Articles - Page 159

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

bmckeiver

<a href="https://svbtle.com/" target="_blank">Svbtle</a> is a minimalist blogging platform that has been through a few changes since its launch in 2011.
Initially, Svbtle membership was invite only, and this exclusivity was actually one of its key selling points. In 2014 though, it became available to everyone for $6 a month.
<a href="https://svbtle.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Screen Shot 2015-12-13 at 17.40.17.png" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/4c-GN4lD_HofTbmUFca2Bagg3V7uNIviTWI4Hn4nFbCxb18-7Rr7O6YXni-SlCnyHPH-PX3aCer5l3QkgS6yHhk3ppGcBd5dlk8xBpPMkNijyrFefXclnMcAlshrwunoZtbMTDq_" /></a>
Svbtle creator, Dennis Curtis, says he initially limited users because he wanted to prime the site with strong content and test it out before launching to the wider public. By inviting only select members, his goal was to create a site that housed meaningful and substantial content, but that might be a little tough to maintain now that it’s been made accessible to everyone.
I decided to take a look and see what Svbtle has to offer and hopefully this review will help you to decide if it’s publishing platform you’re looking for.
<h2>Getting Started</h2>
The signup process is simple. First, you’ll have to insert your name, email, password, and then come up with a nickname for your subdomain (you’ll get a svtble.com domain name automatically, but you can create a custom one later on).

<img alt="Screen Shot 2015-12-13 at 13.55.50.png" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/VHDMROlmHQ4d-77xKSKNlj5KM9GvmcFNLo1Z6LmYQFJBnPURsV6jpAh3xoR6R_1CvWCWp66uEsGv959wI2zpIzWxuADoM6GUOjNx4oc2eLFc4wKTwMKqZfWS5BR_CSktG4eXPxz4" />
New customers are offered a 2 week free trial, but you’ll need your credit card on hand to sign up for the monthly $6 fee; if you don’t wish to continue after the 2 weeks, you can simply cancel your card.
I can’t say I’m fan of this method though; it might as well say ‘please insert your card details and forget to cancel so that we can continue to charge you’.
But if you keep track of time, you won’t have any problems. And who knows, you may not want to cancel at all.
<h2>Ease Of Use</h2>
All of your posts will be composed on the ‘Ideas’ page, which you will be brought to when you click on the dashboard tab in the menu on the right hand side.
This screen is divided into 2 sections with your unpublished posts (ideas) on one side, and your published posts on the other.
<img alt="Screen Shot 2015-12-13 at 13.58.43.png" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/JGHMp7IPQJDQwWhC5ZYboY7-N75l9TIoZIciZtqK8uS8ZXi-ulB0oSNkQ5x9KDzuRp5fnUdV98vLPSBVMrWeYC3QS_O7fARAGr7teovQLwGB5Qxl2CqwLyydfS5PnZzywMjkabdF" />
When it comes to publishing a post, the Svbtle ‘editor’ really is as minimalist as it gets.
There are no menus available and you’re simply presented with a space to enter your blog title and post. If you want to make edits such as font changes, you will need to use Markdown – which adds in extra work that you really don’t need, especially if you have to learn it from scratch.
The only other features are the post scheduler and custom URL. If you wish, you can also choose to allow Svbtle to feature your post.
<img alt="Screen Shot 2015-12-13 at 15.27.58.png" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/CHioK2zaMdtmyShkgocCYybHmFH4FABmZrPuZwFRUUZawgA5nkes09rGvi3Sk8pykzm2xEgK8dH8Mz0Xed0-2sVGa4wm7LSLBpYvpS1Np1TTF770HSDYws2PsUyk6sTJACQIYO85" />
<h2>Themes</h2>
If you love customizing and designing your own themes, then you won’t be very happy with what’s on offer.
There are no tools or widgets, so choosing an accent colour and adding an avatar will be the extent of your creative endeavors here. I understand why Svbtle went down this route, after all – it’s a minimalist blog, but it won’t be for everyone.
<img alt="Screen Shot 2015-12-13 at 13.56.05.png" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/YkcFGjY3nMWUuguAn_jPZgOfAYiMxDzPVx2mJmlkD6_qr8I4hhsecGDzvD6Wp10nuE28T6RSTQywm0OGuMsUzPqGeLJ0I-IlqVm-W2Te2g4TrpwYmay32ERwThxGSaFbT530EhAH" />
<h2>Content Management and Promotion</h2>
Svbtle doesn’t allow comments. Instead, users can offer ‘kudos’ if they like a post – which isn’t exactly the best conversation starter.
Your readers also can give you a ‘nudge’ if you haven’t posted recently.
<img alt="Screen Shot 2015-12-13 at 14.05.26.png" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/EduQdYQIDTAd4tuS57p7c7Ot8QQIs9T4JoKKvX7BKyvdOJo_lkHPOEdTUkFr0qj3yOJMimzFZyucjMRTj71w_9lrHdxlLRWY2Is5eZrHmQd5mlh9XkZKl_UK64ibzbj6ryNTHUOA" />
In terms of social sharing, there are optional Twitter and Facebook share buttons which you have to enable yourself, and you can also add your email address for people to contact you with feedback.
I can see how disabling comments minimizes the work involved in managing a blog, but I think users should have the option to enable them if they wish. SEO is also left out of the loop and there are no tools available to keep your metadata in order which will probably be an issue for some users.
However, there is at least a Google Analytics section which will allow you to incorporate analytics by typing in a code number.
<h2>Support</h2>
<img alt="Screen Shot 2015-12-13 at 17.15.55.png" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ckARFhl8g-VvmfY8NOlT8SFSjnJdZgayHQWet_lQX2PxwoPVRJ4avO2X3YR8muwsYQ12ft0GjGOukLJqYO6zlHVXkbQvmMrHEKu8EFa9XC-h4e53TF3bZg9fU4bC02rDwkBJUpxE" />
There’s a distinct lack of community within Svbtle and this contributes to the lack of support available.
In the Help section, you’ll find a few FAQ’s and some useful Markdown documentation, and there’s an email address you can contact with any issues – but then you’re playing the waiting game until someone gets back to you.
Some real-time action would make a big difference here, such as adding an instant chat box or a help forum to the mix.
<h2>On The Fence</h2>
To sum it up, Svbtle just isn’t what is used to be.
When Svbtle first launched, it was a status symbol of sorts – and the sleek design and simplicity wasn’t its only appeal. Bloggers felt ‘special’ to be invited and have their work featured. But now that it’s readily available and competing with similar platforms such as Medium, Svbtle is going to have to up its game.
Sure, it has a beautiful design and an easy-to-use interface – but is that it? It can’t be, not if it wants to succeed.
Instead of being created with the user in mind, I think Svbtle was originally created with Svbtle in mind. And this worked when it was a clique that remained elusive and difficult to join, but now that it’s become open to everyone – the ‘we don’t need any frills because we’re the best’ vibe doesn’t really work anymore.
Hopefully this is something that will change pretty soon, because this is an elegant writing platform with a ton of potential.
Svbtle will appeal mostly to writers who aren’t overly concerned with engagement or promotion, and that’s absolutely fine. Maybe that’s the niche it’s going for. Not everyone simply writes content to improve their SEO ratings, promote their business, or create communities online.
Some people just write, to write. Svbtle was created for the lone wolf; the writer who will mull over drafts for weeks and tweak their posts to perfection; the writer who writes only for themselves and isn’t one bit apologetic for it. And I love those kinds of writers. Sometimes I am that kind of writer.
It can’t be denied that Svbtle is beautifully designed platform creates a distraction free zone for professional writers, and if I was looking for something like Evernote to keep track of notes and ideas for personal use, then Svbtle would be perfect.
But if a client asked me to set up a business blog for them today, this platform wouldn’t be my first port of call.
Have you used <a href="https://svbtle.com/" target="_blank">Svbtle</a> in the past, or are you using it at the moment? We would love to hear your thoughts on it in the comments below.

