Articles - Page 150

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

bmckeiver

It's "wheels up" this week for <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/?utm_source=prnewswire&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=2021_07_bigcommerce_press_release">Contentstack</a><a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/">,</a> a composable Digital Experience Platform (DXP) provider.
The company just announced that it has been selected by European airline group <a href="https://www.airfranceklm.com/en" target="_blank">Air France-KLM</a> to support its new digital transformation initiative: a composable solution that aims to provide seamless and curated omnichannel experiences to its customers worldwide.
According to the press release, Air France-KLM sought a composable DXP that could be integrated with its existing technology stack – specifically with a new CMS.
Contentstack was selected for its expertise in composable architecture and its easy-to-use interface. Along with its headless CMS, the platform offers a range of capabilities, all of which align with the composable principles of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/the-future-is-composable-a-conversation-with-new-mach-alliance-president-casper-rasmussen/">MACH</a> (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless).
“For enterprises like Air France-KLM, speed and agility are critical to efficiently managing content processes as well as customer demand,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramonweterings/" target="_blank">Ramon Weterings</a>, VP Sales EMEA at Contentstack. “By harvesting the power of composable, headless technology, Air France-KLM is now better equipped to adapt to change without having to compromise on quality. In partnership with Contentstack, they’re able to continue delivering superior digital experiences while benefiting from rapid, agile, and reliable internal workflows. Our goal is to help our partners set up for success and we’re excited to be working with Air France-KLM on their composable adoption.”
The partnership will enable Air France-KLM to benefit from a more agile journey while working with Contentstack to improve and update its technology capabilities.     
<h2>Taking flight with composable </h2>
Contentstack will be part of a composable digital strategy that empowers Air France-KLM to create seamless and personalized customer journeys, with streamlined publishing processes for e-commerce developers, content creators, and SEO specialists.
Contentstack’s extensive API library will also allow applications to be easily integrated into the Air France-KLM technology ecosystem while offering the agility required to support growth channels and adapt to changing customer needs.
“Whether it’s onboard our aircraft or on our digital touchpoints, we aim to offer unique experiences to our customers," said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugorousset/" target="_blank">Hugo Rousset</a>, VP Digital Products &amp; Services at Air France-KLM. "We needed a solution that allows us to get ahead of customer needs, providing them a personalized user journey. Migrating to Contentstack contributes to delivering more consistent content across all our touchpoints and all markets. At the same time, it enables us to integrate our existing tech stack and adapt quickly to the changing landscape.”
Contentstack is being implemented to integrate with Air France-KLM’s consumer websites, powering the next generation of digital experiences, with additional websites to follow later this year.
<h2>About Contentstack</h2>
<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/?utm_source=prnewswire&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=2019_06_19_contentstack_comes_to_europe">Contentstack</a> – the leading composable digital experience platform (DXP) provider – empowers marketers and developers to deliver digital experiences at the speed of their imagination. Companies such as ASICS, Chase, Express, Holiday Inn, Icelandair, Mattel, McDonald's, Mitsubishi, Riot Games, and Shell trust Contentstack to power their most critical content experiences with uncompromising scale and dependability. Famous for its Care without Compromise™, Contentstack has achieved the industry's highest customer satisfaction rating. Contentstack is also a founding member of the MACH Alliance, setting the industry agenda for open and composable technology that is Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless. Learn more at <a href="http://www.contentstack.com">http://www.contentstack.com</a>.

Contentstack Selected by Air France-KLM to Support Composable Digital Experience Transformation

cms-critic-staff

<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/what-contentfuls-175m-investment-round-means-for-the-future-of-cms/">Contentful</a> – a leading composable content platform for digital-first businesses – recently announced that its <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3935553-1&amp;h=844066638&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fstore.sap.com%2Fdcp%2Fen%2Fproduct%2Fdisplay-0000061320_live_v1&amp;a=Contentful+Composable+Content+Platform" target="_blank">Contentful Composable Content Platform</a> for SAP Commerce Cloud is now an <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sap-drops-8-billion-to-buy-qualtrics/">SAP</a> Endorsed App. 
With Contentful’s Composable Content Platform, SAP customers can easily transition to a modern composable content approach without having to re-platform. Marketing and content teams can also make changes in minutes rather than days, leading to faster commerce experiences that increase conversions and profit. 
SAP Endorsed Apps are a category of solutions from SAP's partner ecosystem that help customers become best-run, intelligent enterprises. Endorsed apps are meant to deliver value with desired outcomes.
In its press release, the company stated that the app is now available online on the <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3935553-1&amp;h=829085887&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.sap.com%2F&amp;a=SAP" target="_blank">SAP</a><a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3935553-1&amp;h=756995666&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.sap.com%2F&amp;a=%C2%A0Store" target="_blank"> Store</a>.
<h2>Composing the perfect partnership</h2>
Contentful's app endorsement builds on the Contentful/SAP partnership, which was <a href="https://martech.org/sap-moves-to-a-composable-commerce-offering/" target="_blank">announced in March</a> of this year. Contentful was selected as the content management partner for <a href="https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_COMMERCE_COMPOSABLE_STOREFRONT" target="_blank">SAP’s Composable Commerce Cloud</a>, allowing customers to build commerce experiences that best suit their individual needs easily.
"We are thrilled to bring the power of a modern, composable content platform to businesses that use SAP Commerce Cloud through our SAP Endorsed App," said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-sloan-213515/" target="_blank">Steve Sloan</a>, CEO of Contentful. "This is a natural next step in Contentful's partnership with SAP, and we look forward to empowering customers to create lightning-fast commerce experiences on any channel to help increase sales and maximize their investment in SAP Commerce Cloud."
<h2>Joining a premium portfolio of SAP Endorsed Apps </h2>
SAP Endorsed Apps are premium certified by SAP with added security, in-depth testing, and measurements against benchmark results. With Contentstack, customers can now maximize their SAP Commerce investments by building a rich, integrated set of customer experiences without a costly re-platform, driving incremental revenue, and building customer loyalty through consistent, personalized content across the entire marketing and transaction experience.
"Ecosystem innovations are essential to SAP's vision and delivery of the intelligent enterprise for SAP customers," said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrylwgray/" target="_blank">Darryl Gray</a>, Global Vice President, Software Partner Solution Monetization &amp; Success at SAP. "We applaud Contentful on achieving SAP-endorsed app status for its composable content solution for SAP Commerce Cloud. Partners like Contentful are positioned to help us deliver a cloud-first strategy with integrated innovations, proven to provide value while solving key business challenges."
The Contentful Composable Content Platform is available for digital discovery and purchase on SAP Store – the digital marketplace for solutions from SAP and its partners. SAP Store provides customers with real-time access to more than 2,000 innovative solutions from SAP and partner solutions that complement and extend their SAP applications, enabling digital transformation of their business.
For more information about Contentful's partnership with SAP, visit <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3935553-1&amp;h=4167297217&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.contentful.com%2Fpartners%2Ftechnology%2Fsap%2F&amp;a=www.contentful.com%2Fpartners%2Ftechnology%2Fsap%2F" target="_blank">www.contentful.com/partners/technology/sap/</a>.
<h2>About Contentful</h2>
The Contentful Composable Content Platform brings the building blocks of content together to create once and reuse for any digital experience. The API-first platform integrates easily with data sources and new functionality as digital experiences and technology evolve. With built-in orchestration, a robust app ecosystem, and app framework to easily extend the platform, Contentful frees teams across the business to work together to connect, create, and extend content more efficiently. Contentful helps companies unlock the power of digital content so they can build faster and deliver at scale, making their content a strategic business asset. Nearly 30% of the Fortune 500 and thousands of companies worldwide rely on Contentful to help them bring their best ideas to life.

