Articles - Page 154

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

bmckeiver

Email marketing is one of the most successful, most cost-effective, and most important features of your business. But in order to cash in on the power of email marketing, you've got to have the right email marketing provider.
This review of five email marketing platforms will help you to make an informed decision as to which email marketing system is best for you.
<h2>Constant Contact</h2>
<a href="https://www.constantcontact.com/email-marketing/signup.jsp?cc=CLK_DCLKAFFROSTEXT">http://www.constantcontact.com/</a>
Constant Contact is one of the oldest and biggest players in the email marketing industry. Their customer list has the likes of Microsoft, AmericanExpress, HP, and others. In a growth effort, Constant Contact has emerged from mere email marketing to encompass event planning (EventSpot), social campaigns, local marketing (SaveLocal), survey creation, and more. Though they are constantly changing their email editor, it still remains somewhat clunky and vexing, especially when compared to something slick like MailChimp. Nonetheless, for its competitive pricing and quality features, ConstantContact is a great option. 
Pricing:
<ul>
<li>0-500:  $15 </li>
<li>501-2,500:  $30</li>
<li>2,501-5,000:  $50</li>
<li>5,001-10,000:   $75</li>
<li>10,001-25,000:  $150</li>
<li>$25,000+:  Undisclosed</li>
<li>(All pricing monthly, according to mailing list size)</li>
</ul>
<h2>iContact</h2>
<a href="http://www.icontact.com/">http://www.icontact.com/</a>
Geared mostly toward the B2B community, iContact is a full-fledged email marketing system with all the standard features — templates, customization, metrics, and social media distribution. One advantage of iContact is its integration with several CMSs — Joomla, SalesForce, and Drupal. iContact's customer service has a sterling reputation, so you're sure to get the help you need when you need it.
Pricing:  
<ul>
<li>Up to 500 subscribers:  $14/month</li>
<li>Up to 2,500 subscribers:  $29/month</li>
<li>Up to 5,000 subscribers:  $47/month</li>
</ul>
<h2>ExpressPigeon</h2>
<a href="https://expresspigeon.com/">https://expresspigeon.com/</a>
It hasn't yet sprouted wings and soared with the same popularity of the others, but ExpressPigeon has the potential to be a top-notch mail carrier. The potential lies in the technology, which is powerful, advanced, and super flexible. One of the major shortcomings of other email marketing tools is their inflexible editors or prefab templates. Without HTML knowledge, you're somewhat limited in your options. Not ExpressPigeon. ExpressPigeon uses Zen simplicity with a WYSIWYG editor to make the job easy. No HTML knowledge needed. ExpressPigeon's slick A/B testing tools, market segmentation, suppressed list feature, and unlimited list power makes it one of the most advanced yet best-keep secrets in the email marketing industry. We'll likely see ExpressPigeon get bigger and better in the months ahead. 
Pricing:
<ul>
<li>0-500:  $8.99</li>
<li>Up to 2,500:  $19.99/month</li>
<li>Up to 10,000:  $49.99/month</li>
<li>Up to 50,000:  $209.00/month</li>
</ul>
<h2>MailChimp</h2>
<a href="http://www.mailchimp.com/monkey-rewards/?utm_source=freemium_newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=monkey_rewards&amp;aid=f192bbc03638ab99433d2efbd&amp;afl=1">http://mailchimp.com/</a>
Brilliant marketing, sweet tools, and a marvelous interface make MailChimp a really appealing option for many companies. Clearly postured toward startups, B2Cs, and small businesses, MailChimp makes email marketing cool again. The whole chimp thing might be a little quirky, but the serious delivery power of MailChimp makes the whole system really appealing. With an open API, you'll see plenty of programs and sites that have Mailchimp integration — PayPal, FreshBooks, SurveyMonkey, etc. Oh, and they've got apps for any mobile device you want. Plus, MailChimp's A/B testing is very intuitive, unlike some of the other email marketing contenders. One of the few downsides of Mailchimp is the analytics interface. I've been underhwelmed by MailChimp's reporting. It seems hard to mashup numbers in the way that I want, but this is a pardonable shortcoming. 
Pricing:
<ul>
<li>0-2,000 subscribers, with a limit of 12,000 emails/month:  Free</li>
<li>0-500:  $10</li>
<li>501-1,000:  $15</li>
<li>1,001-2,500:  $30</li>
<li>2,501-5,000:  $50</li>
<li>5,001-10,000:  $75</li>
<li>10,001-25,000:  $75</li>
<li>25,001-50,000:  $240</li>
<li>Pay-as-you-go, prepay, high-volume rates, and high-volume CPM rates also available.</li>
</ul>
<h2>AWeber</h2>
<a href="http://cmscritic.aweber.com"></a><a href="http://www.aweber.com/">http://www.aweber.com/</a>
This company takes email marketing seriously. Their buffet of help options, seminars, complementary coaching, and campaign strategy consultations demonstrate their commitment to solid email marketing efforts. Like iContact, AWeber integrates with Drupal. Another helpful feature of AWeber's reporting is that it pulls numbers from Google Analytics. One aspect of AWeber that sets it apart from the mass of other email marketing platforms is its handy auto responder tool. With templates, full automation, and complete personalization, AWeber's autorresponse feature is easy and intuitive. Plus it comes free with a subscription. Pricing:  
<ul>
<li>Trial:  $1</li>
<li>$19/month</li>
<li>$49/quarter</li>
<li>$194/year </li>
</ul>
There are plenty of email marketing programs on the market. The key is to find one that works for you. Each of the platforms discussed above have a loyal following and proven success.