Svbtle Review

grainne-logue

eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), the world’s largest online marketplace, today announced an agreement to use Joomla, the most popular open source content management system (CMS), to launch a community portal as part of eBay's internal analytics platform. eBay is leveraging open source for employees and supports an ongoing commitment to driving innovation across the business.
Known as “community analytics,” the initiative will be accessible by eBay’s 16,400 employees, and will incorporate social aspects of active collaboration, including content creation, sharing and open discussion. Joomla CMS supports eBay’s expansion of community-oriented knowledge sharing and information discovery.
“eBay has always made it a key priority to encourage employees to collaborate and drive business innovation,” said Bob Page, eBay vice president, analytics platform, “We are working with the open source community to elevate insightful ideas and innovations across our company, from our greatest resources, our employees.”
With the largest commercial data warehouse in the world, more than 100 times larger than the Library of Congress, eBay requires immense computing capabilities to mine and decipher actionable data. The new community analytics initiative enables employees to source and analyze massive amounts of data to power ideas and learning across the company. eBay will also contribute back to the open-source community.
“eBay is a welcomed addition to the Joomla open source community,” said Ryan Ozimek, president of Open Source Matters, a not-for-profit created to provide organization, legal, and financial support to the Joomla project. “With such a large data demand, eBay is pioneering open-source employee-based projects for the enterprise.”
The announcement coincides with Joomla Day USA West 2010 being held on the eBay/PayPal North campus in San Jose, Calif. today through Sunday, Oct. 3. The event is showcasing the latest developments and best practices within the Joomla open source community, including a speech from Oliver Ratzesberger, senior director of analytics platform at eBay. About eBay Inc. Founded in 1995 in San Jose, Calif., eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) connects millions of buyers and sellers globally on a daily basis through eBay, the world's largest online marketplace, and PayPal, which enables individuals and businesses to securely, easily and quickly send and receive online payments. We also reach millions through specialized marketplaces such as StubHub, the world's largest ticket marketplace, and eBay classifieds sites, which together have a presence in more than 1,000 cities around the world. For more information about the company and our global portfolio of online brands, visit <a href="http://www.ebayinc.com/" target="_blank">www.ebayinc.com</a>.
About Joomla! Joomla is the world’s most popular open source CMS (content management system). With 2.5 percent of the web running on Joomla, the CMS is used by individuals, small and medium-sized business, and large organizations worldwide to easily create and build a variety of websites and web-enabled applications. Due to its power and elegance, it can be used by the most inexperienced user to the most seasoned web developer. Since its inception in 2005, Joomla has been 100 percent community owned and operated, and its software has been downloaded more than 16 million times. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.joomla.org/" target="_blank">www.joomla.org</a>.

