A discerning eye will notice inconsistencies in pixel count, some font spacing issues and other CSS variables that differ between the two versions of a given browser.
These sorts of tiny hiccups, unaddressed, can completely compromise the integrity of your design and content.
The most important thing you can do is browser test your content. Using a tool like <a href="http://www.crossbrowsertesting.com/" target="_blank">Cross Browser Testing</a>, explore your content on many different browsers, operating systems and screen sizes.
To fix any discrepancies you discover, you may need to make edits directly to your CSS stylesheet such as setting default padding values or using absolute values for element height that aren’t relative to pixel spacing.
For this reason, you’ll want to adopt a CMS that makes it easy for you to make and implement stylesheet edits. Or better yet, a CMS that takes care of these cross-operating-system browser inconsistencies on its own.
In this scenario, wide adoption is a good thing. Platforms like WordPress, used by millions and millions of people across all devices and operating systems, are well equipped to handle browser inconsistencies.
<h2>Security Concerns</h2>
Wide adoption, while great for cross-platform content creation, can also have its drawbacks.
By now, we all know about the recent brute force WordPress attacks, where attackers targeted WordPress installs by trying to guess common usernames and passwords, even spreading login attempts between many machines around the globe to circumvent lock-out procedures. Some estimates show that as many as one in every six blogs on the Internet runs on WordPress – making these attacks quite frightening.
Not everyone knows, however, that Mac users were no less vulnerable to these hackers than their Windows counterparts.
For a long time, Macs have been considered to be safer, in general, from attackers and malware. But this outdated perception is beginning to do more harm than good. It’s been shown that Windows users are often more diligent about protection – both on their operating systems and their online properties. Some experts believe Mac users have been lulled into a false sense of security, and it’s leading to greater vulnerability.
It’s true that Macs have traditionally been safer than PCs – but only because they’ve been historically less targeted. That’s all changing. In 2012, a piece of malware called Flashback infected over half a million Apple machines.
To top it all off, these recent CMS attacks aren’t discriminating by operating system.
So how do you know for sure if your CMS is secure? The best way is to look for documentation. Choose a content management system that’s proactive about keeping users informed of fixes, potential threats and extra safety measures they can take.
Movable Type details the security features of its latest build <a href="https://movabletype.org/documentation/mt42/movable-type-42-and-security.html" target="_blank">here</a>, while Drupal keeps a running log of all issues as they’re resolved.
If you’re using a Mac, don’t assume that security isn’t important when choosing a CMS. Think like a Windows user and arm yourself with information to keep your data protected.
<h2>The Bottom Line</h2>
Your operating system should not be a major consideration when choosing a content management system for your organization. But it should be something you’re keenly aware of when scouting potential pitfalls and problem areas associated with your daily workflow.
As detailed above, it’s the little things – the subtle differences between Macs and PCs – that can make a world of difference, whether it’s the location of a pixel or a security loophole that puts your entire organization at risk.
Don’t get caught overlooking these critical details.

Should Your Operating System Affect CMS Choice?