Contentful Composable Content Platform for SAP Commerce Cloud Now an SAP Endorsed App

<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-widens-its-dxp-stack-with-widen-acquires-dam-and-pim-capabilities/">Acquia</a> – the digital experience platform built with open source <a href="https://www.drupal.org/" target="_blank">Drupal</a> at its core – continues to innovate around its award-winning digital asset management (DAM) capabilities.
Yesterday, it announced new enhancements have been added to its <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/acquia-dam">Acquia DAM</a> (formerly <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-widens-its-dxp-stack-with-widen-acquires-dam-and-pim-capabilities/">Widen</a>), empowering marketing and creative leaders to find and collaborate on digital assets faster.
The new capabilities – which revolve around search, sharing, and analytics – are slated to help marketing and creative teams maximize the value of their content investments across brands, regions, campaigns, and personas, even as budgets are squeezed. 
“Marketing and creative teams turn to DAM systems to rein in content chaos and gain insight into how their content performs, particularly across global brand portfolios,” said <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-and-the-art-of-the-possible-interview-with-chief-market-officer-jennifer-griffin-smith/">Jennifer Griffin Smith</a>, Chief Market Officer at Acquia. “The new Acquia DAM updates empower teams to create, find, and share assets faster, giving them better control over revenue-generating digital marketing campaigns and the ability to ensure better brand consistency.” 
<h2>Giving marketers and creatives more DAM power </h2>
As Acquia outlined in its press release, marketing and creative teams are responsible for building and maintaining increasingly larger and more complex catalogs of digital assets. They need to be able to find assets quickly so they can get campaigns and products to market faster, understand which content performs best so they can use it again (or create more content like it), and drive brand consistency.
The new updates to Acquia DAM help customers rise to these challenges with:
<ul>
<li>Enhanced search experience: A redesigned search experience presents teams with more relevant results and filtering capabilities, enabling them to find the assets they need faster so they can launch campaigns and products faster. Redesigned cards on the search page display file naming conventions, making asset identification simpler and clearer.</li>
<li>More options for sharing assets: Teams can now share results for common searches to support better cross-team collaboration, so colleagues can see asset options in real time, regardless of their location. Users can copy and paste a link to search results, which includes search terms, sort, pagination, and filters applied. Also, new asset share links give the recipient the choice to pick the size and format they need.</li>
<li>Keyword and tag improvements: Teams can leverage tags for improved keyword search, making assets simpler to find. Entry of keywords now uses a familiar tag UI, with clickable tags on each asset, directing users to a search results page with all assets sharing the same tag. Admins retain editing control over these tags. This feature can help teams more efficiently manage very large collections of content assets.</li>
<li>Increased analytical insights: Acquia DAM analytics enhancements give teams faster access to asset usage and performance insights via an improved backend data pipeline. New asset insight charts provide more options to filter and group asset data. Asset insights now has API endpoints to connect with other marketing data in a data warehouse or business intelligence tool. This directly supports marketers who want to understand how content is being used and how well it’s performing so they can focus on the best-performing assets.</li>
</ul>
<h2>A modular, composable platform</h2>
Acquia DAM is available standalone or within Acquia DXP, and supports composable strategies through integrations with other Acquia and third-party marketing products. It is foundational to the industry’s only open digital experience platform, which brings together content and data to create world-class customer experiences. 
You can learn more about <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/acquia-dam">Acquia DAM,</a> view the new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/acquia-dam-search">Acquia DAM search experience</a>, and explore how customers are using Acquia DAM – including <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/case-studies/crayola">Crayola</a>, <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/case-studies/livewire">LiveWire</a>, <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/case-studies/novavax">Novavax</a>, and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/case-studies/san-francisco-international-airport">San Francisco International Airport</a> 
<h2>About Acquia</h2>
Acquia empowers the world’s most ambitious brands to create digital customer experiences that matter. With open source Drupal at its core, the Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) enables marketers, developers, and IT operations teams at thousands of global organizations to rapidly compose and deploy digital products and services that leverage their content and data assets to engage customers personally and at scale, enhance conversions, and help businesses stand out. Learn more at <a href="https://www.acquia.com/">https://acquia.com</a>.

Acquia DAM Bolsters Search, Share, and Analytics Capabilities

During my <a href="/my-visit-to-magnolias-offices-in-basel-switzerland/">recent visit to the Magnolia CMS Headquarters in Basel, Switzerland</a>, I was given the opportunity to sit down and have a (lengthy but informative) chat with Boris Kraft, CTO and CoFounder of Magnolia CMS.I promise, there will be some solid video interviews coming soon where you'll actually be able to see us chat but due to unforeseen circumstances (a camera that broke while we were in Paris), I had simply a microphone and a laptop available. I turned our interview into a video just to make it easier for everyone to be able to listen.While it is a lengthy interview, I think you'll find our discussion interesting. It shows the passion that Boris has for his product and I found the entire chat quite informative and interesting. I hope you feel the same way after listening to it.http://youtu.be/a2enpJmSLogFor more info on Magnolia, visit the <a href="/products/magnolia">Magnolia CMS</a> page in our CMS Product Directory.