eBay Selects Joomla! Open Source to Foster Innovation From the Inside Out

mike-johnston

Today, via the <a href="http://www-01.ibm.com/software/commerce/summit/" target="_blank">IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit</a> in Tampa, Florida, IBM announced <a href="http://www-01.ibm.com/software/marketing-solutions/experienceone/" target="_blank">IBM ExperienceOne</a>.
ExperienceOne is a new integrated portfolio of cloud-based and on premise offering that brings together marketing, sales and service practices, enabling organizations to create deeper, more valuable customer engagements.
 The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is an American multi-national technology and consulting corporation. Currently, seven out of the top ten commercial banks, financial services companies and U.S. retailers today use IBM’s world renowned customer engagement solutions.
Using their vast experiences through working with over 8,000 organizations worldwide, IBM's newly released ExperienceOne delivers a set of pre-defined engagement solutions delivered with IBM consulting services.
Craig Hayman, General Manager, Industry Cloud Solutions, IBM, had this to say about the news:
<blockquote>
“Smarter Commerce is about helping clients continuously reinvent themselves around the customer experience. IBM ExperienceOne provides a secure and simplified portfolio – including innovation from more than 1,200 partners – to help clients design and deliver more valuable customer engagements.  With cloud, on premise and hybrid options, IBM ExperienceOne quickly scales to engage every customer in the moment while protecting their privacy.”
</blockquote>
ExperienceOne is delivered with market-leading consulting, agency and system integration services from the  <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/43041.wss" target="_blank"> IBM Interactive Experience</a> practice, as well as the company’s $100 million investment to open 10 IBM Interactive Experience labs and add 1,000 employees to help clients deepen engagement through data-driven design. 
<h2>Maximize Sales &amp; Deliver Empowering Experiences</h2>
In addition to this news, IBM introduced enhanced software capabilities that support three of the new engagement solution sets:
<ul>
<li> Understand Your Customers:  At the heart of this solution set is IBM’s newly integrated Digital, Behavioral, Social Media and Predictive Customer analytics offering to help clients identify real-time trends based on internal and external customer data.  It features new mobile analytics that can replay individual user sessions on both Android and iOS device apps, enabling marketers and commerce professionals to pinpoint the exact moment when a customer decided to browse, buy or abandon a transaction. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> Maximize Sales, Profit and Loyalty:  This solution set helps clients quickly act on insights and maximize customer value using IBM's enhanced omni-channel merchandising capabilities.  It enables merchandising professionals to automate price optimization, maintain real-time transparency and competitive pricing across all physical and digital channels to deliver the right offer to the right customer at the right time. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> Deliver Empowering Digital Experiences:  As the gateway to each customer touch point, this solution set is supported by enhancements to IBM’s customer digital experience software.  Marketing, sales and service professionals now can more easily leverage dynamic customer, pricing and performance analytics by embedding real-time offers into their mobile, social and rich media experiences. The real-time offer engine automates personalization across the customer experience at scale, increasing engagement, satisfaction and sales.</li>
</ul>
Furthermore, IBM added three new cloud business solutions to give clients more flexibility in how they purchase and deploy IBM ExperienceOne. These solutions combine consulting services, IBM ExperienceOne software and cloud infrastructure powered by SoftLayer, an IBM company. They include:
<ul>
<li> Customer Data as a Service:  Enables clients to combine disparate customer data from internal and external sources to improve marketing performance and revenue growth.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> Customer Analytics as a Service:  Helps organizations quickly identify new customer trends, anticipate future behavior and suggest next best actions to deepen engagement.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> Digital Commerce as a Service:  Allows business leaders to deliver exceptional digital experiences and accelerate time to market for a range of customer engagement solutions from order capture through fulfillment. </li>
</ul>
Find out more about <a href="http://www-01.ibm.com/software/marketing-solutions/experienceone/" target="_blank"> IBM ExperienceOne</a>.

IBM Launches ‘IBM ExperienceOne’

Bitrix, Inc., a technology trendsetter in business communications solutions, announces the availability of Bitrix® Site Manager 9.5 – this year’s most ambitious product release, launching a new industry standard in website management usability with its new Amber Ergonomics concept. Amber features a fully revised adaptive interface that enables click-away editing of web pages and site structure, offers handy website optimization tools and allows establishing a full-featured online business in a matter of hours.
Websites have become a major marketing tool for businesses regardless of the industry focus and organization size. However, difficulties arise with website management as even minor content changes may require the involvement of a web specialist thus increasing the solution TCO and preventing fast decision making.
JavaScript is disabled in your browser
The Amber concept in Bitrix Site Manager 9.5 effectively addresses the widespread demand particularly among small and medium-sized businesses for easy website management.
Editors can initiate work with content and structure directly on website’s frontend with a button click. The changes are instantly available on the website with opportunity to easily roll-back to the previous state.
The ribbon-style administrative console also offers quick access to commonly used web tools such as search engine optimization, web analytics, template wizards and performance monitor.
Website fine tuning and adjustment of additional modules can be done in the user-friendly backend powered by an adaptive interface. The adaptive interface stores the editor’s activity patterns and settings (favorites, filters, toolbars, etc.) and creates a portable personal workspace that brings the user’s preferences to any computer and browser the editor may use.
Amber also delivers clear advantages to web developers and VARs. Coupled with the turnkey websites (ready-made website templates) included in Bitrix Site Manager 9.5, Amber significantly accelerates the development process. It allows much more to be accomplished in less time than ever before, which is important when time is short, when time is money. At the same time, the product assures a higher rate of customer satisfaction and enhances the developer’s reputation as a trusted technology advisor, leading more business opportunities.
Bitrix Site Manager 9.5 includes a number of additional features that strengthen its position as a cost-effective, full-featured and easy-to-use website management system for small and mid-size businesses.
The integrated e-Learning feature now allows management of training courses straight from the website frontend. Editors may easily import ready-made SCORM courses, insert video and audio content, perform a morphological search with the D.I.G. engine and cascade courses, letting users proceed depending on their performance.
The pool of turnkey websites includes a ready-made template for an online store integrated with PayPal and other payment services. Page wizards let editors easily create new web pages from pre-set templates, while the system automatically transliterates the page titles into friendly URLs to contribute search engine optimization.
Website: <a href="http://www.bitrixsoft.com">http://www.bitrixsoft.com</a>

