Articles - Page 108

Not All Heroes Wear Capes. Here's Why CMS Is Your 'Unsung Hero' in 2025

janus-boye

<a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">DotCMS 3.2</a> is the latest and greatest version of DotCMS. It boasts plenty of new and useful features, building on the foundations set by versions 3.0 and 3.1.
The Java-based, open source content management system recently won the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">2014 Critics' Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS for SMB</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dotcms-250h.jpg" /> Mike Johnston kicked off this featured week with an <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-dotcms-ceo-tim-brigham/" target="_blank">interview with DotCMS CEO Tim Brigham</a>, followed by a <a href="/a-walkthrough-of-dotcms-3.2-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank">product walkthrough with CTO Will Ezell</a>.
Now though, it’s time to look at the forward steps DotCMS with its 3.x series.
<h2>Looking Back at DotCMS 3.0 and 3.1</h2>
The release of DotCMS 3.0 back in November 2014 saw a number of major changes being made both to the user experience, as well as under the platform’s digital hood.
On top of a new enterprise licensing scheme and support portal, DotCMS became the first Java open source CMS to let users build with the power of CSS preprocessors directly into the platform, with the help of Sass and LESS auto-compiling.
Multi-type containers became available to DotCMS users for the first time too, providing huge flexibility to what content a template can render.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/multi-container_700x0.png" />
This also allowed users to greatly reduce the number of templates maintained, thanks to the ability to re-use container code.
A native DotCMS mobile app demo was released on Android and iOS too, giving new users a taste of DotCMS from a mobile device.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dotcms-starter-mobile-app.png" />
The DotCMS team also brought in modern code management tools including Github, Artifactory, Maven, and Gradle.
As for DotCMs 3.1, which was released in March 2015, users were treated to more creative features.
This included, “Pages-as-Content” feature allows you to extend DotCMS content concepts to pages, including; custom Page types, different versions for different language and the ability to create custom attributes per HTML page.
In turn, this allowed for custom workflows to be managed, including the use of “whole pages” in a workflow. This capability helped user experience designers use dotCMS custom workflows more effectively and efficiently, with less code.
<h2>DotCMS 3.2: What’s New</h2>
As previously mentioned, Mike Johnston recently sat down with Will Ezell, DotCMS’ CTO, for a <a href="/a-walkthrough-of-dotcms-3.2-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank">product walkthrough of DotCMS 3.2</a>.
During that walkthrough, Will Ezell said that:
<blockquote>
“[DotCMS is] very easy to develop for, very easy to extend and very easy to engage with. [That’s from] a business user’s perspective, as well as from a web developer’s perspective and a Java developer’s perspective.”
</blockquote>
The walkthrough showcased DotCMS’ inline content editing features, elastic search for geolocation functions, and personalization features.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-43.png" />
Version 3.2 supports 13 CSS frameworks, as well as theme based templates that automatically adapt and optimize content, images and videos to fit mobile devices. This accompanies multi-level caching and clustering abilities, allowing DotCMS to handle huge levels of traffic, and scale accordingly.
DotCMS 3.2 also boasts customizable pages, UTF-8 urls, facets, and also ships with Tomcat 8.0.18. the platform also now supports Java 8 as well as Java 7.
It’s clear that from a product perspective, that dotCMS‘s focus is to empower business users, developers and IT. As CTO Will Ezell mentioned:
<blockquote>
“We’re balancing the needs and dependencies of each stakeholder in a way that removes barriers, not adding unnecessary tooling and layers to get something done. Working with dotCMS should be fast and familiar, no proprietary tools or environments are needed. We had one customer say, “It’s like Christmas for developers.”
</blockquote>
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">via our CMS Directory</a>.

What's New with DotCMS 3.2 (And the 3.x Series)

mike-johnston

So far this featured week, we've seen <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/cms-critic-interviews-dotcms-ceo-tim-brigham/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mike Johnston interview DotCMS' CEO Tim Brigham</a> before sitting down with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/a-walkthrough-of-dotcms-3.2-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CTO Will Ezell for an insightful product walkthrough</a>. I then took a peek at what <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/free-open-source-feature-rich-an-overview-of-dotcms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">DotCMS 3.2 has on offer</a>. 
To get an even better feel for DotCMS as an enterprise CMS solution, Mike Johnston also managed to grab a few moments with Tyler Davey, the VP of Sales at Architech — <a href="http://dotcms.com/company/news/dotcms-and-architech-partner-to-deliver-innovative-digital-experiences" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a DotCMS Platinum Partner</a>. 
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LrtyBkxmLWk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">via our CMS Directory</a>.