Interview with Boris Kraft, CTO and CoFounder of Magnolia CMS

mike-johnston

To kick off another featured week, we’re taking a good look at an enterprise-level platform that’s well acquainted with web experience management, content management, portals, intranets, extranets and more.Based in Seattle, Washington with offices in New York and Paris, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ingeniux.com/web-cms">Ingeniux</a> has been on the market for over 15 years. They cater to the likes of AIG, CareFusion, Quinnipiac University, the US Army, and IAC.Ingeniux features a decoupled architecture designed for multi-site management and supports the latest ASP.NET technologies, including ASP.NET 4.5, MVC 5. the Razor view engine, and Visual Studio integration.Ingeniux is somewhat unique in its focus on intelligent content, shown in its rich XML and JSON content model, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ingeniux.com/company/blog/why-nosql-is-the-future-of-web-content-management">NoSQL content database,</a> search application, and service-oriented content API. The architecture lends itself to sites with product catalogs or need for full content structures and types, content reuse, multi-site, channel and language publishing, or sites with customer-facing web applications like insurance, travel, healthcare, commerce and other industries that transact business online.Ingeniux offers a set of products that, together, cover three core bases; web experience management, content management, and social collaboration.<h2>Ingeniux &amp; Web Experience Management</h2>Personalization isn’t just the buzzword on the lips of every enterprise, it’s also the foundation upon which most of them build their online presence.Ingeniux aims to help those brands deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.They make that happen based on click-stream behavior, visitor profiles, website membership, geo-location, or marketing segment.The platform also leverages landing pages, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ingeniux.com/company/blog/four-ways-to-connect-your-crm-with-your-customer-and-web-experience">CRM connectors for Salesforce.com </a>and Microsoft Dynamics, and visual web forms to offer a well rounded content marketing solution.Plus, integrated analytics data from Google, WebTrends, or Adobe ensures that brands are informed about their progress, or lack thereof.Find out more about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ingeniux.com/products/cms">Ingeniux and web experience management</a>.<h2>Ingeniux &amp; Content Management</h2>Content management though, is the platform’s bread and butter.Intelligent in-context editing enables users to click on a region of the page to make edits. Elements provide text fields, WYSIWYG editors, image galleries, component palettes, date pickers, and other contextual editing fields.The intelligence comes in when Ingeniux recognizes and preserves the structure of the content.Ingeniux also offers responsive page building, designed to aid those without any knowledge of code.Templates are managed in a grid-based responsive layout using either Bootstrap, Foundation, or other responsive frameworks. Non-technical users can click-and-drag to re-size columns, drag-and-drop text, video, images, and content widgets onto templates, and manage presentations for multiple channels.Digital asset management is another core feature of Ingeniux.Assets can be edited with full meta data and usage rights, with support for true federation; including integration of Microsoft SharePoint, media servers and CDN's for rich media storage, and even file level storage in NAS and SAN systems.Find out more about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ingeniux.com/products/cms">Ingeniux and content management.</a><h2>Ingeniux &amp; Social Collaboration</h2>Ingeniux also serves up social collaboration solutions in the form of portals, intranets, extranets and online communities.Ingeniux Cartella is the product in question, and it comes as a Software-as-a-Service or on-premise solution.It comes in three editions:Intranet Edition: An <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ingeniux.com/products/cartella-portal-software">enterprise portal</a> for employees with unmatched collaboration and social capabilities.Extranet Edition: Connect with partners and suppliers using secure authentication and personalized user experiences.Community Edition: Engage with customers and enable user generated content, content marketing and social connections.Cartella comes with interactive modules including team blogs, forums, profiles, activity feeds and more.Find out more about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ingeniux.com/products/cartella-portal-software">Ingeniux Cartella</a>.<h2>Ingeniux CMS 10</h2>As for the future of Ingeniux, it comes in the form of Ingeniux CMS 10.Ingeniux CMS 10, which is slated for release Winter 2016, will soon come bearing a modern “Flat” user interface with a focus on ease of use and productivity and a Digital Asset Management solution that makes assets first class.To find out more about Ingeniux, visit <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ingeniux.com/">their website</a>.

Ingeniux: Web Experience Management, Content Management, & Social Collaboration

<a href="https://1010data.com/" target="_blank">1010data</a>, Inc., the only provider of an integrated cloud platform that combines self-service data management and analytics at scale with ready-to-use data, today announced the release of Version 11 of its 1010data Insights Platform. The platform’s new version features redesigned interfaces and tools that streamline data loading, analytics, visualization, and the scheduling and distribution of analysis – enabling users to attain new insights faster and more effortlessly than ever before. Key highlights of the 1010data Insights Platform Version 11 include the ability to:
<ul>
<li>Easily perform ad hoc data uploads with an all new drag-and-drop, wizard-like interface</li>
<li>Build calculations with an intuitive expression editor that steps the user through the completion of each argument</li>
<li>Take advantage of new data operations such as selecting data by pasting values from Excel and duplicating rows with select and expand</li>
<li>Switch between different data views with a single click, including grid, single row, macro language, visualization, and split screen</li>
<li>Allow select users to easily schedule and manage queries across the team or organization</li>
</ul>
“Having not just the most but the best information and easy-to-use tools to turn it quickly into competitive advantage is now a prerequisite for success,” said Sandy Steier, CEO of 1010data. “Version 11 of the 1010data Insights Platform provides decision-makers and their support staff with the ability to be both fastest and best in the market.” 
1010data Insights Platform Version 11 is available now.
About 1010data
Gaining actionable insight requires the best analytical tools and access to all relevant data. 1010data is a complete solution that provides both. Ours is the only out-of-the-box, self-service, cross-enterprise insights platform. More than 850 of the world’s largest companies trust 1010data to manage, share and analyze over 34 trillion rows of data because of our proven ability to deliver results more quickly, easily and accurately than any other solution. Please visit <a href="http://www.1010data.com" target="_blank">www.1010data.com</a> for more information.