Whether you consider yourself an Internet entrepreneur, a content marketer or simply somebody who makes their living off the web, you'll have likely heard of <a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/" target="_blank">CopyBlogger</a>.
The Internet marketing blog turned community has long been an authority when it comes to content that converts. Now, they have a new platform built from the ground up to convert visitors into customers, and browsers into community members. It's called the <a href="https://rainmakerplatform.com/" target="_blank">Rainmaker Platform</a>.
Although it's based off of WordPress, it isn't WordPress, nor is it a WordPress plugin or extension of any kind. It's a standalone CMS for Internet entrepreneurs.
Rainmaker offers a long list of specialised features, many of which Internet marketers will have come to know and rely on. Here they are at a glance:
<ul>
<li>Create powerful content-driven websites on your own domain.</li>
<li>Choose from 27 customizable Genesis themes &amp; additional landing page templates.</li>
<li>Build membership sites, forums and online training courses.</li>
<li>Upload, manage and sell digital products like software, ebooks, and more.</li>
<li>Built-in analytics &amp; reporting.</li>
<li>Built-in A/B Testing.</li>
<li>Training &amp; educational material included.</li>
<li>Avoid a patchwork of plugins, themes, and complicated code.</li>
<li>Cloud hosted, with upgrades, maintenance, security all taken care of.</li>
<li>Export content to WordPress at any time you choose.</li>
</ul>
Now, as a blogger with my own website, <a href="http://www.employtheinternet.com/" target="_blank">Employ the Internet</a>, Rainmaker doesn't just interest me – it suits me perfectly. A platform which makes it easy to create bespoke landing pages, build membership-driven communities, distribute eBooks, podcasts, and more? Well, that sounds awesome.
And indeed, it is pretty awesome.
But despite my admiration, I doubt I'll be migrating my blog from WordPress to Rainmaker just yet. My hands-on tinkering with the platform will explain why.
<h2>Hands-On With The Rainmaker Platform</h2>
Note: This is not a full review of the Rainmaker Platform, but rather a brief insight into some of its core features.
After quickly and easily signing up and logging in to Rainmaker, I was presented with a clean and sleek dashboard.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-3700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" />
The dashboard is populated with some nicely laid out stats, from membership signups to forum activity. It also lets you keep track of A/B testing results, and (after integrating with Google Analytics) site traffic too.
Before navigating away from the dashboard, I took the opportunity to test out some of the top menus and other options. I noticed that I had control over what displayed on my dashboard, via a WordPress-esque “Screen Options” menu.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-14700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" />
This was one of many examples of where the WordPress foundation was shining through, but if anything, this only serves to make the move easier for users coming from WordPress.
Across the top of the page, I noticed buttons allowing me to preview my site, add, edit and manage different areas and pages, as well as a help menu, which directed me to the Rainmaker knowledge base. Everything worked well, and as a regular WordPress user, I didn't feel completely alienated by the new interface.
<h2>Themes &amp; Design</h2>
Navigating to the “Design” section brings up a range of options to choose from in setting up and customizing your website. These include; Themes, Appearance, Menus, Content Areas, Slider, Dynamic Sidebars, Custom CSS, Forms, Maintenance Mode, and Social Sharing.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-4700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" /> 
Rainmaker currently has 27 Genesis themes, all of which can be customized if you know your way around CSS. They're all pre-installed, which means you only need to click “Activate” to switch between them all.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-5700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" /> 
When it comes to customization, WordPress' customization tool is used. This allows you to select and adjust Favicons, change colour schemes, background images, footer sections, content areas, page layouts and so forth.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-6700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" /> 
You can also use the “Design” section to set up sliders, apply custom CSS, and even put your site into maintenance mode.
Overall, Rainmaker's design options are solid. There may not be many themes available, but putting a personalised spin on things seems to be quite easily done.
<h2>Content Types</h2>
The most exciting part of Rainmaker is the content types it can manage and help you distribute.
Via the “Content” section, a number of different content types can be created. These include; Pages, Posts, Landing Pages, Portfolios, Podcasts, Media and Forums. Plus, this is the place where you organize categories, tags, forms and import/export content to and from WordPress.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-7700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" /> 
All types of content are created using an editor page which is highly similar to the WordPress editor page. WordPress users wont have any issues adjusting. When it comes to things like Podcasts and Portfolios, the page merely offers up additional fields below the text editor.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-8700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" />
For example, when creating a new Podcast page, you can upload the audio file, and configure things like player placement and episode duration.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-9700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" /> 
It's all rather straight forward. Far simpler than I expected it to be, actually.
<h2>Conversions &amp; Reporting</h2>
More notable features can be found in the “Conversions” section.
Here, you can set up membership pages, connect to email marketing tools like Mailchimp and Aweber, and set up your preferred payment gateway too. At the moment, the options are Stripe and PayPal.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-10700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" /> 
Further down the “Conversions” page, you will find options to create new products, begin A/B testing, view orders and configure your download manager.
The built-in A/B testing system will have many marketers up on their feet.
You can easily assign pages to be tested, by setting up one, two or three variations of the same page, to test which one converts best. You can set it to run up until a certain amount of traffic runs through, or by how many times the page is viewed.
You can also manually stop the test whenever you like, but you can't choose to end it on a particular date. Which I found strange.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-13700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" />
As far as reporting goes, Rainmaker goes into detail within the “Results” section.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-15700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" /> 
Here, you can check Google Analytics, conversion reports, A/B testing reports, affiliate reports and even form reports, which enables you to see how well your contact form is doing, for example.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-16700x0.png" alt="Rainmaker Platform" /> 
All in all, Rainmaker offers pretty much everything an Internet entrepreneur needs to accommodate his or her audience, and assess how best to move forward.
It's a simplified, refined and slightly more professional version of WordPress, with fewer moving parts, but a more robust marketing engine.
<h2>To Move, Or Not To Move</h2>
Internet Entrepreneurs everywhere (most of whom live on planet WordPress) are now asking themselves the same question. Should I move my site over to Rainmaker?
Typically, there's no straight forward answer to this question. But to help you decide, allow me to weigh up the pros and cons for you.
<h3>Why I'm Tempted to Move</h3>
Rainmaker streamlines the processes between you as an Internet marketer, and your audience.
You can focus less on plugins and coding, and more on your website's design and copy. Rainmaker gives the nitty gritty stuff a back seat, by supplying you with hosting, automatic updates, security, a dedicated support team and a knowledge base to keep your business afloat when things get tricky.
Plus, signing up to Rainmaker automatically gives you access to <a href="http://my.copyblogger.com/join-authority/" target="_blank">CopyBlogger Authority</a>, a renowned marketing education community.
I could imagine that moving from WordPress to Rainmaker would feel like moving from a modern super city to a scenic, tightly-knit village, where every resident is a marketing fiend. The removal of all that complexity will just make life easier.
However, the grass isn't always greener for everybody.
<h3>Why I'm Staying Put (For Now)</h3>
Although Rainmaker is a highly professional and functional platform, it doesn't quite negate the broad usefulness and flexibility of WordPress.
Rather ironically, a recent blog post of mine, <a href="http://www.employtheinternet.com/optimize-blog-posts/" target="_blank">7 WordPress Plugins to Optimize Blog Posts</a>, is something Rainmaker users will miss out on, and those are just the tip of the iceberg. Plugins like WooCommerce and frameworks like Thesis also go out the window. So sure, Rainmaker is simpler, but it's also more restrictive.
Rainmaker compensates with built-in SEO, Genesis themes and and its own native formatting options, but the fact of the matter is, WordPress allows for all of that and more – albeit with a little more elbow grease.
With no plugins, and only a small amount of themes on offer, Rainmaker users may even begin to see their competitors employing the exact same tactics as they are, perhaps even with similar designs. Naturally, this lack of flexibility could easily become a problem.
This, paired with a hefty price tag of $95 per month, is enough to make me sit tight. For me, and likely for many others, WordPress still does a solid job, and it allows me to continue experimenting with my online presence.
With that being said, if you know your audience is large enough, and your podcasts, eBooks and online courses are already flowing, Rainmaker is worth consideration. In fact, despite my preference to stick with WordPress for now, I certainly don't rule out a future with Rainmaker – especially if it matures and expands.

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