CMS Critic Interviews DotCMS Platinum Partner Architech

Following up from an <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-dotcms-ceo-tim-brigham/" target="_blank">interview with CEO Tim Brigham</a> and a <a href="/a-walkthrough-of-dotcms-3.2-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank">product walkthrough with CTO Will Ezell</a>, it’s time to delve into what makes <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">DotCMS</a> tick.
The Java, open source, content management system was recently crowned winner of the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">2014 Critics' Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS for SMB</a>.
<blockquote>
“Quick to deploy, open source, Java-based, open APIs, extensible and massively scalable, dotCMS can rapidly deliver personalized, engaging multi-channel sites, web apps, campaigns, one-pagers, intranets – all types of content driven experiences – without calling in your developers.”
</blockquote>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dotcms-250h.jpg" />
DotCMS is available in a Community Edition and Enterprise Edition, the former being the free version.
With the recent release of dotCMS 3.2, the platform has taken on a range of new features to go with an already powerful product.
<h2>Exceedingly Responsive &amp; Massively Multi</h2>
After prompting visitors to test out the responsive nature of dotCMS by resizing their browser window, the details of the product’s dedication to responsive design are revealed.
Thanks to built-in support for 13 CSS frameworks, as well as theme based templates that automatically adapt and optimize content, images and videos to fit mobile devices, it’s easy to deliver engaging customer experiences across all devices.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/phone-bg-g4-1.png" />
Custom themes can also be developed to accommodate various mobile device capabilities such as geolocation services.
When it comes to developing sites, dotCMS comes equipped to handle multiple micro-sites, mega-sites, mobile apps and multi-channel projects. In fact, dotCMS’ multi-site capabilities can host thousands of sites in just one, manageable system. And as we saw in the walkthrough demo, new sites can be launched easily, in a matter of a few clicks.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/multi-everything.png" />
The tools are there for you to build your own SaaS CMS solution with granular, site based permissions, and manage all content in multiple languages without the added expense.
<h2>Super Scalable, Fantastically Flexible &amp; A Whole Bunch More</h2>
dotCMS has been built with growth in mind. Horizontal scalability, to be precise.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cloud-banner.png" />
The platform offers up a configurable, multi-level caching infrastructure which maintains state across nodes in a cluster. In fact, dotCMS is architected to never hit the database once the cache is loaded (you can even turn the database off completely), even while pages and content stay completely dynamic.
For dealing with high levels of traffic, dotCMS is able to cluster; enabling multiple dotCMS instances to run as a single unit that can scale to meet massive traffic loads. (And yes, dotCMS is available on premise or on the cloud)
To help further facilitate that growth, dotCMS is also highly customizable.
dotCMS provides easy and open APIs to query, retrieve (xml, json) and write content, binary assets and even remote widgets. These API calls have been designed to perform at scale so content can be retrieved for real-time use by external systems. This means dotCMS is easier to integrate and can be used as a hub for content management, easily pushing or pulling content from other systems.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/cloud-enterprise.png" />
On top of open APIs, dotCMS users have access to Widgets (which are essentially apps) that can be managed just like content.
DotCMS' remote widget API can deliver these fully rendered widgets as snippets of code to remote systems by calling a RESTful url. All it takes is javascript to pull and display content rich widgets into any webpage or external system.
Developers also have the power to hot deploy whole Spring web apps in dotCMS without a restart, thanks to dynamic plugin support. Meanwhile, CMIS support allows dotCMS content and files to be read and written by any system that is a CMIS client, including Sharepoint, Liferay and even Drupal.
Further to the aforementioned features, dotCMS also boasts a GUI based workflow engine along with remote publishing capabilities — with support for a variety of publishing architectures. (e.g., authoring&gt; staging&gt; production)
<h2>A Powerhouse for Powerhouses (And Normal Houses)</h2>
dotCMS has claimed a desirable chunk of the enterprise market by landing and working alongside large clients such as Standard &amp; Poor’s, Wiley Publishing, Thomson Reuters Foundation and Hospital Corporation of America. As such, it’s reputation as an enterprise solution is growing fast.
DotCMS is also an attractive platform for small to medium sized businesses, thanks to its open source nature, active user forums, plugin and theme library, as well as its accommodation for codesharing on its website.
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank">via our CMS Directory</a>.

Free, Open Source & Feature Rich: An Overview of DotCMS

Following an <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/cms-critic-interviews-dotcms-ceo-tim-brigham/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">interview with dotCMS CEO Tim Brigham</a>, Mike Johnston sat down with the company's CTO Will Ezell for a detailed walkthrough of dotCMS 3.2.
dotCMS is a rapidly growing open source Java platform. It's also the most recent winner of the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Critics' Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS for SMB</a> — which is no mean feat.
So without any further ado, let's continue dotCMS' featured week by taking a look at dotCMS 3.2 in action.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zKPvquUnHak?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">via our CMS Directory</a>.