Bitrix® Site Manager 9.5 Introduces Amber Ergonomics - A New Concept in Website Management Usability

Nuxeo, the Open Source Enterprise Content Management (ECM) company, today announces the new Nuxeo Marketplace, the first app store available for the ECM market, as part of the release of the 5.4 version of Nuxeo Enterprise Platform (Nuxeo EP) and Nuxeo Document Management (Nuxeo DM).
Nuxeo continues to deliver on its strategy of innovation in the ECM space. The launch of the Nuxeo Marketplace is the next logical progression for the Nuxeo Enterprise Platform, designed and built specifically as a foundation for content applications. Nuxeo Marketplace is a solution catalog offering a range of packaged modules created by Nuxeo developers and Galaxy partners. Nuxeo Marketplace gives subscribers to Nuxeo Connect access to an ever-evolving range of applications, plug-ins and feature extensions to enhance their content management experience and enable quick deployment of new packages.
Nuxeo Admin Center is also fully integrated into the 5.4 release, delivering a one-stop dashboard for system administrators to manage their Nuxeo instances. Simplified registration of their Nuxeo-based applications, up-to-date patch management and issue tracking, and fully integrated access to customizations built with Nuxeo Studio, or available in Nuxeo Marketplace, ensures smooth management of production and development systems alike.
“The Nuxeo Marketplace and Nuxeo Admin Center offer an experience that is unique in the ECM space right now. No other ECM platform is flexible enough to allow system administrators and application builders fully-integrated access to a streamlined catalogue of packages, plug-ins, and updates. We are continuing to fulfill the Nuxeo strategy of improving the way content management application developers and administrators adapt to the business and technical needs of their customers and stakeholders,” said CEO Eric Barroca.
Applications and add-ons available in the Nuxeo Marketplace include new automatic document categorization and content analytics integrated with the state-of-the-art FISE semantic engine, an enhanced query builder called “Smart Search” that allows users to sort and visualize columns and search results, workflow validation modules, enhanced audit features, bulk document importers for rapid content intake and easy content bookmarking tools. The availability of new tools, apps and modules via the Marketplace gives administrators the ability to control their own ECM roadmap, to implement these new add-ons at their own pace, and to better support the requirements of their information workers.
Highlights of Nuxeo EP and DM 5.4 include:
<ul>
<li>Nuxeo Marketplace: A complete solution catalogue offering a range of free and paid plug-ins, templates and applications created by Nuxeo developers, Nuxeo Galaxy partners and customers.</li>
<li>Nuxeo Admin Center: A personalized download and real-time patch notification dashboard for Nuxeo Connect subscribers.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Content Views: A new service to manage and configure content listings, including documents, search results, and log entries.</li>
<li>Faceted Navigation: An advanced navigation mechanism that enables repository browsing with dynamic filtering on multiple facets (metadata).</li>
<li>Document Routing Service: Enables user-designed flows of documents and selection of stages (human or automated) among a shared library of steps.</li>
<li>CMIS Support: Nuxeo EP includes the newly released Apache Chemistry OpenCMIS.</li>
<li>New Nuxeo Studio Features: Content Views configuration, to enable fast and easy design of content listings.</li>
<li>JBoss 5.1 and JBoss EAP support.</li>
</ul>
To download and learn more about Nuxeo DM 5.4, visit<a href="http://www.nuxeo.com/dm54" target="_self"> www.nuxeo.com/dm54</a>.

Nuxeo Announces New Nuxeo Marketplace, The First ECM App Store

At the 2010 Synergy Worldwide Customer Conference this week, Ektron announced a new Enterprise Technology Partner Program. The initiative aligns Ektron with market leaders such as Brightcove, Lionbridge and Webtrends to provide comprehensive, integrated solutions that protect and measurably enhance customers’ enterprise technology investments.
“CIOs and CMOs have made significant investments in technologies like analytics, customer relationship management, eCommerce, globalization, marketing automation, search, social networks and video. Companies are not looking to replace these existing investments; instead, they want to derive more value from them,” said Bill Rogers, founder and CEO of Ektron. “The fact that Ektron is not focused on hyped point solutions, but true technical integrations that extend the value of our technology with the market-leading technologies of our partners is a key differentiator for us.”
Among Ektron’s new Technology Partners are:
•	Brightcove, a cloud-based online video platform, is used by media companies, businesses and organizations worldwide to publish and distribute video on the Web. “Media publishers today are surrounded by an increasingly fragmented landscape of devices and destinations, which present both new opportunities and challenges,” said Jeff Whatcott, senior vice president of marketing at Brightcove. “Partnering with organizations like Ektron enables our mutual customers to better navigate this new landscape and enhance their site experiences while also increasing customer engagement and adoption.” •	Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: LIOX) is a provider of translation, development and testing solutions. Global organizations rely on Lionbridge to increase international market share, speed adoption of global products and content, and enhance their return on enterprise IT investments. “The Connector that we have built with Ektron ensures that Lionbridge clients have seamless global content functionality through Freeway, our client facing-portal,” said Henri Broekmate, SVP of Worldwide Operations, Lionbridge. “This integration is another part of our strategy to offer technology-led solutions that accelerate time to market and increase our clients’ global competitive advantage.” •	Webtrends is the global leader in mobile and social analytics. Webtrends enables digital marketers to create measure, and improve their efforts across digital channels to maximize return on digital investments. Webtrends products and services are trusted by thousands of leading brands and global organizations, including Microsoft, Toyota, Visa, Barclays and The New York Times. “Ektron recognizes the significant value in analytics solutions and the power of integrated analytics options,” said James McDermott, vice president of business development at Webtrends. “Deep integration like Ektron’s ensure that our mutual clients maximize their marketing investments and build strategic customer experiences.”
Other notable Ektron integration solutions include Facebook, Microsoft Search Server, SharePoint and Salesforce.com.
“Developing meaningful technology partnerships is an area of importance for Ektron because we honor the existing relationships and investments that enterprise customers already have,” added Rogers. “We are aligning with the best and the brightest technology leaders to ensure ‘whole enterprise’ success for our customers and partners alike.”
More info: <a href="http://www.ektron.com">http://www.ektron.com</a>