1010data Debuts Next-Generation Data Analysis with Version 11

Now digital marketers can build landing pages with Google Sheets. In case you did not know – Google Sheets is part of Google Drive – Google’s productivity/ collaboration suite of products. Google Sheets is a very powerful alternative to Excel that lets you create spreadsheets online for easy sharing, collaborating, and updating by your entire team.
Starting off with a landing page template – each element of the layout can be tied back to fields within Google Sheets. The ability to create the next landing page variation is a simple copy and paste of a row.
Here is how to get started <a href="https://rallymind.com/blog/automated-landing-pages-using-google-sheets-integration/">using Google Sheets to create Landing Pages</a>:
<ol>
<li>
Authorize access to your Spreadsheet to RallyMind
</li>
<li>
Map the fields within your spreadsheet to the RallyMind API fields. Some example fields available to sync can be Landing Page URLs, Address Details, Call Tracking, Google Tag Manager IDs, Custom Fields, and More.
</li>
<li>
After this is set up, the RallyMind system takes over. RallyMind monitors for changes to your sheets and updates existing or creates new landing pages in real-time. Every landing page that is created on RallyMind is auto-tagged with event tracking tied to all the actions a visitor could take.
</li>
</ol>
All landing pages are fully integrated with Google Analytics right out of the gate, and can be used to easily facilitate click and call tracking. No more manual imports and exports. Using Google Sheets to build each new landing page allows you to push and pull information dynamically and populate directly into the specific landing page – including setting the URL path – allowing you to get campaigns live in real-time.
Note about Google <a href="https://rallymind.com/blog/landing-page-relevance-optimize-for-quality-score/">Landing Page content relevance</a> – Well, officially, Google considers the overall landing page experience, but relevance is a big part of that. Landing pages are foundational of any SEO, PPC or E-mail marketing campaign. Most marketers fail to understand the importance of landing pages at scale. Companies invest so much into driving traffic but do not know how to take these visitors and turn them into qualified leads. This is where landing pages comes into the picture – learn more about using Google Sheets to create Landing Pages.

Building Landing Pages with Google Sheets

With cloud technology becoming more accessible, vendors are in a better position to offer robust SaaS editions of their product. In a recent press release Kentico delivers such a solution using Windows Azure Cloud. This means highly robust and feature rich content management, without a local install. Its all “in the cloud.”
Kentico Software, the Web content management system vendor, announces the immediate availability of Kentico EMS+, the first fully integrated CXM solution provided as a managed service in the Windows Azure Cloud. Unlike other products, Kentico EMS+ is available at an affordable monthly cost and doesn’t require excessive upfront investment.
Kentico EMS+ allows marketers have their site up and running in no time and get instant marketing results. It’s a fully integrated Customer Experience Management (CXM) solution hosted in the secure Windows Azure cloud and backed by Kentico 24/7 global support. Customers can choose from over 1,200 Kentico Solution Partners in 80 countries to help them create compelling websites and implement successful on-line marketing.
<blockquote>“With Kentico EMS+, we’re bringing technology to the masses that until now was only available to enterprise clients with an extensive infrastructure.” said Petr Palas, Founder and CEO of Kentico Software, “Kentico EMS+ uses the revolutionary Kentico EMS product line and allows customers to easily build highly scalable websites, avoid data loss and automate disaster recovery with the power of the Windows Azure cloud.”</blockquote>
Kentico EMS+ customers will reduce their costs and provide relief to IT departments by outsourcing the management, development and upgrades of their websites. Kentico EMS+ offers a complete solution for websites, mobile sites, online stores, social networks, e-mail marketing, lead management, web analytics, optimization and personalization. Together with out-of-the-box Salesforce.com integration, it allows marketers to deliver consistent customer experience across all channels
<blockquote>“Until now, customers could run Kentico EMS on-premise, in the cloud or in a hybrid configuration. The new Kentico EMS+ offering enhances the choices with a Software-as-a-Service model, in which customers can use the product in the cloud without any upfront investment and pay for actual use.” said Eric Webb, President of Sales and Operations.</blockquote>
For more information visit <a href="http://www.kentico.com/" target="_blank">Kentico.com</a>