Top Five Email Marketing Platforms

daniel-threlfall

Imagine being able to share the two minutes that matter from any conversation, anywhere. It would be the death of dead-end discussions and circular meetings, where we find ourselves endlessly “recapping,” “regrouping” and “getting up to speed.”
<blockquote>
“The amount of information lost in our daily business exchanges is truly extraordinary,” said HarQen CEO E. Kelly Fitzsimmons.  “By not capturing conversations in a trusted system, we are asking people to memorize all their conversations and then recall them accurately in an instant.  No wonder we feel increasingly overwhelmed by communications today.”
</blockquote>
This week at eComm 2011, HarQen, Inc. will demonstrate Symposia, a new cloud-based offering that dynamically transforms any conversation into an interactive synopsis that lives long after the conference call, meeting, webinar or presentation has ended. With Symposia, organizations can capture and enrich conversations so greater insight can be retained and shared; ushering in a new era of business intelligence.
<blockquote>
“HarQen Symposia is an example of how voice is evolving,” said Rich Nespola, Chairman and CEO of TMNG Global. “HarQen has figured out how to monetize voice by transforming it into valuable, reusable content.”
</blockquote>
HarQen Symposia converts conversations – in all their various forms and languages – into searchable, referenceable and actionable insights. Initially, Symposia will be focused on use cases for sales-related presentations, customer-service exchanges and account status calls.  HarQen is integrating Symposia into key Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs), such as Salesforce.com, leveraging their privacy and security features.
Symposia allows conversations to be captured as they occur, both visually and aurally, and then enriched collaboratively with notes, tags or uploaded imagery via Smartphones, using classic social media conventions.  With this approach, participants can organize the content around key ideas, themes or action items, so the key information is always accessible and sharable.
<blockquote>
“Prior efforts to isolate phrases and assign meaning largely missed the boat,” said Dan Miller, Senior Analyst at Opus Research.  “Context, sentiment and much of the meaning is distilled out of conversations when voice is rendered as text and then subjected to analysis according to static business rules,” explained Miller.  “Even with ‘state-of-the-art' recording and analytics, there is no timely way for people to find and share what they found to be the most important parts of ongoing interactions.”
</blockquote>
Symposia unleashes the wealth of information trapped within conversations by allowing users to:
<ul>
<li> Capture on-the-fly conversations via voice, tags and images from Smartphones</li>
<li> Enrich meetings with dynamic collaborative content — without technology barriers</li>
<li> Organize sales calls within CRM solutions and review unfiltered customer reactions</li>
<li> Navigate in any language with multiple ways to find key information anytime, anywhere</li>
<li> Share insightful exchanges via existing data management systems using HarQen’s API</li>
<li> Analyze what webinar attendees find important and share in real-time</li>
</ul>
Availability
Symposia will be available later this year.
About HarQen
HarQen unleashes the richness of information trapped inside conversations – transforming talk into actionable insights.  HarQen’s award-winning Intelligent Voice Service enables conversations to be captured, enriched, organized, navigated, shared and analyzed – improving collaboration and adding a new layer of business intelligence to existing data management systems. Milwaukee-based HarQen was founded in 2007 and is privately funded.
For more information on HarQen:
Web <a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=50408619&amp;msgid=392144&amp;act=K3CY&amp;c=616364&amp;destination=http%3A%2F%2Fharqen.com%2F" target="_blank">http://harqen.com/</a>

HarQen Introduces Symposia at eComm 2011

mike-johnston

TERMINALFOUR launch latest version of world leading Web Content Management product TERMINALFOUR Site Manager. The new release includes major developments to its automated migration and importation features, including migration paths for Reddot, Percussion, Interwoven, Vignette, OmniUpdate, Serena Collage and SunGard LCMS. TERMINALFOUR Site Manager 7.1 also benefits from a new reporting functionality which integrates reporting tools such as Google Analytics.
<ul>
<li>TERMINALFOUR Site Manager 7.1 supports migration from competitor Web Content Management Systems</li>
<li>Equipped with automated migration scripts for Reddot, Percussion, Interwoven, Vignette, OmniUpdate, Serena Collage and SunGard LCMS</li>
<li>Equipped with enhanced importation tools and new reporting dashboard for analytics integration</li>
<li>Greater integration with mobile platforms and search software</li>
</ul>
TERMINALFOUR, a leading web content management company, today announced a new release of its Web Content Management (WCM) software TERMINALFOUR Site Manager.  The latest version, TERMINALFOUR Site Manager 7.1, has benefited from significant enhancements to its automated migration capabilities and importation tools.   The launch is a reaction to increasing market demand for an easier and more straightforward migration path from competitor WCM systems.
The new release of TERMINALFOUR’s web content management system includes major developments to its automated migration and importation features, including migration paths for Reddot, Percussion, Interwoven, Vignette, OmniUpdate, Serena Collage and SunGard LCMS.  For other systems, the latest version has been equipped to handle raw migration including the ability to import directly from raw HTML and XHTML and CMS databases.
TERMINALFOUR Site Manager 7.1 also benefits from a new reporting functionality which integrates reporting tools such as Google Analytics and displays them on the dashboard.  It also allows webmasters to configure the dashboard to integrate with a host of third party reporting and analytic systems.
The latest release delivers greater support and functionality to developers with enhancements to our API. There have also been significant improvements to the internal search engine delivering a more powerful and effective search experience. The advanced capabilities in TERMINALFOUR Site Manager 7.1 allow organizations to repurpose content for websites and mobile delivery in one easy operation, with a new sample Mobile site installed with the application as standard.  This includes delivery to mobile sites and Apps which ultimately adds to the ease-of-use and cost saving benefits of the system.
Piero Tintori, CEO and founder, said:
<blockquote>
“There is great disparity between web content management products in the marketplace today.  Some vendors are blazing a trail with extremely modern, technically advanced and heavily funded solutions while others have failed to continue to invest in R&amp;D.”
“There are many organisations out there that feel locked into their existing WCM systems.  They are missing out on the opportunities to capitalize on the latest WCM functionality all because of the perceived complexities of migrating”, he continued.
“However, we’re definitely seeing a greater willingness to move from incumbent providers with nearly 50% of our new projects being migrations from other systems.  In fact, our migration team has successfully completed more than thirty migration projects for new clients in the past year”, Tintori concluded.
</blockquote>
Website: <a href="http://www.terminalfour.com/">http://www.terminalfour.com/</a>