Ektron Partners with Brightcove, Lionbridge and Webtrends

Hotjar - Spot what confuses

Spot what confuses your users with Hotjar & AI

#ffffff

Alterian, the leader in customer engagement technology and solutions, announces enhancements to its marketing suite with the release of Alterian Marketing Suite (AMS) 3.0 and Engine 4.3.  These enhancements will introduce fresh options for deployment of the Alterian Marketing Suite, allowing a new range of administrative and secure single client and multi-tenant systems.
These upgrades emphasize Alterian’s dedication to providing efficient database marketing solutions, which facilitate customer engagement throughout all stages of the customer lifecycle.  This is illustrated by improvements that focus on ease of use, performance, and scalability. With its marketing suite already used by more than 500 organizations, Alterian is committed to the future development of its AMS and Engine products, in line with the company’s vision for customer engagement solutions.
AMS 3.0 allows for additional platform support of recent Microsoft operating systems, including Windows 7 (32 &amp; 64 bit), MS Server 2008 R2 (32 &amp; 64 bit) and MS SQL Server Express 2008 for customer convenience.  It also facilitates a single installer of AMS components – Data Discovery and Visualization , Campaign Manager and Analytical Reporting . Additional improvements have been made to Campaign Manager’s centralised scheduling capabilities, including a new schedule setup wizard and background execution to enable improved multi-tasking capabilities.
The updates to Engine 4.3 focus on performance and a new feature-rich functionality.  A significant improvement is the introduction of shared repositories, allowing for common data to be shared between projects, as well as improvements to data caching.  Improvements have also been made to the security and filters in the suite.  Engine 4.3 also supports a new version of Selection Planner, which further leverages DDV (Data Discovery and Visualisation) and AR (Analytical Reporting) components of AMS.  Other improvements include project set-up and repository enhancements, new applets for managing repository sharing, extended APIs and a dimension level interface.
Mark Galvin, Alterian Product Marketing Manager of Campaign Management and Analytics Strategy notes, “Alterian is dedicated to supporting its customers.  Through this latest upgrade to our marketing products, we have made significant enhancements to both performance and efficiency to improve usability and deliver more effective customer engagement.” 
“Alterian is dedicated to supporting its customers and investing in innovation. Today’s technology has given way to a mass empowerment of the consumer with the ability to interact and engage with brands and businesses on an individual level.  Having an effective marketing suite enables our partners and customers to respond to these engagement requirements and ensure they remain competitive in an ever-changing social, economic and technological market with a focus on performance and improved functionality.” 
Website: <a href="http://www.alterian.com/">http://www.alterian.com/</a>

Alterian augments marketing suite with Alterian Marketing Suite 3.0 and Engine 4.3

Today marks the release of DotNetNuke 5.6. Version 5.6 of the Professional Edition and Enterprise Edition includes the new DotNetNuke Site Search, which enables more effective web site content search, and Enhanced Google Analytics Support, which provides greater performance and control over the monitoring of web site traffic. It also includes significant enhancements to Content Approval Workflows, which extends the ability of organizations to control changes to their web site content. In addition, a new perpetual license option is now available in addition to the existing annual subscription license.
The new Site Search engine includes rich query syntax with support for Boolean searches, phrase searches, relevance searches, wild cards, fuzzy searches, and groupings. Based on Lucene, the system includes a true web spider that is capable of indexing any site, whether it is built on DotNetNuke or not.
The Enhanced Analytics Support allows users to take full advantage of Google Analytics. The system has been upgraded to the latest integration best practices from Google and now enables tracking of sub-domains as a single entity as well as the use of up to five segmentation rules per page.
Managers can now configure Content Approval Workflows in a top down hierarchy at the site, page, and module level. In addition, content locking improves efficiency and reduces the chance of workflow conflicts.
DotNetNuke Corp. now offers a perpetual license option for existing Professional and Enterprise Editions subscription customers. DotNetNuke Corp. subscription customers may purchase a perpetual license to use the DotNetNuke Professional or Enterprise Edition version they are running on their production servers. The perpetual licensing provides the right to use the commercial editions of the DotNetNuke software indefinitely.
The DotNetNuke Community Edition 5.6 includes new features such as:
<ul>
<li>An enhanced indexing capability which allows the standard core search feature to index page names, tag attributes and other metadata for improved search results</li>
<li>Optimizations to the database architecture and handling of web analytics tracking codes which will result in faster performance for all Editions of the product</li>
</ul>
More info: <a href="http://www.dotnetnuke.com">http://www.dotnetnuke.com</a>