A Walkthrough of dotCMS 3.2 with CMS Critic

It's the beginning of another featured week here at CMS Critic, and this time we're focusing on another quality product in the form of <a href="http://www.dotcms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dotCMS</a>.
dotCMS is a popular Java, open source, content management system, which recently won the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2014 Critics' Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS for SMB</a>.
Mike Johnston recently had a chance to sit down with the company's CEO, Tim Brigham, discussing dotCMS both as a product and as a company. To get a feel for dotCMS, check out the Interview video below.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mPw9DNNqzB0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
So, with another featured week now kicked off, stay tuned for more dotCMS coverage.
To find out more about dotCMS, <a href="http://dotcms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visit their website</a>, or explore more <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-smb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">via our CMS Directory</a>.

CMS Critic Interviews dotCMS CEO Tim Brigham

To cap off another featured week here at CMS Critic, I’m taking a look at the vital day-to-day content management features of <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">Mura CMS</a>.
Previously, I explored the way in which <a href="/how-mura-cms-keeps-every-team-member-productive/" target="_blank">Mura CMS helps all modern team members to stay productive</a>. Before that, I looked at the <a href="/mura-experience-platform-market-with-relevance-automation-amplification/" target="_blank">benefits of the Mura Experience Platform</a>.
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mura_cms_200x0.png" />
Mura CMS was recently made winner of the <a href="/2014-best-enterprise-cms-other-langs/" target="_blank">2014 People's Choice award for Best Enterprise CMS (Other Languages)</a>, and that had a lot to do with the platform’s core content management features.
Let’s take a closer look at some of those key features now.
<h2>Content Editing: Inline, In-context &amp; Staged</h2>
The content on your website is absolutely vital for converting customers, attracting subscribers and conveying beneficial information about your brand.
Thus, the most important aspect of any CMS, is the way in which it allows you to control and craft your content.
Mura CMS makes it easy.
All content can be directly edited right there on the page, simply by clicking on it.
<img style="max-width:289px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ss-usability-inline-editing.png" />
There are no windows popping up to distract or slow you down, while pages can be saved as drafts, previewed and published just as easily.
To avoid any mistakes, Mura CMS's versioning system makes it easy to roll back to a previous version of the page in seconds. So, there’s no more worrying about saving over good copy, because it’s so easily reversible.
Furthermore, built-in content staging allows you need to make changes to multiple pages at once, and publish them all at the same time.
<img style="max-width:289px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ss-usability-content-staging-2.png" />
The platform’s Change Set feature allows you to save as many edits as you want to a Change Set, and preview the site as if all your edits were live. Once you're done with your edits, a single button allows you to publish them all at once.
You can even stack Change Sets on top of each other, and preview the site as if they were all active. Now that’s neat.
<h2>Scheduled Publishing &amp; Powerful Permissions</h2>
Need a blog post or press release published first thing in the morning, but don’t feel like waking up early? No problem.
Mura CMS allows you to schedule times and dates for your content to go live, so you can organize yourself and your content accordingly.
<img style="max-width:280px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/4.png" />
Interestingly, you can also schedule when you want content to be removed from the site — so there’s no more outdated events or job postings cluttering up your website. Batch changes (via Mura CMS's Change Set feature) can also be scheduled for automatic publishing at a specified date and time.
Speaking of organization, Mura CMS also gives you the tools to organise a workforce made up of team members who require different website permissions and administrative access.
For example, you want Alan, your latest intern, to post job listings, but you aren’t not ready to give him access to the entire site just yet.
To deal with this issue, Mura CMS enables you to grant administrative users access to just the sections you want, even down to the page level.
<img style="max-width:289px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ss-usability-permissions.png" />
Users can even have different administrative roles; some users can edit and publish, while others can only post draft content for others to approve and publish when they see fit.
These permissions can extend to every key module and functionality; your most trusted groups can have Super User access to the entire set of tools, while other groups are only allowed access to specific Modules and Plugins.
Organisation, security and productivity — all rolled into one excellent feature.
<h2>Drag-and-Drop Form Building, And A Lot, Lot More</h2>
Forms are a great way to gather information from visitors and customers. The only problem is, building useful forms is usually a technical task. But not with Mura CMS.
Mura lets you craft powerful web forms via a drag-and-drop interface, requiring absolutely no coding or technical know-how.
This frees up marketers and administrators to tackle form building, putting them in touch with their audience in a new and useful way.
<img style="max-width:289px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ss-usability-form-builder.png" /> 
Form submissions are automatically stored for detailed reporting and retrieval with zero database modifications needed.
Further content management features include workflow and collaboration management, simplified mass copy-and-pasting, built-in help, and more.
Learn all about <a href="http://www.getmura.com/features/outstanding-usability/" target="_blank">everyday content management with Mura CMS</a>.
To find out more about Mura CMS, <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a> or check them out through our <a href="/products/mura-cms/" target="_blank">CMS Directory</a>.