Kentico EMS+ Managed CXM in the Cloud

Weglot - The easiest way to translate a website

The easiest way to translate a website

#18164c

We had the pleasure recently of interviewing Bill Rogers, founder and CEO of the popular content management system company, Ektron.
CC: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, could you give us a bit of an outline as to your history with Ektron and your background?
BR: Ektron was founded in 1998 in the basement of my house in Hollis,NH. In the late nineties it was becoming apparent to me that the Web was going to impact dramatically how everyone did business. With that realization in mind, I started Ektron with the idea of eventually building an operating system for the Web, to empower business people to be able to effectively manage their Web presence.
As part of the initial effort we created a WYSIWYG editor, eWebEditPro which was OEMed by several of the leading players in the CMS space. Through eWebEditpro’s success and the selling of our own CMS offering we gained additional exposure to the world of content management and we have consistently applied the knowledge we gained throughout these experiences to our efforts which culminated in the release of Ektron CMS400.NET.
Now, a decade later, Ektron has grown to over 200 people with office locations across the globe and more than 7,500 CMS customers.
CC: Having recently been identified in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for 2009 in the Visionary’s quadrant is quite the compliment. Why do you think they chose that section?
BR: This placement reflects the fact that Gartner sees an alignment between Ektron’s technology, our product roadmap and where Gartner’s clients are going to be looking to take their Web sites both in the near-term and over the long haul.
In the near future we believe that Web sites will transform into mash-ups that pull data and functionality from other Web sites into one location where clients can access and interact with that content and functionality as well as add their own content and functionality.
We have been building the technology to power this new type of Web site for several years. For instance, our social media platform allows developers to build mash-ups using widgets that pull information from social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube or business applications like SalesForce or TestTrackPro. These widgets can then be deployed by business users using our PageBuilder functionality on-the-fly.
CC: What do you say to their comments that Ektron “…may be perceived as only marginally better than SharePoint?”
BR: That perception compared to the reality of the problems we solve is different. If you are talking about document and group collaboration, SharePoint and Ektron are both strong products. If you are talking about building a branded Web site that’s public facing you have to take into consideration dealing with things like site deployments and the management of user generated content (synchronization), localization and the ability for marketers and business users to easily manage their organization’s online marketing and branding efforts. Ektron provides the technology to fully develop and manage a company’s online presence whether it is an intranet, extranet or public-facing Web site.
CC: To what do you attribute Ektron’s success in the market?
BR: The number one thing that Ektron is focused on is the success of the Web project as opposed to just a software sale. We understand that a Web project is about solving a critical business issue and we work closely with both our end clients and our Partners to ensure the project is successful and the end goals are met.
In addition to being committed to the success of their Web projects Ektron always asks our customers the question, “What do you want your Web site to do?” and we take action on the answers. Our ability to quickly bring to market the type of digital marketing functionality that our customers ask for combined with our own experience and understanding of where the Web is taking today’s businesses is another key factor in our success.
CC: Do you have any plans to widen your reach and branch into other market segments? If so, which and why?
BR: As I mentioned, we have had success at Ektron because we constantly ask our customers the question “What do you want your Web site to do?” and we take action on the answers. Because we continue to ask this question we continue to develop new tools and applications that our customers need to take their Web strategies to the next level.
For Ektron, it’s about more than just content management, it’s about listening to our customers’ and Partners’ needs and building the tools they need to align their Web sites with their business goals and their vision. Beginning with version 8.0, you are going to see Ektron continue to move into areas like social networking, online marketing and business intelligence.
CC: What have been your biggest successes for 2009 to date?
BR: When others have said to cut back we have significantly pushed forward with growth and it is paying off. We released game-changing technologies like PageBuilder and eSync. We have also added key personnel and built out our services organization to support the type of enterprise deals we are consistently winning. This commitment to developing our technology and growing our company has led to growth in revenue of 35 percent so far this year and I expect this growth to continue as we come to the end of 2009.
CC: What separates Ektron from its competitors?
BR: The most important thing to Ektron is customer satisfaction and therefore we differentiate ourselves by focusing on more than building great out-of-the-box functionality on a scalable Web development platform that allows for customization. We have built a complete services infrastructure to ensure the success of our customers. No other vendor can deliver the type of Web project support Ektron does to both our end clients and Partners.
We are also committed to innovation around what customers need to deliver engaging user experiences rather than strictly Web content management functionality. This innovation has led to the development of some truly differentiating technologies like our bi-directional synchronization engine and PageBuilder functionality.
CC: Do you have plans to expand into any other geographical locations?
BR: We recently relocated our Australian office to Sydney and opened an office in Singapore. We are always keeping our eye on other geographical locations as we continue to expand. In addition to physical office locations we have a large partner program and distribution channel that is also growing.
CC: What do you think is the biggest misconception about content management systems?
BR: People say the word CMS and the definition that they will receive from each of the vendors is completely different. We more broadly define the term than any other vendor in the marketplace. We believe that anything that interacts with your Web site should be able to be managed through your CMS.
CC: How do you personally define a CMS?
BR: A CMS is no longer about just managing a piece of content on your Web site. A CMS should be able to allow a non-technical user to manage any asset on a Web site that they wish to interact with, whether that is a piece of content, a picture, a video or information that is pulled from other sources. The CMS should allow marketing teams to launch online campaigns and manage rich internet applications. As I say, in the future Web sites will be mash-ups of information and functionality pulled from multiple locations. A scalable Web CMS solution should be able to display and manage that information regardless of where it is coming from.
CC: What situations do you feel best suit the use of Ektron over other CMS platforms?
BR: There are many different situations where a client would look to implement Ektron CMS400.NET. Some of the big game changers for Ektron that truly differentiate our solution from others include our PageBuilder and eSync technology. When organizations have the need to not only allow non-technical employees to be able to manage the content and assets on their Web site but also build new Web pages and add functionality on the fly, they look to Ektron. Similarly, if an organization is looking for a scalable platform with geo-synchronization capabilities they look to Ektron.
In other instances, organizations look to Ektron for social software and community expertise on both collaborative intranets and public-facing online communities. We also offer more out-of-the-box functionality than other vendors but still allow our clients the ability to easily customize the solution to fit their needs.
CC: Do you have any insight you can provide as to what can be expected from the next release?
BR: In the next release you will see a lot of new Social features, completely rebuilt calendaring and event management functionality, PageBuilder enhancements, eCommerce engine improvements, analytics and multivariate testing and a new user interface. In addition, we will also be including more tools on which marketers can build their online Web strategies.
CC: Thank you for your time, Bill.
To learn more about Ektron, visit their website at <a href="http://www.ektron.com">http://www.ektron.com</a>

Interview with Ektron CEO and Founder, Bill Rogers

Today, <a href="http://www.sdl.com" target="_blank">SDL</a> launched a unified suite of offerings to help marketers create and deliver seamless customer experiences across all channels, devices, regions and languages. 
 For a number of years, SDL have provided innovative software and service solutions via web content management, analytics, social intelligence, campaign management and translation services. Today, over 1,500 organizations, including 42 of the top 50 global brands, rely on SDL to deliver locally relevant customer experiences throughout the customer journey.
The <a href="http://www.sdl.com/CXC" target="_blank">SDL Customer Experience Cloud™</a> has been introduced in order to make it easier to deliver data-driven experiences at each point of the buying journey, regardless of location or device. 
<h2>Any Language, Any Context, Anywhere</h2>
Regarding the launch of the SDL Customer Experience Cloud™, Mark Terauchi – general manager at the Corporate Brand Office at Fujitsu, had this to say:
<blockquote>
“With thousands of customers all over the world, it’s especially important to have technology that allows us to engage with our user base in real time, in any language and context, from anywhere. We believe SDL can provide us with the ability to deliver a comprehensive customer experience, and the new releases from SDL will help us to advance our customer strategy more effectively.”
</blockquote>
Additionally, Mark Lancaster – the CEO of SDL, also commented:
<blockquote>
“We are in a new age of customer marketing where the journey and post-sale behavior can glean insights for brands to make smarter decisions about how they build relationships. This Customer Experience Cloud packs all the critical elements of customer experience management into one accessible suite and delivers on our vision that every marketer can meet the expectations of their global customer base and remain connected and responsive throughout the entire buyer journey.”
</blockquote>
<h2>Everything in the Cloud</h2>
Based on customer demand, SDL has spent the last several years integrating its Customer Experience Management products to work together and to deliver the entire solution in the cloud.  
Highlights of this new release include:
<ul>
<li>A single intuitive user interface across all SDL’s CXM products that has been significantly enhanced to provide a seamless marketing user experience that is modern, easy to use and easy to deploy.</li>
<li>SaaS delivery model for all SDL products, available now, with continuous enhancements quarterly throughout 2014.</li>
<li>Industry-first, integrated CXM Suite which enable marketers to create engaging, personalized and contextual customer experiences leveraging real-time data to drive better marketing decisions.</li>
<li>SDL Social is the only social intelligence solution with real-time analysis of social data and conversations across all social channels to effectively predict buying and brand advocacy across the entire customer journey.</li>
<li>The introduction of SDL Language Cloud, the industry’s first cloud translation solution offering both machine and human translation for radically simplified global translation – enabling marketers to engage customers in their preferred language across all interactions quickly and cost-effectively.</li>
<li>SDL Web Content Management is the first to enable marketers to easily target and drive consistent, contextually relevant digital customer experiences across all channels and devices from a single, intuitive interface.</li>
<li>SDL Marketing Campaign enables campaign testing, simulation, optimization and advanced segmentations – enabling customers to drive large-scale campaigns faster and more cost-effectively.</li>
<li>SDL E-Commerce provides advanced digital merchandizing features, which give retailers precise control over campaign context and prioritization over the placement of product and offers across search, navigation and promotional activities.</li>
<li>SDL Analytics provides real-time customer intelligence to understand, target and convert customers across the entire buyer journey.</li>
<li>SDL Documentation enables seamless post sales customer support by providing easy access to online materials including manuals, support information and other important documentation.</li>
</ul>
To find out more about the newly launched SDL Customer Experience Cloud™, check out <a href="http://www.sdl.com/CXC" target="_blank"> SDL's official website </a> .

SDL Launches SDL Customer Experience Cloud™, Aiming to Deliver Personalized Customer Experiences

<a name="_GoBack"></a>You’re not the little guy, anymore. Or maybe you never were to begin with. You have a huge cast of employees, spread out across a dozen offices across the country (or the globe). You’ve got a deep product or services offering and customers engaging an array of properties with little or no direct connection to each other. 
You’re a national organization, you’re a franchise-model business, you’re a big deal. There are hundreds of moving pieces in your marketing effort and you’re the one who has to keep it all together. 
Is your CMS helping or hindering you in this herculean task?
<h2>Holding the Centre: the Human Element</h2>
The most basic element of any marketing effort, big or small, is the human component; the living, breathing operators of your content machine. Organizing a large, diverse group of content creators, moderators and publishers of that content and strategic overseers can be a task too big to handle without the tools you’re using lending a helping hand. Workflow and permission tools are the first line of defence against the collapse of a complicated multi-site marketing effort. A solid workflow and permissions tool should allow you to manage the users of your CMS to function to the utmost of their skill, bound by the authority that you (and their immediate overseers) grant them. It should be granular – customizable on as many fronts as possible; give your users the ability to create, modify and delete entire pages but also give them a custom toolset to work with on any given page. 
What you want to aim for is a system that allows the highest and lowest skilled users to flourish. Have an employee with CSS and HTML knowledge? They should be allowed to directly edit the code of any given page. Have an employee who struggles with Microsoft Word? They need an interface on that exact same page that’s tailored to their level of expertise.
Seamlessness is crucial – the more work that your team can accomplish directly within your CMS, the better results you’ll have. An integrated CMS incorporating as many content tools as possible (text creation and management, image creation and editing, web and email campaigning tools, forms, landing pages, analytics, etc.) will boost your users ability to dedicate their attention on the task at hand. 
Every time a window closes and a program has to load is an opportunity for a focus breakdown. A system with fully-integrated marketing tools will allow you to reduce training time, add new members to your growing team with a minimum of fuss and allow you a single point of escalation should anything go wrong. Think big and look for a CMS that does, too.
Above the content layer itself, a nuanced workflow tool should empower you to customize the process of content creation. It should allow you to tweak the flow from ideation to collaboration to publication. At the most basic level, you should be able to assign publishers to any workgroup (product teams, faculties, offices) who can approve or reject content. 
Beyond that, a good CMS will incorporate lateral workflow elements – the ability for users to comment on and task content to each other along the same lines. If you’re working on a multi-locational campaign, for example, each office should be able to access that content, pass it back and forth and then submit it to head office for approval. This process should feel like playing ping-pong, not pulling teeth. Make sure your CMS encourages momentum instead of slowing you down.
<h2>Content Control from the Top Down</h2>
Whether you’re implementing a single site with many sub-sites or operating multiple sites within the same organization, you’ve got content fragmentation to worry about. There are elements of every multi-site layout that need to be the same; mandated from the top and integrated downward. Privacy policies, header and footer content, brand-guideline styles are all elements for which central control is required, among others. 
Your CMS should allow you to manage and deliver this content to your sub-sites with as little fuss as possible.
Generally, for centrally-controlled content, the bare minimum should be the ability to easily recognize what content is aggregated from elsewhere. Users of any operational authority level should be able to look at a page or email and know where the content comes from. This way, even if they aren’t enabled to edit that content themselves, you’re saving time answering questions when someone in the Montreal office thinks they need a different header graphic than the one the New York office uses. Users who have a solid grasp on what their responsibilities will be more inclined to focus on the content they do have ownership over. 
Beyond that, when changes are necessary, they should be easily performed by the users who have the mandate to make top-level edits and should populate down to all the sub-sites and accounts with the same instant speed you’d expect in publishing any individual piece of content. This should be instantaneous for all accounts necessary, whether part of a larger whole or an individual sub-account. If your CMS requires you to manually edit each and every time you need to update this kind of content, it may be time to rethink your CMS.
<h2>Ease of Aggregation </h2>
As websites grow, the library of press releases, news items, event listings and other general content tends to pile up. As new items are added, deciding what gets pushed to sub-sites and regional offices can be an organizational nightmare. Does the Product team page contain news releases from the home page? Does the Los Angeles office get news releases from the San Francisco office? 
If you have to deal with these kinds of questions on a post-by-post basis, you’re wasting time and energy that could be better served with bigger tasks. Look to your CMS for answers.
Content aggregation tools will allow you to tag and organize posts at the content-release level. So when you create a news article about acquiring that new San Diego property, you can tag it as “California” and “acquisition”. Once that’s done, an automatic listing of that content will appear wherever it is appropriate. This will allow you to create custom objects that can be placed on any given page and updated automatically whenever a new item is created. 
Imagine, then, that this California acquisition post will appear on the LA site, the San Francisco site, the head office news feed and the board-only site that displays all upcoming business news. All because your CMS enabled your user to tag that content. A little work setting up aggregation in the early stages will lead to a massive time savings later down the line.
This kind of aggregation should work multi-directionally; your head office should be able to create items that cascade down to individual sub-sites and your sub-sites should be able to populate back up to your main site. This kind of content sharing, controlled by automatic listing aggregation, provides a plethora of benefits – it’s a known fact that fresh content provides a massive SEO boost. Doubtless that there is content being created by your various teams that could be implemented elsewhere to keep pages full with fresh content and draw in Google and Yahoo crawlers like ants to a picnic.
<h2>A CMS to Make You, Not Break You</h2>
When choosing a CMS for your multi-site setup, keep in mind that there are two major elements to consider. The first is the human aspect of your business. You have a team or several teams of varying skill levels and discipline all working together to create your marketing effort on the web. You need a CMS that can be customized to wring the absolute best out of that team. You push them for perfection; give them a tool that will help them reach that high goal. 
The other side of the coin is the content itself, once it’s been created is it being implemented and managed in a way that supports your site setup? Aggregation, workflow and permission control that is granular and powerful can save time and effort and help you focus on the tasks that really matter. Coordination and compliance is the key to success in a complicated environment. Choose a CMS that empowers, not disables you.

In the Widening Gyre: Keeping Control of a Multi-Site Marketing Environment

SEO Samba, the premier organic search &amp; web marketing platform, will introduce SEO Toaster, its new free and open-source integrated Web marketing software application that no “do it yourself” entrepreneur should be without at this year’s annual PubCon.
SEO Toaster represents a serious alternative to Yahoo Stores for small e-commerce websites or WordPress when used as a corporate or affiliate CMS.  SEO Samba will showcase SEO Toaster at its exhibitor booth # 201 on November 11 and 12, and introduce it officially tonight as a sponsor of the Kick Off Networking Blast between 5.30 PM and 7.30 PM (PST).
SEO Toaster is a content management system (CMS) with an unique architecture that grows with your business, and makes piloting SEO execution and marketing for multiple websites from a central automated web marketing location possible. SEO Toaster makes it easier than ever for the small business owner to do the following:
<ul>
<li> Set-up their Web presence fast with an SEO CMS “right out of the box” solution:  no plug-in or complex set-up required</li>
<li> Embed all latest SEO techniques automatically right into their website from the get-go to achieve high rankings with Google and other search engines: No blog to read, or SEO expert fees to pay</li>
<li> Access a library of ready-to-use themes to jump-start your presence online</li>
<li> Have your regular <a href="http://www.design2work.net/">web designer</a> build, customize themes for your new or existing website is inexpensive thanks to the use of standard technologies and just 4 HTML and 2 CSS required templates</li>
<li> Add and edit their web pages without ever leaving their website thanks to front-end inline editing and pre-configured widgets such as featured areas, related pages, image gallery, comment system and more Sell products online with pre-built payment buttons for Paypal, 2checkout</li>
<li> Customize and integrate open source shopping cart and other applications</li>
<li> Build one, two, three and more money-making websites with SEO Toaster for free, then with a subscription to SEO Samba just a click away, centralize management of all your websites marketing and compound its effectiveness with access to powerful link building, Google News submission, email marketing, landing page optimization, Google Webmaster Tool and Web analytics modules, all of which are there to easily assist you in obtaining first-page rankings cost-effectively for multiple websites.</li>
</ul>
“We designed and introduced SEO Samba in December 2008 with the express purpose of automating many of the time consuming and manual search optimization processes,” said SEO Samba CEO, Michel Leconte. “Early adopters, such as B2B, franchises, affiliates, services and small e-commerce websites, have already seen the benefits of using SEO Samba, including building a Web presence that is cost-effective and producing thousands of top rankings in Google and other leading search engines. Case studies with actual live clients’ website rankings featured on our website at <a href="http://www.seosamba.com/" target="_blank">http://www.seosamba.com</a> undeniably back our claims up.”
Leconte added: “We created SEO Toaster, for the millions of small business owners, affiliate marketers, and e-tailers who suffer from the lack of search engines rankings visibility, cost, expertise and time investment necessary to bring WordPress and the plug-in “can fix it all ” (albeit late and often not reliably) patchwork mentality, or Yahoo store and their very limited proprietary web marketing and SEO functionalities”
In comparison, SEO Toaster enables the entrepreneur, e-tailer, or local small business owner or marketer to quickly establish their Web marketing presence with a single overarching objective:
Acquire top websites rankings, generate leads and sales.
David Culot is SEO Samba CTO and the leading force behind the easy-to-use, and easy-to-design CMS software. Culot comments; “SEO Toaster use an easy, front-end CMS, where you log-in and simply surf your live website and edit content right onto the page itself, and building, importing or customizing a website theme takes as little as 30 minutes for a web designer.”  Unique features include automated re-directs; onsite optimized linking, and link sculpting using Java script, and everything is ready and easy-to-use out of the box.
SEO Toaster is also the first cloud CMS and offers a foundation to scale successful web businesses with a one-click subscription to SEO Samba. Leconte explains:
“When you reach the point where you want to take your website to the next level of visibility, can’t afford the time to pilot each of your websites individually, or have already standardized your network of franchise or affiliate websites on SEO Toaster, push one button, and all your websites come together under an unified interface. Your entire portfolio of websites is now ready to receive and execute your orders such as modifying all pages URL’s, creating optimized links across your websites, landing page experiments, Google news ready articles and press releases…” These are advanced unseen functionalities that no CMS, whether open source such as Joomla, or Drupal, nor proprietary CMS and web marketing software provides.
Learn more at <a href="http://www.seotoaster.com">SEO Toaster</a>

SEO Toaster, the new free and open-source integrated Web marketing software application

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the three main social media platforms that guide most of the traffic from a wide audience. Yet, those media platforms have rules, agendas, and limitations that can be constricting to certain businesses, people, and viewpoints. Whether it is the lack of individuality inherent in these easily recognizable social networks, or simply because the company or cause sees something greater, utilizing a social networking content monitoring system (CMS) platform to create a social network is an intriguing option.
Here are five of the best social networking CMS platforms available use today.
<h2>SocialEngine</h2>
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/social-engine" target="_blank">SocialEngine</a> started in 2007 and was co-founded by Charlotte Genevier and Alex Benzer. Originally, this now open-source social networking CMS was created simply to help businesses create their own branded social network platform. This system boasts having no limits in customization, in-depth analytics, built-in security, and anti-spam.
SocialEngine also has two distinct options when it comes to specifically how you want to build your social network.
<h3>SocialEngine PHP:</h3>
SocialEngine PHP is designed to be downloaded and utilized in a format that is created completely by the individual user. Having a license to utilize this software means that the social network that a person creates is completely their own. Since this product was the first out of the duo, it is an extremely in-depth, extremely analytical, completely personalized response from your social network platform.
<h3>SocialEngine Cloud:</h3>
SocialEngine Cloud boasts an instant setup, total social integration and, while less in-depth and slightly less customizable than it’s PHP counterpart, it is also a simple, faster way to start an online network. The cloud version is easy to link to existing websites and if you need more than one social network, this platform can be enabled to host different social networking accounts.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
The biggest advantages that SocialEngine is known for is their customization and the ownership of the data that is put on the network. While SocialEngine hosts the platform on which the social network is built, all the contents, in addition to the network itself, is owned by the user.
<h3>Cons:</h3>
The biggest issue with SocialEngine is that many third-party plug-ins are not compatible with the platform. Therefore, the customization, although vast, can be dampened significantly by this inability.
Also, there are reports that despite multiple users complaining about this and other issues, the platform is slow to initiate change.
<h2>phpFox</h2>
In January of 2018, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/out/phpfox" target="_blank">phpFox</a> released its latest and biggest update, phpFox 4.6.0. This tells users that this is a platform that is keeping up with the times and always improving. Regardless of how good software is, complacency can hastily become their terminal downward spiral into tech history.
Therefore, one of the biggest ways phpFox continues to stay afloat is their focus on relevance; which is a theme that is inherent throughout their website and platform design.
phpFox has a free demo that allows their potential social networking creators to try out their basic service before committing to buying a license.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
The highlights of this system are their affordability, the abundance of features and their user-friendly interface.
With a one-time fee of their three-tiered system that allows social networkers to choose the capability of their network, such as whether to have video chat, makes it highly affordable.
The abundance of features makes customization and the ability to make a platform unique easy and accessible. Many of these features are available in the first tier of their pricing.
Last, the user-friendly interface, that has recognizable similarities to Facebook, make it appealing to the eye and recognizable.
<h3>Cons:</h3>
The biggest issue with phpFox is the customer service. While this platform has good representatives who are helpful, once you get ahold of them, the help is generally frustrated by their service pricing and schedule.
Customers who wish to get in touch with the company to help them with an issue must pay for their service (even those on the highest pricing tier).
Additionally, their scheduling for customer service representatives is strictly between business hours. This means that globalization of this platform is at a major disadvantage and, more importantly for the individual networker if you have a pressing issue after they close, or on the weekend, help will likely not arrive until the next business day.
<h2>eXo</h2>
The idea for <a href="https://www.exoplatform.com" target="_blank">eXo</a> was conceived in 2002 and was initially supposed to be an open-source project. However, after a lot of hard work and determination, in 2003, the project morphed into a company, taking on the US Department of Defense as their first client.
For the pricing platform of eXo, there are three main options, which are decided by the number of people who utilize your platform.
The first is the Professional Plan, which is available up to 200 users. The second option is the Enterprise plan, which services up to 1,000 users. The third option is the Enterprise Plus tier, which hosts an unlimited number of users.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
Considering that many users tend to have a good experience with eXo, there are many benefits to utilizing this platform. However, these pros are the most common:
eXo is hailed for having excellent content management, high sociability tools, and easy to use customization.
eXo has a reputation for being a complete platform, having perfected the balance between a social and collaborative effort. While there are a pleasing amount of add-on and exclusive features that can be easily integrated into the user’s social network, the open source programming gives users the freedom to build their network exactly as they see fit.
Plus, the customer service is always helpful, with a quick and detailed response (at no additional cost). 
<h3>Cons:</h3>
The only true disadvantage that eXo has on a wide scale, is that they offer so much, sometimes some of the larger features can slow the network down. While this is possible to fix, the completeness of such a true open source network makes it hard for some new users to navigate.
<h2>BoonEx</h2>
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/boonex" target="_blank">BoonEx</a> was started in 2001 by Andrew and Julia Boon. Originally, the couple only sought to focus on the software community. However, over the span of a decade, which is now reaching close to twenty years, the company has morphed into a reliable social CMS platform.
The company’s main product is often what people refer to the company as Dolphin.
With the full name of BoonEx Dolphin, this platform has gone through four major updates, the most current of which is Dolphin Pro.
*Fun Fact: With each update, the company ‘adopts’ a dolphin and pays for its care, in addition supporting many other animal, environmental, and human disability foundations.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
BoonEx is hailed for withstanding the test of time and updating itself to stay relevant. Some unique pros for this system are the membership ads, the ability to create a blog right on the platform and the ability to collect payments.
The way that their ad space is filled up is by the members. This keeps the network growing and expanding, while individual networkers are getting noticed on the platform that they chose to work with.
Also, in addition to being fully customizable, both with templates and social media connectivity, BoonEx also allows networkers to plan and present their own content. Members are easily able to add and update blogs to their network, create custom RSS feeds and even share documents.
Third, BoonEx allows network users to collect payments through their social network. It is easy to set up and makes the network, especially for a charity or other like-minded idea, look extremely put together and professional. For some networks, this could change the entire way they operate, simply by the ease of being paid right through the social network they created.
<h3>Cons:</h3>
The major issue with this platform is the lack of options for certain functions, such as templates. While they do have a marketplace that negates that con slightly, having to pay for something as simple as a template, when a networker is already paying for a membership is cause for annoyance.
<h2>NING</h2>
<a href="https://www.ning.com/" target="_blank">NING</a> started in 2004 and is proud to be one of the major CMS platforms in the industry. The company boasts a simple, customizable, drag and drop design that is completely socially integrated, mobile, and refined by up to date SEO and analytics features.
Even though they are a company conceived in the USA, their globalization is on point, with the ability to read the contents of their website in six different languages proudly displayed on their website.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
The benefits of using NING are that they have a reputation to be easy to work, the content tends to show up high on Google searches, and the platform can easily be monetized.
The NING platform is synonymous with being easy to work with and seamless in its customization. This platform is always striving to keep up its relevance and achieves this goal through apps, plenty of features and affordability.
Secondly, NING focuses its efforts on staying SEO savvy, which helps the contents for all the platform’s users to show up high on Google searches. This is useful, both for seasoned networkers and those who are still trying to build their user base.
Additionally, NING is one of the CMS platforms that has made monetization of the network a priority. If a possible networker is looking to sell ad space, this is a good option, especially for those who are just starting out.
<h3>Cons:</h3>
NING is not without faults, however. While it has its benefits, there are also a few complaints among the users.
The first of which is that although the packages are affordable, they come with limited bandwidth, which once a networker has exceeded, they must upgrade their package. This tends to get frustrating extremely quick.
Secondly, since the NING site is integrated with each individual social network on the platform, there is a higher possibility for spamming. To rectify this situation, NING limited the number of friend requests a networker can send to fifty. This helped a little bit but the aggravation for the legitimate networker was heightened.
Also, another one of the most prevalent issues that users seem to have with NING is that the platform has a reputation for being inexpensive. While it is far from looking cheap, some people seem to have that opinion of the platform. Thus, if the networker intends to use the platform for its monetary capabilities, they might be faced with issues, simply because of the affordability of the platform.
Nevertheless, if a networker can build a reputable social platform, it won’t matter where the site is hosted. 
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
In conclusion, there is no CMS platform on this list that is necessarily better than another. At the end of the day, there is a social networking CMS platform that is better suited for every business. After all, each business is unique and therefore, deserves to choose an equally unique platform on which they host their social network. However, hopefully, this list has shed some light on the options that are available and helped make that decision a little more manageable.

5 Best Social Networking CMS Platforms

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