DotNetNuke 5.6 is Now Available

SDL has today released a report commissioned with Forrester Consulting that explores the six disciplines that companies should follow to overcome the challenges faced when managing customer experience on a global scale. As technology enables more companies to sell to more markets more quickly, the individual customer experience becomes harder to manage. Getting the customer experience right, when product differentiation is not always clear, will be the next big challenge for global organizations.
The digital revolution, driven by the internet has permanently altered the global economy. Customers are better connected, more informed and have higher expectations from the companies they choose to buy from. In order to remain competitive in the global landscape, big businesses are beginning to understand the requirement to fulfill consumer expectations at an individual level in each of the countries in which they operate, with emerging markets now contributing about 50% of global GDP growth.
Global expansion efforts are therefore focused on getting into new markets quickly and effectively in order to maximize returns. Applying localization to global processes is not a new idea; however the Forrester research demonstrates just how challenging organizations find putting the theory into practice.
According to the research, successful global businesses use a framework approach to manage how they deliver locally relevant experiences. The framework is based around six key disciplines: customer understanding, measurement, governance, strategy, design and culture. Successful organizations that have achieved this have done so by:
<ul>
<li>Translating global brands into a local customer experience strategy</li>
<li>Developing a clear understanding of each local customer base</li>
<li>Designing locally relevant customer experiences</li>
<li>Implementing global customer experience governance</li>
<li>Tracking both global and local metrics in order to measure success</li>
<li>Building a global customer-centric culture</li>
</ul>
The report demonstrates that companies need to rethink their approach. In order to successfully expand into multiple markets, big businesses should look to deliver experiences that resonate with local communities through the standardization of processes, rather than output. To operate efficiently on a global scale, when 73% of internet traffic derives from non-English speaking populations, companies need to put together a set of repeatable processes. These can then be adopted by local operations, with an understanding of the customer base, culture, and language, to present a tailored solution for their local customers.
The research also highlights that, whilst executives understand the requirement to develop high-quality customer experiences in each new market, there is a misconception that customer experience is a one-off project rather than an on-going initiative. However, companies need only look to the leading global players to realize the revenue benefits that come from treating your customers with locally relevant experiences.
John Hunter, CEO SDL, commented:
<blockquote>
“Today, more than ever before, we see companies struggling to adapt to the challenge of scaling and building their global customer experience management practices, whilst remaining relevant at the local and individual level. In the modern global economy, driving the global customer experience through the web and deploying analytics and social media-based intelligence to understand customer behavior are crucial. Additionally, in order to be relevant and communicate on an individual level, companies need to run effective campaigns across multiple channels. Language also plays an important role in driving brand identity and product recognition in local markets. Global customer experience has truly become a joined up process of closed loop engagement with the customer over multiple channels and at an individual level. This report shows that to effectively expand into emerging markets and focus on a consistent experience delivery across multiple markets, companies must translate the global brand and product into a local customer experience.”
</blockquote>
SDL and Forrester will be holding a webinar ‘Mastering the 6 disciplines of global customer experience’ on 02 October 2012. Kerry Bodine of Forrester Research will share key findings from this new white paper on global customer experience. Please register here: <a href="http://www.sdl.com/campaign/forresterwp-globalcxm.html">http://www.sdl.com/campaign/forresterwp-globalcxm.html</a>

Global Customer Experience is the New Battleground for Business

<a href="http://www.easysocialshop.com/" target="_blank">Easy Social Shop</a>, a leading Facebook commerce solution, today announced a partnership with popular ecommerce platform <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/shopify" target="_blank">Shopify</a>, in a bid to make social commerce easier than ever for Shopify merchants.
The partnership means that Shopify will offer the Easy Social Shop application in its app store, allowing Shopify merchants to easily build an effective marketing and sales platform on social media through Easy Social Shop.
Launched in 2011, Easy Social Shop boasts nearly 100,000 merchants the world over, hosting over 8 million items. The platform is designed to maximize the social media presence of companies in order to drive sales, boost awareness and help reach new markets and consumers.
<h2>Taking Selling Social</h2>
Available in 7 languages, Easy Social Shop is a social commerce mechanism that allows online merchants to import their e-commerce stores to a Facebook shop for free – and now, that includes Shopify stores.
Easy Social Shop hosts almost 100,000 shops, driving an average 10%-18% sales growth for its merchants overall.
The platform is simple to set up and enables transactions to occur on the original site itself, streamlining the sales and analytics process. Shops built through Easy Social Shop are customizable, can be translated into 7 different languages, allow cross-platform sharing across social media, and are seamlessly integrated with eBay, Etsy, Shopify, Amazon, Magento and other major e-commerce platforms.
Nissim Lehyani, the Easy Social Shop’s CEO and Co-Founder, had this to say:
<blockquote>“Every business and corporation has an e-commerce presence, and one of the biggest challenges for a small business is standing out. By helping businesses tap into the benefits of social media, Easy Social Shop enables the type of cross platform engagement that can level the playing field and give small business an amazing channel to new and existing markets.”</blockquote>
Shopify, an e-commerce store provider, powers more than 90,000 stores and has thus far enabled its merchants to sell over $3 billion of merchandise.
By offering the Easy Social Shop app on the app store, Shopify continues to stimulate the growth and success of its user base. Both Easy Social Shop and Shopify have developed user-friendly platforms that offer extensive and versatile capabilities without requiring coding experience.
Ofir Tahor, the CTO and Co-Founder of Easy Social Shop, commented on the status of Shopify:
<blockquote>“Shopify provides SMBs with an e-commerce presence that can help transform them into successful companies. They are a natural partner for us since we, too, are committed to helping SMBs take advantage of existing technology to spur further success through solutions that are simple, effective, and offer great functionality.”</blockquote>
To find out more about Easy Social Shop,visit their <a href="http://www.easysocialshop.com/" target="_blank">official website</a>.
Alternatively, you can explore more of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/products/shopify/" target="_blank">Shopify via our CMS Directory</a>.