Simple Everyday Content Management With Mura CMS

As we continue with our <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">Mura CMS</a> featured week, we’re taking a look at how the platform keeps its users as productive as possible.
Previously, we got to watch <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-sean-schroeder-matt-levine-of-mura-cms/" target="_blank">Mike Johnston interview Sean Schroeder &amp; Matt Levine</a>, before getting a <a href="/a-video-walkthrough-of-3-great-mura-cms-features/" target="_blank">tour of Mura CMS’ best features</a>.
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mura_cms_200x0.png" /> 
According to the Mura CMS team:
<blockquote>“With Mura's pre-built content objects, starter templates and intuitive interface, your productivity will get turbo-charged.”</blockquote>
Furthermore, that turbo-charged productivity extends to every major department and job role within a modern enterprise.
Let’s take a look at exactly how.
<h2>Content Administrators</h2>
Content is the most important aspect of any website, application or marketing campaign. To make crafting and managing that content easier, Mura CMS has some usability-focused solutions.
Inline Editing
Making edits to content with Mura CMS is as simple as clicking into the page, and working with the content directly. Right there on the page.
Mura imposes no pop-ups or form fields to get in your way, so you can get on with honing your content without any distractions.
Local Content Indexes
As well as making every day page content easier to edit, Mura CMS also simplifies the more technical side of content management.
With Mura CMS, complicated SQL and programming is a thing of the past. Unlike other systems, Mura’s easy to use, intuitive Local Content Index tool allows you to do it quickly, with zero coding, even if you have complex rules and scenarios in place.
You can drag and drop to specify the fields you want to display, in any order you choose, and you can even assign custom CSS classes or IDs right in the configurator.
Form Builder
Mura makes more use of dragging and dropping when it comes to building forms.
Creating web forms is easy; just drag and drop the fields you need in the Form Builder, making it an extremely basic and non-technical process. This empowers marketing teams, because there’s no need to involve the IT team just to get a form build and deployed on the site.
Form submissions and data can also be customized to integrate with external systems like CRMs, Marketing Automation Systems, etc.
Multi-File Upload
When you need to add multiple files to your site — like when creating an image gallery or when adding a folder’s worth of documents to a section of your site — you can simply drag and drop them into Mura CMS, and you’re all done.
You can batch re-name them, and images get automatic creation of thumbnails and alternative size options (no need for external photo manipulation in Photoshop).
<h2>Front-end Developers</h2>
Mura CMS provides a lot of features and tools for developers looking to quickly build layouts and designs – there’s nothing in the way of getting your hands dirty with some code. In fact, it only makes it easier thanks to a number of features and capabilities.
Common Conventions for HTML, CSS, &amp; Javascript
Web Standards, HTML 5, CSS3, LESS, jQuery. All of those familiar languages are also standard practice in Mura CMS.
Mura ships with tons of built-in objects and features, all targetable with your own custom CSS or theme. So, designing and re-designing your website with Mura is as fast as it can be.
Direct Access to Markup
Need to add another container or even substantially change the markup of a built-in Mura object? No problem.
Mura CMS lets you easily override defaults at both the site and theme-level for complete control. You can create custom objects and stay on the upgrade path.
Mobile Support
Responsive or mobile-specific? Either one works with Mura CMS.
The platform ships with both Bootstrap 3 and jQuery Mobile, and offers several frameworks, wired up and available for download on the Mura CMS website.
<h2>Programmers</h2>
When the job requires a more technical touch, Mura CMS is able to flex its muscles accordingly. Here’s how the platform keeps programmers programming productively.
Events
Mura's front-end request lifecycle is fully event-driven.
So, developers are able to augment or override any of the default behaviors without needing to customize the Mura CMS core, which means you — the programmer — can customize Mura CMS as much as you want while staying fully update-safe.
ORM
To avoid unnecessary bloat, Mura CMS’ ORM provides a light-weight route towards quickly creating custom entities that seamlessly blend into Mura's object model, content versioning, and bundling.
As a result, you can quickly and easily craft custom apps and functionality all within Mura's default programming system.
Mura Scope
The Mura Scope provides a single point of access to everything that Mura provides. In turn, this allows code portability between execution contexts.
Mura Scope is similar to jQuery's syntax, so the average programmer can get up to speed quickly.
<h2>IT &amp; System Admins</h2>
The last thing you want from any CMS is for the complex stuff to be dealt with brilliantly, only for the most basic wants and needs to be left out. Here’s how Mura CMS takes care of the smaller, yet arguably most important stuff.
One-click updates
Updates to some CMS systems can be a pain, but thankfully your Mura CMS site only needs you to log into to the admin area as a super-admin before clicking the “update Mura Core” link.
Doing this simple task automatically updates Mura CMS to the latest stable release, with no need for lengthy downtime or compatibility testing. It’s supremely quick and easy.
Allow Customization &amp; Stay on the Upgrade Path
In almost every modern enterprising context, one size does not fit all. As a result, you and your team will need to make customizations on the fly that support your business in various ways.
The only problem is, many teams take steps to do this, only to find out years later that they have backed themselves into the corner on an old version.
Thankfully, Mura CMS allows teams to customize as needed and stay on the upgrade path without any hassle.
Multi-Site Support
Mura CMS empowers you to easily setup multiple sites in a single installation, and even share administrative rights between the sites.
Plugins, display objects, layout files and more can all be shared between the various sites, making development and maintenance much faster and more manageable.
So there you have it, productivity boosts for content managers, front-end developers, programmers and IT specialists alike — all under one Mura CMS roof.
Learn more about how <a href="http://www.getmura.com/features/serious-productivity" target="_blank">Mura CMS keeps everybody super productive</a>.
To find out more about Mura CMS, <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a> or check them out through our <a href="/products/mura-cms/" target="_blank">CMS Directory</a>.

How Mura CMS Keeps Every Team Member Productive

So far during this <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">Mura CMS</a> featured week, we have seen <a href="/a-video-walkthrough-of-3-great-mura-cms-features/" target="_blank">Mike Johnston interview Sean Schroeder &amp; Matt Levine</a>, as well as an insightful <a href="/a-video-walkthrough-of-3-great-mura-cms-features/" target="_blank">video walkthrough of some of Mura CMS’ best features</a>.
As the winner of the <a href="/2014-best-enterprise-cms-other-langs/" target="_blank">2014 People's Choice award for Best Enterprise CMS (Other Languages)</a>, Mura CMS is well positioned to be a solution for a wide range of projects, from public websites to intranets — and Mura Experience Platform (MXP) is one reason why.
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mura_cms_200x0.png" />
Let’s take a look at how Mura Experience Platform empowers marketers by enabling them to present relevant, personalized website experiences for their visitors.
<h2>A Contextualized Approach</h2>
Because MXP can present custom experiences driven by an internal rules engine, which can be integrated with any external data source(s), Mura Experience Platform makes it easy for marketers to provide the right experience at the right time for all key audiences.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/persona-stage_2x.png" />
According to the Mura CMS team:
<blockquote>“The Mura Experience Platform takes personalization to a whole new level — far beyond widget-based approaches — allowing you to control every aspect of the web and mobile experience for your users, making your website your best salesperson and customer service rep.”</blockquote>
Here’s how that’s made possible.
Persona &amp; Stage-based Narratives
Content needs to intelligently shift emphasis according to who is reading it. An executive has a different set of concerns and interests than a developer, so it’s important to address their specific concerns to increase the relevance of your content.
Mura Experience Platform allows marketers to have conversations with different demographics and audiences in a simple way, by presenting relevant content that meets the needs of the visitor’s role and where the visitor is in the buying/evaluation stage.
Persona-driven Forms
As with every other part of the web &amp; mobile experience, Mura Experience Platform allows marketers to craft persona-driven forms, collecting the most relevant data in the process.
Marketers can also do this in stages via progressive profiling.
Custom Applications &amp; Multiple Data Points
Along with the ability to build custom applications, Mura Experience Platform empowers marketers to use any data point, from location to demographics to firmographics and more.
Learn more about <a href="http://mxp.getmura.com/relevant-experiences/">Mura Experience Platform’s relevant experience features</a>.
<h2>Marketing Automation</h2>
The single biggest benefit of using a Marketing Automation platform — like Marketo for example — is the ability to deliver a contextualized email-based nurture stream to convert leads into customers.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/landing-pages_2x.png" />
But when those same users get to the website in question, they’re back to one-size-fits-all content. And that’s an issue.
Here’s how Mura’s integration system fixes that.
Right Content, Right Time
When using Marketing Automation, marketers spend a lot of time defining users and the stages they pass through during the buying process.
Mura Experience Platform’s integration with Marketing Automation systems allows marketers to leverage this work and deliver web and mobile content that accelerates a users' path through the buying process.
Honed Landing Pages
Marketing Automation landing pages look great in demos, but they rarely work well in practise.
Mura Experience Platform produces the same benefits of rapid deployment, flexible authoring options, integrated forms, but with far better capabilities.
These include; robust mobile support, and a more intuitive authoring environment, along with built in collaboration features like flexible workflows, one-click version roll-back, and much more.
Automated Subscriber Content
Looking to save time on email marketing campaigns?
Mura’s Experience Platform lets marketers select the web content they want, before automatically formatting it into a responsive email, and then hands it off to the relevant marketing automation system for delivery to subscribers or segmented audiences.
Furthermore, all content can be contextualized for each audience segment. For example, if you had 3 personas and 5 buying stages you had content targeted for, Mura Experience Platform can create 15 different versions of the same email, all customized with relevant content for each.
Learn more about <a href="http://mxp.getmura.com/marketing-automation-integration/">Mura Experience Platform’s Marketing Automation integration features</a>.
<h2>Content Amplification</h2>
Content is still at the heart of every lead generation formula, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/content-marketing-hero_2x.png" />
Mura Experience Platform gives marketers tools that enable them to plan, create and track web and mobile content. It’s content — amplified.
Here’s how.
Publishing Content
Because Mura Experience Platform is a complete publishing platform, marketers have access to a full compliment of content creation, collaboration and workflow features.
These features include; drafts, versioning, content check-out, notifications for collaboration, track changes, permissions and approval chains.
With Mura Experience Platform, content can be published both to web &amp; mobile with one-off ad hoc revisions or additions, scheduled, and robust sets of batch content (either on the fly or scheduled).
Amplifying Content
After creating great content, it’s time to amplify it by broadcasting to your favorite channels.
To help marketers achieve this, Mura Experience Platform is designed to integrate with social tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Feedly, Oktopost and more.
Mura Experience Platform also creates custom RSS feeds (including by persona and stage) for posting on specific terms and for curation by influencers. Additionally, built-in integration with AddThis and ShareThis allow for easy on-site sharing.
Tracking Content
Pushing out great content is important, but being able track and measure it is just as vital. If not more so.
With Mura Experience Platform Content Campaigns, marketers can publish sets of content and track them as a group, helping them keep track of content-pillars and derived assets for easy measurement of content performance by channel.
Also, Mura Experience Platform's Content Campaigns allow for tacking updated content versions so marketers can compare performance levels with the previous versions.
Content scoring metrics allow marketers to measure content performance across all owned content channels; primary sites, blogs, articles, landing pages, microsites.
And perhaps most importantly, marketers can know which content is producing the best ROI by mapping their contribution to creating a new customer and the associated dollar amount of each sale.
Learn more about <a href="http://mxp.getmura.com/content-marketing/">Mura Experience Platform’s content marketing features</a>.
To find out more about Mura CMS, <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a> or check them out through our <a href="/products/mura-cms/" target="_blank">CMS Directory</a>.

Mura Experience Platform: Market With Relevance, Automation & Amplification

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Following an interesting interview with <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-sean-schroeder-matt-levine-of-mura-cms/" target="_blank">Sean Schroeder &amp; Matt Levine</a> to kick off our latest featured week, the <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">Mura CMS</a> team gave us a walkthrough of their platform's top three features.
Built to be easier and faster for people to build and maintain even the most ambitious websites, Mura CMS is a platform growing in popularity.
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mura_cms_200x0.png" />
Whether you need to do something as simple as adding a news release or as complex as integrating website data with an enterprise CRM system, Mura CMS provides a clear and complete toolkit. Mura CMS was also crowned winner of the <a href="/2014-best-enterprise-cms-other-langs/" target="_blank">2014 People's Choice award for Best Enterprise CMS (Other Languages)</a>.
Here is Mura CMS in action.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6vDExDkPaoM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
To find out more about Mura CMS, <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a> or check them out through our <a href="/products/mura-cms/" target="_blank">CMS Directory</a>.
Also, be sure to stick around for more Mura CMS coverage as this featured week continues.

A Video Walkthrough of 3 Great Mura CMS Features

During the recent CMS Critic North American Tour, Mike Johnston had the chance to sit down with Sean Schroeder and Matt Levine of the <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Mura CMS</a> team.
Mura CMS is built with one focused purpose in mind – to make it easier and faster for people to build and maintain even the most ambitious websites. Whether you need to do something as simple as adding a news release or as complex as integrating website data with an enterprise CRM system, Mura CMS provides a clear and complete toolkit.
Notably, the platform was recently crowned winner of the <a href="/2014-best-enterprise-cms-other-langs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> 2014 People's Choice award for Best Enterprise CMS (Other Languages)</a>.
To get to know Mura CMS, check the aforementioned interview below.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wDoMQpROFSw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
This interview kicks off yet another featured week here at CMS Critic, with Mura CMS under the spotlight. So, stick around for more coverage,
To find out more about Mura CMS, <a href="http://www.getmura.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visit their website</a> or check them out through our <a href="/products/mura-cms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CMS Directory</a>.

CMS Critic Interviews Sean Schroeder & Matt Levine of Mura CMS

Currently in Beta, <a href="http://www.online.me/" target="_blank">Trident</a> is a self-professed SCMS — a Social Content Management System.
Trident is being driven by the highly experienced team behind Boonex Dolphin, and can be downloaded and installed to a hosting server before being extended and tweaked through various apps.
<a href="http://www.online.me/" target="_blank"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/97413screen11079x0.jpg" /></a>
At first glance, Trident looks like the sleek and sexy platform which the social networking space has been crying out for. But let's not judge this book by it's cover. Here's what Trident can do.
<h2>Beautiful &amp; Uber-Friendly</h2>
On top of looking the part, Trident is designed for responsiveness.
Most traffic to social networks come through mobile devices, and Trident have prioritised accordingly:
<blockquote>“We test on mobiles, tablets and desktops, and make make sure that all graphics support 1x and 2x resolution, and all interface icons are vector-based. Typography, link targets and navigation are all optimised for tap-control and reading from compact screens.”</blockquote>
Here's a further breakdown of Trident's responsive features, as well as all of its other capabilities.
<a href="http://www.online.me/" target="_blank"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/p2zze0w.jpg" /></a>
Mobile-Friendly
Every page and every action in Trident is designed for mobile devices first and foremost.
The Trident team says that they have, “acknowledged that today's social networks receive more mobile traffic than desktop traffic. So, we've created the system that is not just adapted for mobile devices, but is built for them from ground-up.”
Retina-Ready
All modern mobile devices have beautifully crisp screens, and Trident isn't looking to be a platform that lags behind in terms of aesthetics (like many other SCMS). Trident is 100% retina-optimized with all its vector icons, CSS-based layouts, and hi-resolution graphics.
Trouble-Free
Almost all web platforms require a lot of technical maintenance – installation of new modules, version updates, module updates, modification, customization – all these tasks require technical skills and a lot of time.
Trident is not like that. Instead, everything is automatic and simplified.
Multi-Profile
Previously, this feature was something only ever found in the top-tier global social networks like Facebook or Google+.
Trident though, supports multiple profiles under single account, meaning that one user can create a Person profile, an Organisation profile, and other kinds of special profiles. Users can also switch between their profiles on-the-fly.
Studio
Trident features an unprecedented configuration system, called Studio.
The idea behind Studio is in the separation of site content administration and general site configuration. Administration can be done by trusted site members (such as moderators) or by hired admins, whereas configuration is a creative process that is best suited for the site operator or owner.
<h2>App-tastic &amp; Down Right Exciting</h2>
The aforementioned Studio is the place where all of Trident's site settings, pages, modules, languages, templates and plugins are controlled. These are called Trident Apps.
<a href="http://www.online.me/" target="_blank"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/61610screen21079x0.jpg" /></a>
Every app adds and changes functionality, just a building block. Users can mix and match Apps to achieve whatever type of social networking site they have in mind.
Essentially, Trident is aiming to make social network building easier for developers, designers, and administrators on the go.
For me, this level of responsiveness, flexibility, and accessibility ties in perfectly with <a href="/cms-in-2015-what-we-want-to-see/" target="_blank">what I called for from social networking space at the beginning of 2015</a>. Because Trident seems to have hit the nail on the head so well, I'm personally excited to see how this Boonex project progresses in the coming months and years.
Learn more about Trident and try out a demo by <a href="http://www.online.me/" target="_blank">visiting their website</a>.

Trident Beta Released: Build Mobile-Friendly Social Networks

To round off our featured week with <a href="http://www.agilitycms.com/http://www.agilitycms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Agility CMS</a>, I’m taking a look at the company’s focus on its relationships with customers.
Agility CMS serves up cloud-based digital content management solutions for leading brands across the world.
Previously, Mike Johnston was able to <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-jonathan-voigt-of-agility-cms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">interview the Founder of Agility, Jonathan Voigt</a>, before being given a <a href="/agility-cms-walkthrough-video-with-cms-critic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sneak peek at the latest Agility project</a> due to be released later in 2015.
I then personally shone some light on the company’s <a href="/fun-fitness-community-outreach-why-working-at-agility-cms-looks-truly-awesome/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fun-loving and charitable culture</a>, before exploring Agility’s stance on CMS <a href="/why-agility-cms-doesnt-partake-in-feature-bloating/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“feature bloating”</a>.
For now though, it’s back to Agility’s client-centric approach.
<h2>That Personal Touch</h2>
<blockquote>“We try to add that personal touch to each interaction. Time and time again, our customers rank support high on the list of our best attributes.”</blockquote>
That’s the way Agility chooses to present itself. A content management system that actually personalises its approach for each client.
During his recent interview with Mike Johnston, Agility’s CEO and Founder Jonathan Voigt echoed this sentiment:
<blockquote>“We’re very customer centric. We work very closely with our customers to understand what their needs are, doing content architecture properly with them, and making sure that the system is configured properly.
A lot of CMS vendors will give [this job] to partners or just let you go with it, but the CMS is only as good as the implementation.”</blockquote>
Admirably though, there’s more substance to this claim than mere words. A quick look at a selection of Agility’s case studies reveal just how tailored their approaches can be.
First of all, let’s take a look at the work Agility did with Compass Group Canada. The project required complex dining plans, locations, menus, calendars, online ordering, social media integration, and more.
Yet the outcome was a resounding success thanks to Agility’s close assistance.
Another example lies in Agility’s involvement with Cineplex Entertainment. This project required Agility to exercise its technical abilities, with the website in question requiring better performance levels, scalability and language support.
Agility delivered through, giving Cineplex the ability to handle more traffic, and manage content is a more effective fashion.
<h2>Leading With Service &amp; Building Trusting Relationships</h2>
I also managed to ask Agility’s Head of Client Strategy, Brian Chung, some questions about the way Agility deals with each client.
He expanded on the way Agility feels about itself as a service provider, as well as a CMS:
What is Agility's number one aim when it comes to working with a new client?
Agility is founded upon core values important to our success – a couple of these being: Leading with Service and Building Trusting Relationships.
So with those core values driving the vision, our number one goal, really, is around being the best at Customer Satisfaction when it comes to working with new clients.
When it comes to supporting clients, how is Agility different from its competitors?
Realizing that we are competing within a fairly mature industry, it is key to have a competitive differentiator.
Many of our customers require customized solutions to meet their very specific needs, and Agility offers unparalleled support in helping each customer get the most out of their instances – from the very beginning of a project with wireframing, architecture, development, training and more.
We continue to work with customers well after a site launches and maintain strong relationships with them to help their solutions evolve.
To find out more about Agility CMS, <a href="http://www.agilitycms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visit their website</a>, or check them out through our <a href="/products/agility-cms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CMS Directory</a>.

A Look At Agility CMS' Focus On Customer Relationships

As we move forward with our featured coverage of <a href="http://www.agilitycms.com/" target="_blank">Agility CMS</a>, it’s time to take a look at look at something the company’s CEO, Jonathan Voigt, calls, “Feature Bloat”.
Agility CMS provides cloud-based digital content management solutions for top brands across the globe.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/agilitypaw.jpeg" />
According to Jonathan Voigt, the feature set of any given CMS should be seen as but one dimension of the total solution — no matter how long the feature list happens to be. I’ll allow him to explain in his own words, directly from his recent interview with Mike Johnston:
<blockquote>“[One CMS will say], “we have all of these features, and another will say we [also] have all of these features.
[The problem is that] CMSs are rated on their feature sets, without looking at the bigger benefits.
People just do a feature comparison, saying, “this CMS has 200 features, I’ll go with that.”
But then you can’t even use those features because they’re either too complex or too expensive to implement.
[Instead, the customer should ask themselves], “What’s my budget, do I need support, and what’s the top few features that I need 100%?”</blockquote>
<h2>Making Great Use of a Diverse Partner List</h2>
In line with the above quote, Agility focuses more on doing what they feel they do best — building and managing great websites.
By welcoming partnerships with a range of other companies and third-party tools, Agility aims to form the best solution possible for different customers and projects each and every time.
Jillean Kearney, Agility’s Marketing Manager, explains:
<blockquote>“We partner with other companies and third party tools to get the very best in e-commerce platforms, ticketing systems and more.
This way, each solution built on Agility CMS is specifically tailored to exactly what each customer needs. Our partner network is really important to us for this very reason.”</blockquote>
These numerous partners mentioned by Jillean Kearney <a href="http://agilitycms.com/partners">can be found right here</a>.
One example can be found in the partnership between Agility and Bushfire North. Together, the two Toronto-based companies have built websites for Chapman’s Kids Club and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Bushfire North praised Agility for its multi-lingual capabilities, cloud-based nature, scalability and its excellent level of support to the customer.
Agility have also teamed up with Point Alliance in the past, <a href="http://agilitycms.com/resources/case-study-hockey-canada">taking them as a development partner for the Hockey Canada website</a>.
Craig Cameron the Senior Manager of the Hockey Canada website also praised Agility for their support system, speed and ease of use.
<h2>A CMS First &amp; Foremost</h2>
Essentially, Agility are setting themselves apart from the rest of the herd by going without “one-size-fits-all” solutions.
Their approach has an objective of being more refined, more tailored and more about actual content management in the truest sense of the term.
To find out more about Agility CMS, <a href="http://www.agilitycms.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>, or check them out through our <a href="/products/agility-cms/" target="_blank">CMS Directory</a>.

Why Agility CMS Doesn’t Partake In “Feature Bloating”

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