TERMINALFOUR Site Manager 7.1 Enhances Migration Capabilities

DevHub is a <a href="https://www.devhub.com/">Web Experience Platform</a> – brands and <a href="https://www.devhub.com/case-studies#agency">performance marketing agencies</a> use DevHub to streamline deployment of sites as part of larger marketing strategy. This is achieved cost effectively- through robust APIs and cloud hosted infrastructure.
DevHub offers an arsenal of unique tools to enterprises that are managing a high volume of template-driven sites. Companies go to market faster while ensuring conversions, security, brand compliance and web standards are consistent across the web experience.
By focusing on this specific set of challenges, the DevHub platform simplifies the administrative buy off process with simple contracts. Deploying much more rapidly (&lt;30 days) and more cost-effectively than conventional CMS providers. This is DevHub.
Unlike large CMS providers, DevHub provides custom services that make it nimbler when addressing the needs of this segment of the market. Through their APIs they can co-exist with other providers supporting analytics, advertising, and CRM and other third-party services critical to both site and campaign performance -see Integrations: <a href="https://www.devhub.com/integrations/">https://www.devhub.com/integrations/</a>
A core strength of DevHub is its segment expertise. As companies continue to develop multi-channel marketing initiatives, the demand to service a high volume of sites will continue to grow. They will face challenges with maintaining those sites in a cost-effective fashion without the single-source publishing and administrative capacity of a DevHub.
The total cost of ownership for DevHub when addressing this specific challenge is likely to be a fraction of what one would expect when considering an alternative provider. DevHub typically bundles on-boarding services/ migrations, reducing implementation time and the need for the customer to develop a high-degree of product-level expertise when compared to conventional CMS options. This flexibility and responsiveness lets the customer focus less on the “building” or implementation and plan instead for the lower cost of basic maintenance.
DevHub's market sweet spot is the “<a href="https://www.devhub.com/devhub-landing-pages">Scaled Landing Pages</a> for Full Funnel Attribution” or “<a href="https://www.devhub.com/">co-op marketing</a>” or “<a href="https://www.devhub.com/multistore">franchised</a>” organizations leveraging a multi-channel digital marketing strategy. Business within this sector are performance driven so conversion accountability is critical to securing budgets. The mid-tier segment of this market has a unique set of demands (high site volumes, limited IT resources, limited budgets, short execution cycles) that DevHub addresses better than the alternative CMS systems.

DevHub Identified as the Go To Web Experience Platform for Performance Marketing Agencies and Brands

Information management specialists Ixxus today announced the launch of its Social Content Platform for users of the Alfresco Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system.  Alfresco is the leading global open source ECM provider with nearly 2,000 customers in 55 countries and Ixxus is the first company to develop a specific module for managing and creating social content across the platform.
The Ixxus Social Content Platform features out-of-the-box integration with existing social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, meaning that users can create a central repository based on Alfresco for managing both their traditional and now social content. Through being able to disseminate and access information quickly and in a consistent manner via a single platform, organisations can improve both brand awareness and customer loyalty, as well as create revenue opportunities.
<blockquote>
“Being able to manage and share social content effectively is becoming a huge challenge for a lot of organisations as the rules have changed regarding how people consume media and interact online. Whereas previously organisations may have had control over the content they published, today’s social media channels are making this a much more difficult task,”
</blockquote>
said Paul Samuel, Director at Ixxus.
<blockquote>
“While recognising the importance of social media, many organisations currently manage it in a siloed fashion using a number of different tools and with very little integration with their existing content management systems. Furthermore, it can be very difficult for organisations to keep track of and record all their social media interactions with customers, which is becoming increasingly important when it comes to customer service. With our Social Content Platform we aim to provide Alfresco users with one co-ordinated point where they can publish their social content and interact with their online audiences in a more controlled and efficient fashion.”
</blockquote>
The Ixxus Social Content Platform offers users a number of features including:
<ul>
<li>Integrated social content publishing – Out-of–the-box integration with your existing website, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, enabling users to directly publish to social media sites from their content management system. As an open platform it will also allow for easy integration of future publishing channels. Ixxus has even created an algorithm that will help reduce content to 140 characters so it can be sent out via Twitter.</li>
<li>Central management of feedback – The Social Content Platform also provides users with the ability to view and respond to user comments via a common interface. This means that users no longer need to use separate tools and ensures better response consistency across all social media channels.</li>
<li>Review and publish workflow – Organisations can set the necessary workflow publishing approvals for all their social content to help ensure that messages are consistent and potentially damaging tweets or Facebook updates aren’t published. Time-based workflow can also be set up to ensure that scheduled content goes out in a co-ordinated manner across all communication channels.</li>
<li>Powerful reporting – Integration with reporting tools such as Google Analytics means that organisations can gauge the success of their social media activity, providing marketers with full campaign management. For example, analytics may show that Facebook activity was more successful than Twitter on a particular campaign, meaning that an organisation may choose to focus more on Facebook activity in the future.</li>
<li>Full history of published content – The Social Content Platform provides organisations with access to a full history of their published content.  This means that users can easily search and retrieve content, and provide them with the ability to roll-back changes across one or more of their web or social media sites.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
“Most organisations are faced with the dual pressure of driving out costs but at the same time increasing efficiency.  One way of doing this is to sort out their information infrastructures and create better repositories for all their content. Modules such as our Social Media Platform can help organisations simplify and improve the speed of their communication processes by minimising the number of tasks and people involved. Furthermore, as it is based on an open platform like Alfresco customers can have peace of mind that they will have an extensible and future-proof solution without the lock-in of propriety systems,” added Paul Samuel.
</blockquote>
Ixxus (<a href="http://www.ixxus.com/" target="_blank">www.ixxus.com</a>)

Ixxus launches Social Content Platform for Alfresco Enterprise Content Management customers

Telerik has just announced the release of Sitefinity 7.2. This new version of the popular content management system brings a number of new features to the platform. Let's take a look at what we can expect from this release.
Key features of Sitefinity 7.2 include:
<ul>
<li>Integrated marketing personas for optimized content marketing, which helps business users define and manage guidelines on keywords, messages and content relevant to customer profiles, and personalize the visitor experience based on persona profile</li>
<li>Project Feather, an open source mobile-first UI framework that enables the creation and deployment of Sitefinity websites</li>
<li>An introduction of Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud, to help marketing track, measure and optimize digital experiences delivered across channels, while accelerating marketing performance</li>
</ul>
Project Feather Puts Mobile First
Project Feather, the Sitefinity mobile-first UI framework better enables the creation and deployment of Sitefinity websites. Project Feather allows developers to build mobile-ready sites using their favorite frameworks and includes features such as MVC stock widgets, an AngularJS widget designer framework, Boostrap and Gumby support and more.
Project Feather is available on GitHub, for more details visit <a href="http://projectfeather.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">http://projectfeather.sitefinity.com/</a>.
Introducing the Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud 
Telerik is also releasing a preview version of the Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud, a solution that enables marketers to track, measure and optimize digital experiences across channels. When released in early 2015, marketers will have access to the customer journey database, predictive analytics, dynamic segmentation and content management, all in a single platform. It is a completely new cloud-based solution that captures and analyzes the total customer journey.
“Big data and predictive analytics are rapidly-growing market segments that customers are demanding their WCM solutions address, but most vendors are far behind the curve,” said Martin Kirov, Executive Vice President, Sitefinity, Telerik. “Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud was built to help digital marketers measure, understand and optimize customer experiences across channels and deliver a guided customer journey.”
Details on the latest release of Telerik Sitefinity CMS, Project Feather and the Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud can be found at <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com" target="_blank">www.sitefinity.com</a>.

Telerik Announces Sitefinity 7.2

Ektron today announced a major upgrade to the company's flagship software. Ektron 8.5 is the most significant release in Ektron’s history, empowering a new level of developer productivity and enterprise scalability, wrapped in a new, sleek user interface.
<blockquote>
“We’ve taken extensive feedback from our customers and partners and have delivered a release that radically transforms the developer experience with Ektron,” said Bill Rogers, Ektron CEO and founder. “Ektron is privileged to service some of the largest companies in the world, and 8.5 sets the standard for enterprise scalability with key new components including a 3-tier architecture and new search platform.”
“As a long standing Ektron partner, n-tara is pleased with Ektron’s developer focus with the release of Ektron 8.5,” said Jeff Morris, co-founder and CTO of n-tara interactive. “The development team at n-tara is excited about using the new developer-oriented features in 8.5, including the new Framework API and .NET 4.0 support.  Ektron 8.5 is a transformative release for Ektron and we can’t wait to start deploying it for our clients. ”
“Anyone who is developing web content really needs to look into Ektron 8.5,” said Clinton Porter, Commercial Director, Nvisage, one of the leading Ektron developer partners in Europe. “The new Microsoft Search service really puts Ektron into a whole new realm for developers to craft tools such as ‘find as you type’ search.  Altogether, 8.5 is a major advancement for Ektron developers and their clients.”
</blockquote>
Jonathan Tonberg, Chief Technology Officer at Ektron Elite partner, Realise Digital, noted, “The new, 3-tier architecture in Ektron 8.5 really helps Ektron fit into our clients’ infrastructure and corporate strategies.”
In addition to the developer-focused features, Ektron 8.5 includes a new user interface, designed to provide Ektron users with a modern, intuitive and fun user experience.
<blockquote>
“One of the challenges Valassis consumer brands such as RedPlum™ face is how to engage on-line consumers with entertaining content such as our SweetFinds™ Deal of the Day,” said Brian Costello, General Manager and Vice President for Digital Strategy and The RedPlum Network for Valassis.  “The new, intuitive interface in Ektron 8.5 helps our editors focus their creative energies on content creation.”
</blockquote>
Highlights of Ektron 8.5 include:
<ul>
<li>New Workarea: A redesign of the Workarea interface for a modern, intuitive user experience.</li>
<li>Expanded developer API:  The Ektron Framework API radically improves developer productivity through a highly consistent and discoverable set of functions and methods.  When combined with new support for Microsoft LINQ, developers can now design websites with a fraction of the code it took to accomplish the same work in the past.</li>
<li> 3-tier architecture: Ektron is the first enterprise .NET web content management vendor to deliver a 3-tier architecture.  In a 3-tier configuration, no Ektron software exists in the web tier, meaning CIOs and IT architects looking for maximum scalability, reliability, and security can now deploy Ektron in a manner consistent with enterprise software deployments.</li>
<li>.NET 4.0 support:  8.5 supports .NET 4.0, including support for Microsoft® Visual Studio® Web Application projects.</li>
<li>Enhanced search capabilities:  Now based on the Microsoft Search Server, Ektron Site Search  brings new features including faceted navigation, dynamic search relevancy tuning, federated search, automated query suggestions, search analytics reports, and more. Ektron Site Search  offers massive scalability, scaling to tens of millions of items and beyond, including all types of web content, Microsoft Office documents and rich media content.</li>
<li>eSync enhancements:  Ektron’s unique synchronization technology now includes a diagnostic utility to generate a real-time map of an eSync network, providing real time visibility into a server topology.</li>
</ul>
The feature-complete Release Candidate build of 8.5 is available for <a href="http://ektron.com/Trial-Version/?cc=mcepr000085">download now at ektron.com</a>, with final release targeted for September 2011.
About Ektron
Ektron’s web content management (WCM) platform simplifies the creation, management and delivery of multi-channel customer experiences for global organizations that are looking to engage with customers online.  Ektron speeds time-to-web, drives business outcomes, and builds customer loyalty through software that powers corporate websites, intranet portals, and social communities.  Ektron goes beyond traditional WCM, putting the power of the entire customer lifecycle, from acquisition through conversion and retention, into the hands of your marketing and web teams so that customers continuously receive relevant, fresh content. Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, Ektron has more than 8,000 customers worldwide including: The Home Depot, Kodak, Microsoft, NASDAQ and National Health Services UK. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.ektron.com/">www</a><a href="http://www.ektron.com/">.</a><a href="http://www.ektron.com/">ektron</a><a href="http://www.ektron.com/">.</a><a href="http://www.ektron.com/">com</a>.

Ektron Unveils Ektron 8.5 Web Content Management Platform

Semrush - Be an SEO hero

Be an SEO hero with Semrush

#ffffff

Reverse Proxy is the tool performance marketing agencies need — in order to keep up with the changing mobile web.
Simply put — <a href="https://www.devhub.com/">Reverse Proxy</a> creates a mirror image copy of the advertiser’s website with all of the content the same, except phone numbers can be replaced with call tracking and the ability to add embedded analytics is a lot easier. DevHub’s proxy technology can read a current site/ landing page’s content and can replace key actions with those that are measurable i.e. calls, form fills, downloads, coupons etc.
As more retailers are getting better at building their web experiences i.e. websites. Reverse Proxy allows brands/ agencies to mirror a site on a unique domain. This is important as agencies need to place their analytics in order to optimize search engine marketing campaigns. Utilizing reverse proxy allows agencies to use their internal tags, A/B testing and analytics to measure ROI without having the client administering shared access or placing new tags – while protecting sensitive site data.
DevHub's proxy technology is getting smarter by the minute as new platforms get analyzed and the ability to proxy 98% of websites is closing in on 100%.
DevHub's proxy uses the latest web search best practices to ensure sites are not indexed as proxy is primarily used for performance marketing/ attribution.
Evidence of DevHub’s global prominence in servicing performance marketing agencies with reverse proxy in 2016,is evident in the numerous customers who deployed proxy solutions ahead of Google’s Expanded Text Ad requirements – based on DevHub’s growing arsenal of tools in web experience.
DevHub's <a href="https://www.devhub.com/performance-marketing">Reverse Proxy</a> solution is dynamic and supports all Bing and Google Expanded Text Ad requirements. An important feature which minimizes downtime is our proxy technology's use of robust caching – from images to page content – ensuring the site is always being served – and campaign dollars are being measured.
One way to leverage DevHub's Reverse Proxy technology is through our APIs which allow for:
<ul>
<li>Account provisioning</li>
<li>Deploying SSL at Scale</li>
<li>Analytics Reporting</li>
<li>Adding/ Disabling proxies</li>
<li>Sandbox environment for testing</li>
<li>Bulk update URLs</li>
<li>Automate domain registration</li>
</ul>
And we are thinking about what is next for proxy…allowing site publishing – by leveraging a site(s) existing assets to build from versus starting from scratch …think…
<ul>
<li>Hide distracting navigation elements to tighten the conversion funnel</li>
<li>Write your own optimized copy and call to actions</li>
<li>Add any of DevHub's modules or integrations to pages</li>
<li>And of course.. track every interaction the visitor does to get the full view of how the campaign is performing</li>
</ul>

Are You Using Reverse Proxy?

Two leading players have announced the Drupal Open App Standard Initiative in an effort to help create an improved user experience within the Drupal content management system and to help spur the development of the Drupal economy.
Phase2 Technology, based in Alexandria, VA, and SubHub, based in Cardiff, United Kingdom, have been collaborating on the initiative to achieve interoperability for Drupal apps and thus make it possible for any developer to write an app that would then be deployable across multiple app market implementations.
<blockquote>
“Our goal is to make trying out, adding, or removing Drupal functionality simple for site users,” said Jeff Walpole, CEO of Phase2. “Through partnership within the Drupal community, we've seen these aspirations become actualities in our own products. We look forward to seeing app marketplace growth match the pace of Drupal adoption world wide.”
“The ability to easily create and add apps enhances the usability of Drupal and therefore helps to make Drupal more accessible to a wider audience,” said Evan Rudowski, CEO of SubHub. “We view apps as being crucial to the growth of a Drupal economy, making it easier for developers and others to distribute, sell and profit from the functionality they build.”
</blockquote>
The Open App Standard defines an app as a discrete package that solves a specific, well-defined task and can execute the task without the need for further coding or development. An app can then be added to a website to enable the specific feature or action.
SubHub launched its own app market in late 2010 for its subscription content platform built using Drupal. The SubHub app market includes apps for MailChimp, Google Analytics, content feeds, Disqus and YouTube.
Phase2 earlier this year launched an app console for OpenPublic, a Drupal distribution for public sector clients. The companies then formed a working group to compare their respective “app” implementations and to consider ways to ensure that apps might be made to be interoperable.
Discussions around the Open App Standard were facilitated by Robert Douglass of Acquia, a leading provider of commercial hosting solutions for Drupal. Douglass will make the public announcement of the Open App Standard to the Drupal community on 23rd August in a session at DrupalCon London.
About Phase2 Technology Phase2 Technology designs and develops enterprise Drupal platforms for publishing and media companies, government and non-profit organizations. Phase2’s team of creative designers, business analysts, software developers, and project managers also are passionate contributors to the open-source community building several widely used Drupal distributions including OpenPublish, OpenPublic and Open Atrium. Find out more at <a href="http://Phase2Technology.com">Phase2Technology.com</a>.
About SubHub SubHub makes it simple for anyone to build their own money-making content website. Thousands of individuals and small businesses use SubHub to profit from their passions, publishing content to their communities and making money through subscription and membership. SubHub can be found at www.subhub.com. Developers can learn more about SubHub’s app market implementation at <a href="http://open.subhub.com">http://open.subhub.com</a>

Drupal Open App Standard Initiative Launched

Another month goes by and BOOM. Just like that, the summer is halfway gone. During this time our developers have been busy working in the latest Agility Release. We've got a killer feature lined up for you, and a few other things designed to spice up your summer publishing experience.
The latest release includes several highly requested items from both clients and partners, Digital Channels, New Development Bar, and new Dialogs and Structures for future features.
Within the items that were added or fixed are:
• 5 different kinds of channels: Website, Mobile Website, Mobile App, Facebook Page and Content API. • Login page now prepopulated the email address when opened directly from a sample site welcome email. • Style rules from the “Other Editor Style Sheets” are now readded to the CSS. • The preview bar now refreshes the page and switches out of preview mode, without forcing the window closed. • Fixed the Dynamic Page Friendly URLs to handle special characters with accents. • Pagination missing from the moderation view in UGC • Fixed issues when a UGC definition has more than 20 fields. • Fixed Javascript errors when adding a custom section to a UGC definition • The spacing and timestamps in the UGC Alert emails have been corrected. • Image size restriction validation is corrected in a few select scenarios. • Language Dropdown binding issues in Dynamic Page Content listing dialog. • Language dropdown was not being populated and was not visible properly in the Shared Content and Dynamic Page Content tabs in the Digital Content area. • Agility.Web upgrades can no longer be triggered when the site is in Development Mode. • Redesigned the upgrade in progress dialog UI. • Site updating message has been cleaned up. • Updated the developer bar to be more streamlined as well as resize to mobile browser sizes for both tablets and phones. • When editing users in the global security section, the Content Moderation tab now has checkboxes to select multiple items. • Cleanup of the UI on the publish list dialog. • The image manager now updates the thumbnail in the manager right after you upload your file, it doesn't wait for a save action like previously. • Publish list dialog confirmation update. • Added a link to the tutorial for the URL Redirections beside the HTTP Code in the add URL Redirection dialog. • Added a double prompt to deleting Shared or Dynamic Content. • Constant across all Languages and Unique in Each Language are now separate values and can be used separately or at the same time. • BrightCove submissions that are submitted with ” or ! in the name or description are now sent properly and processed by BrightCove. • Shared Content version history had errors opening in IE8. • js, css, and txt files are now gzipped and have the appropriate content-encoding set for Amazon S3.
<blockquote>
“We have considered our clients and partners feedback and have launched a release that touch Agility in many different areas and make development easy and faster”, said Jonathan Voigt, Agility CMS Co-Founder, CTO.
</blockquote>
About Agility Agility is a cloud-based content management system for managing internally produced and user generated content across web, mobile and social media. Agility is designed to be easy for developers, editors, designers and marketers. It integrates with best-of-breed solutions for video management, ad serving, search, analytics, email marketing and more. Their Perfect Fit Guarantee ensures that you will be satisfied with your CMS implementation, or the license fees are free. You can implement Agility internally, or work with their implementation partners. Agility powers sites for Uncle Ben’s, Campbell’s, Subaru, Whiskas, Cineplex, CTV and Shoppers Drug Mart.
Website: <a href="http://www.agilitycms.com">www.agilitycms.com</a>

Agility CMS August 2011 Release is Live

WebRadar is an automated content reporting and analytics application designed by Ephox exclusively for IBM Web Content Manager. Version 3 was just recently announced and brings with it a number of new features.
WebRadar 3 delivers new user-focused features, which include advanced reporting capabilities, charting, personalized dashboards, report sharing, and email notifications. WebRadar 3 also leverages new workflow and project features introduced in version 7.0 of IBM Web Content Manager.
<ul>
<li>Expanded Reporting Features Now you can now run thousands of different reports related to content in IBM Web Content Manager. Users have access to a report building engine that provides the power they need to run reports that matter to them.  WebRadar 3 also comes with custom pie and bar charts for each report created.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Project Reporting New reporting criteria is available to work with IBM Web Content Manager 7.0’s new project capabilities. Project reporting makes it easy to identify which content items might delay the publication of your project.  If you want to know how many times your home page has been updated, by which projects, and when, then WebRadar 3 delivers.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Advanced Multi-Edit Features With WebRadar 3, the number of fields available for editing has expanded. Now making changes to multiple pieces of content is simpler and more effective. You can easily move content between site areas and assign existing content to new workflows, reassign content authoring tasks, update content expiration dates, adjust permissions, or extend web campaigns.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Charting Analyze large, detailed result sets quickly with new charting capabilities.  View data according to any of the IBM Web Content Manager metadata fields.  You no longer need to wade through reams of data to get meaningful insights from your web content management system.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Designed for Multiple Departments WebRadar 3 introduces a wide array of enhancements that make content reporting and content analytics available to a broader user base. WebRadar 3 can now be used by IT, Marketing, HR, Content Managers, Content Authors, and other departments who publish web content.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Personalized Dashboards WebRadar 3 comes fully loaded with customizable dashboards. Now WebRadar users have easy access to the reports that help them manage, analyze, and modify content that they’re responsible for.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Create, Share, and Email Reports Users can create daily or weekly report subscriptions delivered directly to their inbox.  Reports can be saved as spreadsheets or PDFs and can be shared with anyone within the organization.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>New Permission Settings Gain a higher level of security with WebRadar 3’s new permission parameters. WebRadar’s varying levels of permissions allow you to grant or prevent access from creating and viewing reports to multi-edit functions.  </li>
</ul>
Here is a video demonstrating the capabilities of WebRadar version 3:

<div style="text-align:center">[[webradar]]
<div style="text-align:left">To learn more, visit <a href="http://webradarwcm.com">http://webradarwcm.com</a>


</div></div>

Ephox announces version 3 of WebRadar for IBM Web Content Manager

Igloo Software, a cloud intranet provider, today announced the next version of their Software as a Service platform – code named Scone, highlighted by the introduction of a new document preview engine. Igloo provides secure preview of documents uploaded into the platform, without requiring download onto mobile devices. Content is automatically formatted to fit the users screen with Igloo's built-in responsive design, with gestures optimizing the experience for users with touch screens.
Igloo's document preview offers support for more file formats, including Microsoft Office, and most audio, video, and image types. Document preview is available on any device with a web browser, and is displayed in-line with Igloo's built-in collaboration features, enabling users to comment on documents, @mention team members, and control versions.
Users can now download previewable documents as a PDF, removing the need to store files in multiple formats. Rather than managing a working file and a production file, users can collaborate around their documents in Igloo and download the final version as a client-ready PDF – regardless of its source file type.
<blockquote>
“Today's workforce is changing the concept of where work gets done,” said Andrew Dixon, Igloo's Senior Vice President, Marketing &amp; Operations. “We work everywhere, using the device we have with us – whether it's a laptop, a tablet, or a phone. With responsive design and enhanced document preview, you can work from anywhere without worrying if you downloaded the latest version of the file or if your device can only open specific file formats. And with enterprise-grade security, your files are safe and duplication is minimized.”
</blockquote>
 Other key elements of the release include:
Support for HTML5 Video Igloo's video player now supports HTML5 playback on any device, including standard and high-definition streaming, intelligent device detection and easy embedding inside or outside of Igloo intranets. Users can upload videos in a wide selection of formats, including avi, mkv, mov, mp4 and wmv, and view content right in the browser with HTML5 playback.
New Social Analytics Dashboard Igloo's social analytics use a state of the art business intelligence engine from MicroStrategy to analyze social interactions within the platform. In order to make it easier to consume the information and draw insights from the data, Igloo has introduced a new dashboard which provides a unique measure of community health across four key dimensions: membership, networking, content, and collaboration. Administrators can also drill-down into reports with real-time sorting and filtering capabilities.
Mobile access Igloo intranets come with responsive design built-in, providing an optimized experience for laptops, tablets, and phones – securely delivered over the web. Igloo also offers a mobile app for finding content quickly on the go. Customers can download the app by searching “Igloo Mobile” from their device on the <a href="http://tinyurl.com/ckdqyla">Play Store</a> for Android smartphones and tablets or <a href="http://tinyurl.com/dyo6s8n">Apple's App StoreSM</a>.
Availability Scone is a free update instantly available for all Igloo customers, starting August 31, 2013. Anyone can sign up and try Scone for free at <a href="http://www.igloosoftware.com/tryscone">igloosoftware.com/tryscone</a>. Igloo is free to use with up to ten people.

Igloo makes their Cloud Intranet Software Mobile

When hunting for a new web content management system, exploring your options can feel exhilarating. After all, with new software, comes new possibilities.
However, things take a serious turn when it comes to assessing the flexibility of your short-listed platforms in terms of integration options.
Most businesses will be looking at a long list of tools that need to be integrated with their new CMS. This includes databases, third-party or legacy apps, a CRM, an eCommerce system – and sometimes all of the above.
Not to mention, future technologies will also need to work seamlessly with the new CMS as and when they release.
In other words, the CMS needs to be compatible with what is already in place, and future-proof at the same time.
No platform can truly offer such flexibility right out of the box. Unless of course, it comes without a box.
<h2> Why Open Suite? </h2>
Magnolia has recognized that a one-size-fits-all solution is unrealistic. So instead, they ship their CMS without the confines of a conventional “box”, taking the Open Suite approach instead.
Magnolia’s Open Suite approach, along with its totally open source nature, gives users the power to choose their own tools and applications, and to decide for themselves exactly how they are integrated.
Users can combine the best available tools without any vendor restrictions, and with all the benefits of Magnolia’s enterprise-grade Java foundation.
Here’s a quick summary of the benefits brought about by Magnolia’s open suite approach:
<ul>
<li> Tool Freedom: Maximize choice by using best-of-breed tools.</li>
<li> Cost Effectiveness: Pay only for components you need and will use.</li>
<li> Seamless Integration: Reduce disruption by integrating with existing business know-how and processes.</li>
<li> Intelligence &amp; Flexibility: Upgrade parts of the suite at different speeds, depending on current needs.</li>
<li> Risk Reduction: Lowering costs and adding flexibility means less risk.</li>
</ul>
For further details on what Magnolia’s open suite approach brings, you can check out my previous coverage: <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/magnolias-open-suite-approach-maximizing-choice-future-proofing-digital-investments/"> Magnolia's Open Suite Approach: Maximizing Choice &amp; Future-proofing Digital Investments </a> .
Development teams however, will want to dig a little deeper into the technicalities of Magnolia’s open suite approach. So, let’s take a look at exactly how it works.
<h2>Getting Technical</h2>
Magnolia’s open suite approach is all about integration – on a whole new and ultra-inclusive level.
Magnolia's Open Suite approach is based on an enterprise-grade stack, best-of-breed open source tools and a framework that balances best practices for content, configuration and templates.
Complete freedom can be exercised with every aspect of the CMS, from which templating engine you choose to which analytics provider you integrate. It’s entirely under your control.
Magnolia’s combination of open APIs, open standards and open source code allow developers to swap out components or build custom components as needed. In fact, <a href="https://app.magnolia-cms.com/"> Magnolia's App repository is growing all the time </a> .
This complete openness makes Magnolia a highly adaptable and interoperable CMS. It simplifies the building of custom suites, all of which can be specific to your organization’s needs.
Below is a handy developer transit map that gives you a birds-eye view of the integration options available, illustrating which technologies are best suited for your requirements.
<h2> Combating Common Obstacles </h2>
Magnolia’s open suite approach is as practical as it is intelligent. Here are some common obstacles faced by enterprises, along with Magnolia’s solutions.
<h3> Access your website content from other applications </h3>
 JCR: Magnolia CMS stores all content (web pages, images, documents, configuration, data) in a Java Content Repository (JCR). JCR is an open standard. This makes custom development of content-based applications easier.
<a href="http://documentation.magnolia-cms.com/display/DOCS/Content%2Bstorage%2Band%2Bstructure"> Read more about how Magnolia stores and structures content </a> .
 REST: Magnolia CMS also offers a REST API, which allows you to read and modify website content over HTTP. The content can be pages, components, contacts or anything else that is stored in Magnolia’s content repository. You can also execute commands to activate, export and import content.
<a href="http://documentation.magnolia-cms.com/display/DOCS/My%2Bfirst%2BREST%2Brequest"> Read more about Magnolia’s REST API </a> .
 PHPCR and WebDAV: Coming to Magnolia CMS from the world of PHP? No problem. You can also access JCR content with PHPCR, the DavEx module and the PHP Jackalope implementation. And you can use Magnolia's built-in WebDAV support to let users easily create, edit and manage templates on the Magnolia CMS server.
Check out Magnolia’s <a href="http://www.magnolia-cms.com/home/resources-directory/webinar-recordings/phpcr.html"> PHPCR webinar </a> and <a href="http://www.magnolia-cms.com/resources-directory/screencasts/webdav.html"> WebDAV screencast </a> . 

<h3>Create workflows that reflect real-world business processes</h3>
 Apps: Magnolia CMS Apps are browser-based applications that run inside Magnolia CMS and help enterprises integrate content authoring with business process workflows.
With Apps, users can control and manipulate data stored in the CMS. Magnolia's Apps work equally well on mobile and desktop devices, and can therefore be used on the move. Apps can be connected with databases, Web services, workflows and notifications.
Magnolia provides an App framework to quickly bootstrap new Apps, and you can use Vaadin and GWT to build the user interface for your Apps.
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/the-best-practices-for-designing-a-magnolia-app/"> Read more on Magnolia apps </a> .
 jBPM: jBPM workflows can be used to connect common Magnolia CMS actions, such as content activation or versioning, with your business processes.
Out of the box, Magnolia CMS comes with a <a href="http://documentation.magnolia-cms.com/display/DOCU/Workflow+configuration"> “four-eye” workflow </a> , and you can also create your own custom workflows. Workflows can also be integrated with Magnolia’s messaging hub, <a href="http://www.magnolia-cms.com/product/features/interface/the-pulse.html"> “The Pulse” </a> , for real-time notifications and messaging.
<a href="http://documentation.magnolia-cms.com/display/DOCS/Workflow"> Read more about Magnolia’s workflow functionality </a> .
 Observation: Using Magnolia's content observation mechanism, you can trigger customized actions in response to content changes.
Event listeners can monitor changes in content and trigger pre-defined responses when changes are detected. Common examples include automatic publishing or deactivation of content and sending emails.
<a href="http://documentation.magnolia-cms.com/display/DOCS/Observation%2Bmodule"> Read more about Magnolia’s Observation module </a> .
<h3>Give your website a consistent look and feel, even on mobile devices.</h3>
 Templating: Magnolia CMS uses templates to give structure to rendered content. Out of the box, Magnolia CMS understands Freemarker and JSP templates, but you can also plug in your own custom engine. Microformats and JSTL tags are supported as well.
<a href="http://documentation.magnolia-cms.com/display/DOCS/Templates"> Read more about Magnolia templates </a> . 
 
STK: Magnolia's <a href="http://www.magnolia-cms.com/product/features/development/stk.html"> Standard Templating Kit (STK) </a>  is a production-ready collection of templates for common use cases. It implements the principles of RESS: Responsive Web Design + Server-Side Components.
Web pages rendered with the system are compliant with HTML5 and CSS3, as well as modern accessibility guidelines.
<a href="http://www.magnolia-cms.com/stk"> Read more about Magnolia’s STK </a> .
For even more information on the technical workings and benefits of Magnolia’s open suite approach, check out this white paper.
The white paper also holds Magnolia's solutions to other common obstacles, including security, performance, using external documents and assets, and adding custom functionality via Spring or Grails.
Also, be sure to check out <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/products/magnolia-cms/"> Magnolia CMS via our CMS Directory </a> .

A Deeper Look at Magnolia's Open Suite Approach

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