Easy Social Shop Team up With Shopify to Facilitate Social Commerce

This week, <a href="http://www.sitecore.net/">Sitecore</a>, the customer experience management software specialists, released its first-ever mobile applications to provide marketers with anywhere, anytime access to their  <a href="http://www.sitecore.net/Products/Customer-Engagement-Platform.aspx"> experience platform</a>.
These applications, available on Windows 8.1 and iOS, have been developed using Sitecore’s Mobile SDK. The “Sitecore Executive Insight Dashboard” application for <a href="http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/sitecore-executive-insight/874b8517-1e75-4774-aa06-90d7524f213e">Windows 8.1</a> tablets and Apple <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/executive-insight-dashboard/id778652991?ls=1&amp;mt=8">iPad</a> gathers customer engagement analytics and insights across touch-points and presents them in a simple mobile view.
The <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sitecore-media-uploader/id804654857?ls=1&amp;mt=8">Sitecore iOS Media Uploade</a> application allows marketers to upload rich media content, including high-resolution photos and videos, via an iOS mobile device directly to the <a href="http://www.sitecore.net/Products/Web-Content-Management/Content-Management/Digital-Asset-Management.aspx">Sitecore Media Library</a>.
So, let's check out what these brand new apps can bring to the Sitcore marketing table.
<h2>Enhanced Marketing Flexibility</h2>
The Sitecore Executive Insight Dashboard, available for both Windows 8.1 and iOS, displays customer activity from across all touch points, giving marketers the ability to access engagement analytics and insights from mobile devices. Using these apps, marketers can make informed decisions about customer engagement while working on-the-go.
Customer activity is automatically added into existing customer intelligence profiles stored in Sitecore’s experience platform, which is accessible via the app. The dashboard increases marketer productivity with another access point to glean key insights from customer data and campaign engagement metrics, providing superior coverage of customer analytics.
The Sitecore iOS Media Uploader allows marketers to use mobile devices to feed rich media content directly into the Sitecore Media Library, where it will be immediately accessible through Sitecore’s Content Management System. Photos and videos uploaded via the iOS Media Uploader are instantly added to existing customer profiles and automatically tagged.
Upon the release of the apps, Mark Floisand, Vice President Product Marketing, Sitecore, had this to say:
<blockquote>“Marketers face increasing expectations from customers to deliver relevant and personalized online experiences, yet today’s marketers are always on-the-go, making it difficult to adjust engagement campaigns via web or software-based customer experience management systems. With the Sitecore Executive Insight Dashboard and Sitecore iOS Media Uploader, marketers now have access to key analytics and content repositories right from their mobile devices, increasing efficiency and giving marketers the ability to own the experience.”</blockquote>
Furthermore, both of these apps – which are the first Sitecore apps ever to be released, are completely free.
The “Sitecore Executive Insight Dashboard” can be downloaded for <a href="http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-gb/app/sitecore-executive-insight/874b8517-1e75-4774-aa06-90d7524f213e" target="_blank"> Windows 8.1</a> and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/executive-insight-dashboard/id778652991?ls=1&amp;mt=8" target="_blank">iOS</a>, whilst the “Sitecore iOS Media Uploader” is <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/executive-insight-dashboard/id778652991?ls=1&amp;mt=8" target="_blank">exclusive to iOS devices</a>.
To find out more about Sitecore, visit their <a href="http://www.sitecore.net/" target="_blank">official website</a>.
Additionally, you can explore more of what's on offer from <a href="/products/sitecore/" target="_blank">Sitecore via our CMS Directory</a>.

First-Ever Sitecore Apps Unlock Mobile Marketing Capabilities

DotNetNuke Corp., the company behind the most widely adopted Web Content Management Platform for Microsoft .NET, today announced that it has signed a strategic alliance with Microsoft to offer its Social Content Management System (CMS) through Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud. The terms of the agreement include an investment from Microsoft to support engineering, sales and marketing over the next four years. Additionally, Microsoft is providing technology assistance, as the two companies work together to build a world-class cloud offering.
<blockquote>
“Over the last year, our customers in the upper mid-market and enterprise have been requesting a world-class cloud infrastructure to host their mission-critical content and functionally rich, web properties,” said Navin Nagiah, CEO of DotNetNuke. “We are working with Microsoft to bring our customers a powerful Windows Azure-based CMS that is both reliable and elastic.”
</blockquote>
The Windows Azure-based service will provide the power and flexibility of DotNetNuke’s Social CMS without requiring users to install and manage the software and hardware required to run the platform. Everything an organization needs to build content rich, social websites is provided as a cloud-based service including:
<ul>
<li>One-Click Installation and Setup – Customers select a service plan and a new DotNetNuke installation and a website are automatically created.</li>
<li>Full Feature Set – Access to all of DotNetNuke’s powerful CMS features, including site management, social collaboration, granular security, advanced content workflows, document management, page and module caching, analytics, and mobile site management.</li>
<li>App Store – Customers can build and customize websites by purchasing applications and design templates through the DotNetNuke Store.</li>
<li>Custom Development – Organizations that wish to develop custom functionality have full access to the DotNetNuke platform and API. Some service offerings include full file system access for developers.</li>
<li>Upgrades – The service streamlines and simplifies the process of upgrading a site to a newer version of the DotNetNuke platform.</li>
<li>Import/Export – Existing sites can be moved onto the cloud platform or exported to another hosting provider.</li>
<li>Backup and Restore – Sites are automatically backed and earlier versions can be restored.</li>
<li>Test Sites – Plans include the ability to test websites before they are made publically available.</li>
</ul>
DotNetNuke began offering Windows Azure-based trials of its professional edition software worldwide, localized into five languages, earlier this year. The company today opened up registration for a beta version of its cloud offering that will be available in Q4 2012. DotNetNuke is scheduled to make the service generally available in early 2013, with service plans for mid-sized businesses and enterprises.
<blockquote>
“Social experiences are ideal for cloud computing; they are consumed across many devices and browsers and they also need to scale based on fluctuations in usage,” said Kim Akers, General Manager of Microsoft. “With Windows Azure developers can build social experiences that take advantage of a reliable cloud backend and a scalable way to manage and continually refine their sites. DotNetNuke’s Windows Azure-based offering is designed to make it easy for organizations to build and deploy websites.”
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>The alliance extends DotNetNuke and Microsoft’s close collaboration across multiple initiatives including:</li>
<li>DotNetNuke Community Edition availability through Microsoft CodePlex, the open source project hosting service</li>
<li>DotNetNuke’s inclusion in Web Platform Installer</li>
<li>DotNetNuke’s inclusion in Web Matrix installer for developers</li>
<li>DotNetNuke’s participation in Microsoft Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for Windows Azure</li>
<li>Development of a RAZOR module for the DotNetNuke Platform</li>
<li>Microsoft’s Diamond Sponsorship of DNN World 2012</li>
</ul>
More info: <a href="http://www.dotnetnuke.com">DotNetNuke</a>

DotNetNuke Signs Alliance Agreement with Microsoft to Deliver Web Content Management in the Windows Azure Cloud

As I've worked with clients over the years, their involvement with their own website has changed. When I first started, they wanted very little to do with updating the website. More recently, they want to edit their content, change the design, add pages, and more. With this change, the use of a CMS that works for the individual client has become paramount.
The variety of CMS's available spans from content-only editing to the ability to edit the entire website – including content and design. It begs the questions, “What is the right CMS?” The better question may be, “what does the end user want to do?”
Some CMS's are ‘plugged in' after the fact. The website is already designed and the CMS gives ‘behind-the-scenes' access to edit content areas and sometimes, to edit design and manage pages. Other CMS's require you to start using their CMS from the beginning, designing the site and adding content within their CMS.
Let's take a look at some of the questions to ask when it comes to selecting a CMS from the end user perspective.
<h2>How much control does the end user want?</h2>
I think this may need to be balanced with the question “How much technical knowledge does the user have?” If the technical knowledge is ‘I know how to use Word' – you'll want to stick to a CMS that offers a similar editor with access to only the content areas. If they want to do more – change the design of the site, add pages, etc. – then those options, along with their level of expertise – will help define which CMS works best for them. I have also found that sometimes it's a matter of educating a client on what is involved in updating a website and what's involved in keeping consistency across the website.
<h2>Can the end-user manage the pages on their website?</h2>
Some CMS options are edit-only. Others, let you add pages, move pages, and delete pages. Although this has the potential of introducing more options than our client really understands, many CMS's let you add a page template that matches your current design. Be aware that along with this comes the need to also edit the menus. Again, many CMS's have a friendly intuitive interface to manage menus, as well as pages.
<h2>Can one easily add images, links, pdfs, etc?</h2>
Most CMS editors let you easily add assets to your website – whether it's images, videos, sound clips, pdfs, or other types of files. The issue becomes (especially from a developer's viewpoint) the organization of these assets. Some CMS's let you specify where to store the assets, others have a central repository where all assets are uploaded. So a second question might be how are the assets stored?
<h2>Can individuals be given different roles/permissions?</h2>
Will the client have multiple users accessing the CMS to update the website? If so, will they need access to only certain page/sections of the website? Or, maybe the client wants only designated users to add content, and other users only to be able to edit content already on the website. Many CMS's have options to assign roles and permissions for these types of scenarios.
<h2>Is it easy to use the editor?</h2>
Most people know Word, or a similar word processing program. I've found the editor within a CMS system needs to look pretty much like Word. Again, I have found that when a client wants to edit their content it includes educating the client on certain aspects of editing website content vs editing a Word document. The two main questions I get when it comes to a client updating their content is ‘why can't I place this picture where I want it?' and ‘how can I make this go down just one line instead of two?” There will be certain aspects we'll need to educate the client, but overall the editor should be very intuitive and be a similar as possible to a word processing program.
<h2>Can forms be easily added to my website?</h2>
Some CMS's include a form builder or a form wizard to easily add forms to a website. Additionally, some CMS's have the option to include storing the form information in a database or spreadsheet. Also, be aware that if a particular CMS doesn't have an option to build forms, there are online options for doing the same thing. One example of this is <a href="http://wufoo.com">Wufoo</a>. You an build a form on their interactive website and use it on your website.
<h2>Can I add social media?</h2>
Some CMS's lets one easily integrate with social media. They may have a widget or plugin that easily lets you add twitter feeds or facebook posts. Or, they may have icons you can easily add to link to your various social communities.
<h2>Is the admin interface easy to use?</h2>
This one can potentially easily overwhelm the end-user. If they see way too many options when accessing the admin interface, it can become difficult for them to see the easy options in the midst of the complexity. Not all CMS's have admin interfaces, but for those that do, it's best if it is a simple admin interface that shows only the options the end-user needs to use, or the admin interface can be customized to show the client only what they need to know. This can also be a protection to prevent them from doing things they really don't want to do.
This is not a complete list by all means. Other questions may include:
<ul>
<li>Will the CMS allow my website to grow with my business?</li>
<li>Does the CMS offer analytics or integrate easily with other analytic options?</li>
<li>Is there a good user community where one can go to find help?</li>
</ul>
Having posed all these questions, it's still sometimes difficult to know which CMS to use, or if it's even wise to give clients that much control. I'm happy to give some clients that kind of control and with other clients I cringe when they ask to be able to update their website. I love the idea of clients being able to update their website, but I'm not fond of the idea that clients could potentially really mess up their website. Maybe that's where selecting the right CMS comes in. I'm curious what steps you have found to help you define what CMS to use and how you decide how much control to give or not give your clients.

What to Look for in a CMS from an End-User Perspective

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

Explore a wide range of informative articles, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry. Page - 159

News

Spot what confuses your users with Hotjar & AI

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads