Articles - Page 169

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

bmckeiver

Contentstack, the Content Experience Platform (CXP), <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/contentstack-welcomes-translations-as-newest-catalyst/">announced</a> that Translations.com has joined the Contentstack <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/partners/">Catalyst</a> Partner Program. Launched in August 2020, Contentstack Catalysts are an ecosystem of industry-leading technology and service providers that help accelerate digital experience innovation.
Contentstack Catalysts advance the use of microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native SaaS and headless (MACH) architecture, as well as best practices and methodologies for delivering digital omnichannel engagement. In becoming a Catalyst, Translations.com will offer Contentstack users an all-in-one solution to initiate, automate, control, track and complete all facets of the translation process.
Contentstack has been actively building its partnership ecosystem in 2020, and recently launched a strategic <a href="/contentstack-and-gatsby-announce-partnership-to-power-ultra-fast-websites-with-headless-cms/">partnership with Gatsby</a> – a React-based open source web development framework. This alliance has benefitted both partners, bringing together marketing and development teams using headless CMS to power blazing-fast websites and applications.
With the addition of Translations.com to the Catalyst partner program, Contentstack is doubling down on localization as key ingredient in omnichannel content management. While the web continues to connect organizations across the globe, communicating with audiences in local languages has proven highly beneficial to improving customer experience. Even though English is the most commonly spoken language on the planet, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/262946/share-of-the-most-common-languages-on-the-internet/">only 25% of web users are native English speakers</a>. By accommodating customers in their own language, websites can significantly impact their most meaningful KPIs, particularly around SEO and bounce rates. For Contentstack, partnering with Translations.com will help their CMS users reach customers across geographies with more relevant content.
"With this partnership, we continue to support our customers who are creating multilingual content across platforms and devices," said Billy Nava, Vice President of Strategic Alliances for Translations.com. "Our GlobalLink Connect integration with Contentstack allows companies to manage multilingual content through a single user interface, dramatically simplifying the process of publishing global content."
The unique combination of Contentstack and the extended localization workflow capabilities of Translation.com’s GlobalLink Connect will provide users with a comprehensive solution for managing global enterprise content – with minimal effort and virtually no IT overhead. Further, when combined with Translation.com’s GlobalLink AI, Contentstack users can leverage automation and machine learning with translation services, helping to cut costs and accelerate time to market while maintaining high quality results.
"Doing business globally means communicating with customers not only in their native language but delivering the right content to them as well," said the Contentstack customer Joshua Scott, Vice President of Technology for Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. "Bringing together Contentstack and Translations.com will make this process so much easier and allow us to create and publish multilingual content via a single interface. The process will be nearly completely automated, enabling us to deliver personalized experiences for our customers with little effort."
"We are very excited for Translations.com to be joining the Catalysts ecosystem," said Peter Fogelsanger, Contentstack's Global Head of Partnerships. "Contentstack's customers have enterprise-level content experience and translation requirements. Translations.com's GlobalLink integration with Contentstack offers global brands the industry leading capabilities for omni-channel content management and translation management in a tightly integrated solution."
Translations.com is the technology division of TransPerfect, the world's largest provider of language and technology solutions for global business. Offering a full range of services in 170+ languages to clients worldwide, Translations.com's GlobalLink Product Suite is trusted by over 5,000 of the world's largest brands to help scale the localization of their international experiences.
Contentstack's Catalyst Partner program brings together top agencies, consultants and technology companies to provide businesses with cutting-edge solutions and expert insights, accelerating their ability to deliver personalized, omnichannel digital experiences. Catalysts work with partners to drive market visibility, manage growth opportunities and deliver transformational customer success. Contentstack provides its Catalysts with the CMS industry's most powerful integrations framework – and the ability to build new integrations to meet customer needs.
More information on the Contentstack Catalyst Partner program, visit <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/partners">https://www.contentstack.com/partners</a>
<h3 id="about-contentstack">About Contentstack</h3>
<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/">Contentstack</a> is a headless CMS with an API-first approach that puts content at the center. It is designed to empower content editors to update content in their sites and apps without relying on a developer – while developers are free to code using their favorite tools and languages. Contentstack accelerates and simplifies content management across today's and tomorrow's digital channels, including web, mobile and IoT. From desktops to smart phones, kiosks to smart watches, billboards to jumbotrons, dashboards to VR headsets – content is delivered with the push of a button and optimized for every screen, device and channel.
<h3>About Translations.com</h3>
<a href="https://www.translations.com/">Translations.com</a> is the world’s largest provider of enterprise localization services and technology solutions. From offices in over 100 cities on six continents, Translations.com offers a full range of services in 170+ languages to clients worldwide. More than 5,000 global organizations employ Translations.com’s GlobalLink Product Suite to simplify management of multilingual content. Translations.com is part of the TransPerfect family of companies, with global headquarters in New York and regional headquarters in London and Hong Kong.

Contentstack Partners with Translations.com, Adds Localization to Headless CMS

paris-tuzun

We all know it: CRM can get really complex. That's why many organizations turn to implementation partners to help unlock the maximum value of their CRM investment, from purchase to practice. 
To meet this demand head-on, <a href="https://www.sugarcrm.com/">SugarCRM</a> – the innovator of time-aware CX – has acquired W-Systems, Sugar’s North America Reseller of the Year in 2020 and one of the company’s largest global implementation partners. 
With this move, Sugar is expanding its ability to provide turnkey implementation services for its time-aware, AI-powered sales, marketing and service software – designed to help companies deliver a "high-definition" customer experience. In addition, W-Systems has developed numerous add-ons that are in high-demand by Sugar customers including document management, calendar enhancements, file storage, messaging services, and more. 
“We are excited to have the team at W-Systems, with their deep expertise and dedication to customer success, join Sugar to help fuel our continued growth in the North America region,” said Craig Charlton, CEO of SugarCRM. “W-Systems’ exceptional track record with more than 300 successful Sugar implementations and robust development of strategic add-ons perfectly aligns with our commitment to helping companies improve their business outcomes and achieve a high-definition view of their customers.”
The rapid growth of remote and distributed workforces and their reliance on digital – <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/what-800-executives-envision-for-the-postpandemic-workforce">a by-product of the COVID-19 pandemic</a> – has accelerated the need for easy-to-deploy technologies. However, for many organizations, CRM continues to be a challenge to implement and adopt – particularly for distributed teams. By adding W-Systems to their portfolio, it appears that Sugar is doubling-down on its value as a trusted advisor.
“Speed and expertise are critical factors for companies looking to compete on CX,” said Brent Leary, founder and principal analyst at CRM Essentials. “SugarCRM’s acquisition of  W-Systems, a firm with long and deep commitment to serving the Sugar customer community, addresses a growing need for mid-market companies who want a trusted advisor that can help them navigate and succeed in their adoption of next-generation CRM and marketing automation environments.”
According to <a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-cx-trends-for-cios-to-watch/">Gartner</a>, organizations are struggling to keep up with the growth of customer insight data. The speed and precision of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and analytics, in addition to human insight, will provide the intelligence needed for the CX of the future. SugarCRM has been focused on innovation in all of these key areas, but adding W-Systems may help translate the complexity of bleeding-edge technologies like AI into practical, business-focused applications that validate the impact on CX.  
Much like <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/">Salesforce</a>, Sugar has also been diversifying their platform services to enhance value and compete more effectively. Most recently, <a href="https://www.sugarcrm.com/press-releases/sugarcrm-acquires-salesfusion/">they acquired Salesfusion</a>, a SaaS marketing automation solution, and Node – an AI platform that leverages CRM data. 
<h3 id="sugarcrm-and-w-systems-what-to-expect">SugarCRM and W-Systems: What to Expect</h3>
Sugar is on the path to becoming more than just a CRM. They are clearly evolving into a unified customer data platform that provides deep intelligence and insights across every facet of CX. Now, armed with marketing automation, personalization, and turnkey implementation services, they have more of the right tools to compete at the top of the market. 
W-Systems has been a long-time partner of SugarCRM, and they are fluent in the platform and its deployment. As previously mentioned, W-Systems has developed a number of custom add-ons for Sugar, which continue to be in high-demand amongst customers. These add-ons directly increase the utility and usability of Sugar Sell and Sugar Market (formerly Salesfusion), so we should expect to see more integration around those features. 
You can request a demo of the SugarCRM <a href="https://www.sugarcrm.com/request-demo/">here</a>.
<h3 id="about-sugarcrm">About SugarCRM</h3>
<a href="https://www.sugarcrm.com/">SugarCRM</a>’s time-aware sales, marketing, and service software helps companies deliver a high-definition (HD-CX) customer experience. For mid-market companies and anyone that wants a CX-driven platform, Sugar gives teams the time-aware customer data they need to achieve a clear view of the customer and reach new levels of business performance and predictability, and increase customer lifetime value. More than 4,500 companies in over 120 countries rely on SugarCRM. 
<h3 id="about-w-systems">About W-Systems</h3>
<a href="https://www.w-systems.com/" rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener">W-Systems</a>, acquired by SugarCRM, delivers sales and marketing solutions on a foundation of CRM to help customer-facing teams increase revenue and solve business problems.

SugarCRM Acquires Reseller W-Systems to Meet Demand for CRM Implementation Services

Bloomreach, a leading Digital Experience Platform (DXP), and Exponea, the Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP), have <a href="https://www.bloomreach.com/en/news/2020/bloomreach-and-exponea-announce-strategic-partnership.html">announced a strategic alliance</a> to offer more enhanced digital commerce experiences to the market. 
The partnership will provide their joint clients with a more personalized and sophisticated e-commerce solution, combining Bloomreach’s rich catalog of DXP capabilities with Exponea’s customer-centric approach to unifying data.
Partly driving the move is Amazon’s market dominance in the e-commerce and digital retail space. While brands struggle to compete around rapid distribution and free shipping – key attributes to <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-has-the-right-businesses-to-weather-coronavirus-but-spending-could-grow-even-faster-2020-04-13">Amazon’s success during the COVID-19 pandemic</a> – they often miss the mark with customer experience. This is where Amazon excels, and where Bloomreach and Exponea plan to focus their offerings.
By combining their unique capabilities, the two companies plan to help brands and retailers create more relevant and personalized experiences based on data and insights. Their innovative catalog of capabilities will help customers to increase retention, drive repeat purchases, recommend relevant products, and increase customer satisfaction.
<h3 id="a-partnership-built-for-digital-commerce-experiences">A partnership built for digital commerce experiences</h3>
Both Bloomreach and Exponea have experienced significant growth as a result of the recent surge in digital commerce worldwide, <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/08/covid19-pandemic-social-shift-ecommerce-report/">accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. While both vendors maintain solid reputations in the market, this partnership represents an innovation “sweet spot,” leveraging their strengths to offer a more complete solution.
Bloomreach is on a mission to arm enterprises with a superior weapon in their battle against the Amazons of the e-commerce world. In 2018, they <a href="/bloomreach-launches-dxp-for-commerce-so-enterprises-can-beat-amazon/">launched</a> their DXP for Commerce to offer highly relevant and personalized digital experiences. Today, their Bloomreach Experience Platform (brX) drives over $200 billion in digital commerce experiences across many of the world’s largest online retailers, brands, distributors, and B2B manufacturers – representing 25% of retail e-commerce in the U.S. and U.K.
Exponea – <a href="https://go.exponea.com/exponea-named-cool-vendor">which was named a “Cool Vendor” in multichannel marketing in 2020 by Gartner</a> – collects and unifies data from all customer touchpoints. They enrich customer data through AI, providing insights to deliver personalized campaigns to individual targets through preferred channels. Exponea processes more than 2 billion customer profile updates every day on behalf of leading retailers and brands, enabling marketers to leverage over 250 billion behavioral events in real-time to orchestrate powerful 1:1 marketing.
<blockquote>This partnership will amplify both Exponea and Bloomreach’s unique capabilities to drive consistent and laser-targeted customer experiences across marketing and commerce. Combining together Exponea’s customer-centric view with Bloomreach’s catalogue-centric view will enable our joint customers to have the most sophisticated e-commerce experience possible.
- Peter Irikovský, CEO of Exponea</blockquote>
The alliance comes at a time when leading vendors across the digital stack are making big moves to compete more effectively in a crowded, fragmented landscape. As more organizations pivot to online – specifically in the retail sector – demand for rapid, end-to-end solutions is increasing by the day. By aligning their capabilities, Bloomreach and Exponea can fast-track a more effective response to shifting market conditions and challenge the e-commerce space. 
"We've long been on a mission to power exceptional commerce experiences – from search to content, to leveraging our commerce-specific data and AI to drive personalization,” said Bloomreach CEO and co-founder Raj De Datta. “We chose to partner with Exponea for their impressive customer data analytics capabilities, omnichannel campaign execution, and their strong and trusted relationships with our joint customers. Having looked at this closely, we believe they are the clear global leader in driving high performing marketing and customer communications, and the synergies we can drive across our platforms are very meaningful for our customers.” 
“Bloomreach is best-in-class when it comes to the search and commerce experience,” added Peter Irikovsky, CEO of Exponea. “We’ve been impressed by their robust platform and the company’s sophisticated B2B and B2C customer base for quite some time. The combination of our strengths will enhance the personalized customer experience for our joint clients with the most innovative, fast, and impactful solutions in the market.”
<h3 id="about-bloomreach">About Bloomreach</h3>
<a href="https://www.bloomreach.com/en">Bloomreach</a> is digital experience enhancement platform that enables highly personalized digital experiences for retailers, banks, distributors, manufacturers, public service agencies and other enterprises. Its flagship product, brX, is a digital experience platform built specifically for brands, retailers, and B2B companies who want to grow their revenue online while delivering each of their customers a premium, personalized commerce experience. brX combines content management capabilities with market-leading commerce-specific, AI-driven search, merchandising, and personalization in one flexible, API-first next-generation platform. Bloomreach serves over 500 global brands including Albertsons, Staples, Bosch, Puma, FC Bayern München, and Marks &amp; Spencer.
<h3 id="about-exponea">About Exponea</h3>
<a href="https://exponea.com/">Exponea</a> is a Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP) that collects and unifies data from all customer touchpoints into a unified Single Customer View and utilizes this data to help e-commerce businesses to convert and retain customers by acting on customer signals with the right message at the perfect time through the preferred channel. Built from the ground up (i.e. no acquisitions) for retail and e-commerce, Exponea collects and unifies data from all customer touchpoints to give businesses the insights and action opportunities they need to execute campaigns that deliver real results.

Bloomreach and Exponea Announce Strategic Partnership to Energize Digital Commerce Experiences

New partnerships continue to emerge across the digital stack, and CMS platforms are reaping the benefits. Recently, SEMrush, a leading search engine optimization (SEO) and digital marketing platform <a href="https://www.semrush.com/news/semrush-and-yoast-announce-integration-partnership/">announced a strategic partnership with Yoast</a> – the most popular and widely-used SEO plugin for WordPress.
The partnership kicks off with an updated release of Yoast’s SEO plugin for WordPress, the leading open source content management system (CMS). Yoast SEO will now feature a tight integration with SEMrush’s extensive keyword database and SEO services, giving Yoast users access to smarter, SEO-focused keyword suggestions and data within the CMS post editor – and enhancing search engine indexability to drive qualified traffic.
For the <a href="/gutenberg-2-years-later-is-wordpress-better-off/">WordPress</a> community, Yoast is practically a household name. For years, this handy plugin has enabled users to control a multitude of attributes across websites, including meta descriptions, keywords, titles, and more. Yoast has proven to be a go-to solution for driving traffic from major search engines like Google and Bing to leading social media channels like Facebook.
SEMrush has long been regarded as a trusted brainstorming tool for keyword strategy. With standout features such as link building and site auditing, SEMrush provides users with a go-to checklist of features and capabilities for improving technical and on-page SEO.
“At a time when all businesses are becoming even more reliant on their digital strategy to thrive and survive, it is hard to overstate the significance of this partnership between SEMrush and Yoast, two highly regarded names in SEO,” said Eugene Levin, SEMrush’s Chief Strategy Officer. “We are thrilled to announce the seamless integration of one of the largest keyword databases on the market with Yoast’s unrivaled reach into WordPress-powered sites. As many of SEMrush clients run websites with WordPress, this partnership is an important one for our customers. We look forward to cooperating further with Yoast to help as many people as possible become the best digital marketers they can be.”
Yoast founder and Chief Product Officer Joost de Valk added, “As more and more people get online, we see that these people need help with keyword research. Previously we could not give our customers information regarding how people search, specifically which related searches there are for important search terms. Our integration with SEMrush not only makes this possible, it shows it right when and where you need it. I look forward to building out this feature to help people write better content, faster.”
In order to benefit from the new features in the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress, users will need to have either a free or premium SEMrush account. The full set of SEMrush features available in Yoast SEO will help customers access related keywords that are similar to a user’s query, gather useful metrics for every keyword, and uncover new keyword ideas for their content.
You can download the Yoast SEO plugin <a href="https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/">here</a>.
Sign up for a free or premium SEMrush account <a href="https://www.semrush.com/signup/">here</a>.

SEMrush and Yoast Partner to Enhance WordPress SEO and Digital Marketing

By Janus Boye, <a href="https://boye-co.com">Boye &amp; Co</a>
There’s a million different ways to select a new content management system and having been a part of the marketplace for the past two decades, I thought I had almost seen them all.
Still, the recent CMS selection as a part of the <a href="https://w3.org">World Wide Web Consortium</a> (W3C) redesign project was a different one. A project done out in the open, with a controversial tool selection and an emphasis on accessibility.
Given the public profile of the W3C, this naturally led to increased attention among agencies, analysts, vendors and other industry pundits alike.
<a href="https://craftcms.com/">Craft CMS</a> came out the winner, but let’s take a step-by-step look at what happened and see what others might be able to use in their own selection processes.
<h2 id="finding-a-modern-and-accessible-cms-starts-by-getting-some-help">Finding a modern and accessible CMS starts by getting some help</h2>
A good place to start to get an overview of this process is the <a href="https://www.w3.org/2019/11/website-redesign-rfp.html">W3C website redesign phase 1 RFP</a>. This was issued back in November 2019 and as you see, W3C asked for help with more than selecting a CMS. To quote from the project summary
<blockquote>“W3C is looking to incrementally redesign its Website and revise the information architecture”</blockquote>
As the customer, W3C asked for cost estimates on services like design, SEO, development and consulting on things like migration strategy. Objectives included:
<ul>
<li>Solidify brand authority, consistent design, uniform appearance</li>
<li>Create an engaging and easy to navigate experience</li>
<li>Increase engagement</li>
<li>Create a long-lasting partnership with a web design agency to continue to work with us as our needs and organization evolve</li>
</ul>
The specific requirements included this bullet with three sub bullets:

<ul>
<li>Provide advice on a modern replacement for the custom CMS used for the current site
<ul>
<li>We need a CMS that is long-lived and easy to maintain, because we run our systems for decades.</li>
<li>Full change histories identifying who made each change.</li>
<li>The CMS may need to enable collaborative editing</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

Finally, the RFP also included this sentence on budget:
<blockquote>“The average cost estimate of $200,000 is based on figures given by people who are in the ecosystem. We would like vendors to propose what they recommend even if it exceeds $200,000.”</blockquote>
Several agencies responded during December, including UK-based <a href="https://www.studio24.net/">Studio 24</a>.
Studio 24 which was awarded the contract in early February. Although slightly delayed by a few weeks, given the holidays, that’s not a much longer response time than many other projects.
If you look at the project tweets from W3C, you can see a more detailed timeline for selection
<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card">
<blockquote>
Our W3C Website redesign RFP has now concluded. 
We awarded the project to <a href="https://twitter.com/studio24?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@studio24</a> who we are very much looking forward to working with. 
Thanks to the 31 other bidders for the excellent quality of their proposals.<a href="https://t.co/RCtmGY6VBn">https://t.co/RCtmGY6VBn</a>
— W3C (@w3c) <a href="https://twitter.com/w3c/status/1225796276555567105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2020</a></blockquote>
</figure>
You might also want to see the <a href="https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-website-redesign/2019Dec/att-0024/W3C_Website_redesign_RFP_Proposal_Studio_24.pdf">winning proposal from Studio 24</a> (PDF)
My take:
Nothing out of the ordinary in the opening. A high-profile customer. A reasonable budget to relaunch a notable website. The project pretty much looks like any other website redesign including a new CMS to power the website. Also worth mentioning, that a customer showing an ability to make decisions at the beginning is a good starting point.
<h2 id="cms-strategy-to-inform-the-selection">CMS strategy to inform the selection</h2>
The project kicked off in mid-March and following user group research and design discussions, then moved onto CMS strategy and requirements in May.
This led to the creation of a comprehensive <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/docs/cms-strategy-and-requirements/">CMS strategy and requirements document</a>. This covers technical requirements, accessibility, content editing, forms, search and much more. 
There’s also a section on licensing models. To quote:
<blockquote>“W3C has a strong preference for an open-source license for the CMS platform.”</blockquote>
And later in the same chapter:
<blockquote>“We will consider commercial software that fits the requirements for W3C.”</blockquote>
The document also outlines questions to be answered for each potential system as well as a section on headless CMS and static site generators.
My take:
While there’s no set formula for how a CMS strategy should look like and any rules on required chapters, I found the work done here comprehensive and understandable, also by non CMS experts.
From the perspective of an analyst or customer, I would also consider the importance of the ecosystem around the system and the quality of the documentation. Depending on who you ask, some might also consider a look at company/community vision and roadmap. Are they aligned with what you want to achieve?
<h2 id="narrowing-down-the-shortlist">Narrowing down the shortlist</h2>
As the project moved forward, the time also came to narrow down the list of potential systems.
Given the public nature of the project, you can read more in this document: <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/docs/w3c-cms-selection-process-update/">W3C CMS platform selection - full status update</a>. To quote from the chapter on shortlisting:
<blockquote>“We then looked at a series of CMSes from a high level. We looked at their marketing material to understand their philosophy and their main features; got a sense of the level of activity of their development team and community; scanned their user and developer documentation.
Based on this first review, we for example excluded all static site builders (e.g. Gatsby, Jekyll). Jekyll and Gatsby can have performance issues when building large sites, which we would rather avoid. Others such as Hugo are built on technology we are not familiar with in the studio.”</blockquote>
This led to a shortlist of three candidates, all based on the PHP technology stack familiar to the W3C:
<ul>
<li>Craft CMS</li>
<li>Statamic</li>
<li><a href="https://www.boye-co.com/vendors/wordpress">WordPress</a></li>
</ul>
Later in the document, there’s strengths and weaknesses with each of the three finalists. To me they looked balanced, but I in particular noticed this sentence on WordPress:
<blockquote>“Because we have a lot of experience with WordPress, we are also very much aware of its limitations in the context of a project of this size and longevity.”</blockquote>
My take:
This is a phase of the project, which can be either extremely difficult without outside help or left to random circumstances. Working with an agency with real implementation experiences like Studio 24 provides valuable insights to finding the right system.
It’s refreshing to read how marketing material provides a starting point for understanding the systems. In other processes, industry analysts like Forrester, Gartner or Real Story Group are also pulled in to provide insights to making the technology decision. Either via their reports or through their analyst services.
According to Simon Jones, the Gartner Magic Quadrant was reviewed as a part of the process, although this wasn’t noted in the project documentation.
As a part of our conversation for this article, Simon also mentioned that the PHP technology stack was a big decider on limiting CMS choice. Using the tech stack to narrow down the list is quite common.
<h2 id="not-selecting-wordpress">Not selecting WordPress</h2>
Judging from the outside, it looks like the most controversial part of the process was removing WordPress from the final three.
In the <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/docs/w3c-cms-selection-process-update/#the-review-process">CMS selection review process</a>, Studio 24 wrote this about the process they used to test the finalists:
<blockquote>“This is how we tested Craft and Statamic (we didn’t submit WordPress to that test as we already have extensive experience working with it).”</blockquote>
And later in the document this quote:
<blockquote>“We have already rejected the use of Gutenberg in the context of this project due to accessibility issues.”</blockquote>
A few weeks later in the <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/updates/weeknotes-11-sept/">CMS selection project weeknotes from 11 Sept</a>, there’s this sentence:
<blockquote>“We have shortlisted two CMS platforms at present.”</blockquote>
In other words: WordPress was out.
This created quite some debate in the community. Let’s look at the timeline:
<ul>
<li>24 September: WordPress Tavern - <a href="https://wptavern.com/w3c-drops-wordpress-from-consideration-for-redesign-narrows-cms-shortlist-to-statamic-and-craft">W3C Drops WordPress from Consideration for Redesign, Narrows CMS Shortlist to Statamic and Craft</a></li>
<li>25 September: Web consultant focusing on standards and accessibility Adrian Roselli expanded a Twitter thread to this post:  <a href="https://adrianroselli.com/2020/09/gutenberg-accessibility-costs-wordpress-the-w3c-work.html">Gutenberg Accessibility Costs WordPress the W3C Work</a></li>
<li>26 September: Member of the WordPress Accessibility Team Amanda Rush - <a href="https://www.customerservant.com/w3c-is-prioritizing-accessibility-over-its-open-source-licensing-preferences-why-is-that-a-bad-thing-again/">“W3C Is Prioritizing Accessibility Over Its Open Source Licensing Preferences”. Why is that a bad thing again?</a></li>
<li>27 September: Accessibility consultant and WordPress contributor Joe Dolson was cited in the WordPress Tavern article and published this piece as a response: <a href="https://www.joedolson.com/2020/09/the-w3c-drops-wordpress-from-consideration/">The W3C Drops WordPress from Consideration</a>.</li>
<li>29 September: WordPress Tavern with this update - <a href="https://wptavern.com/w3c-selects-craft-cms-for-redesign-project">W3C Selects Craft CMS for Redesign Project</a></li>
</ul>
Simon Jones from Studio 24 also responded with <a href="https://w3c.studio24.net/updates/on-not-choosing-wordpress/">a separate update on not choosing WordPress</a>. This post includes chapters on the challenges of Gutenberg. Specifically, the issue with Gutenberg for agencies that create bespoke websites is the development process. To quote Marie Manandise from Studio 24:
<blockquote>“It is very difficult to create custom blocks and make it profitable. And that is due to the necessity of using React for making any changes, including simple ("front-end") changes to the markup rendered by Gutenberg.”</blockquote>
In the post, Simon also addressed the topic of licensing and the different types of open source.
This tweet also sums up the issues around front-end complexity or “Reactification of frontend development.”
<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card">
<blockquote>
"The use of React complicates frontend build. We have very talented frontend developers, however, they are not React experts - nor should they need to be. I believe frontend should be built as standards-compliant HTML/CSS with JavaScript used to enrich functionality" <a href="https://twitter.com/simonrjones?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@simonrjones</a>
— Ben Furfie (@frontendben) <a href="https://twitter.com/frontendben/status/1310137650955911168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
</figure>
My take:
It’s far from unusual for vendors or even champions of open source projects to respond negatively to not making the final cut. As a customer it’s good to be prepared for this and the tactics tend to come in different shapes and sizes.
In the case of a very public project done out in the open, it’s no surprise that the discussion made it to Twitter, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24596769">Hacker News with 100s of comments</a>, and other websites. Simon from Studio 24 spent quite a bit of time responding to different questions and comments.
To quote Simon Jones:
<blockquote>“it's not easy working in the open but it's a really good thing to do.”</blockquote>
Finally, it is worth noting that while the WordPress community came out loud, the Drupal community responded much more understandingly and with positive feedback, even though they were also not on the final shortlist.
<h2 id="the-importance-of-accessibility">The importance of accessibility</h2>
As is now clear, accessibility became a major theme in this selection process. Still, accessibility was not more of a decisive a factor as the development process for example.
According to Studio 24:
<blockquote>“The reason we had to spend so much time looking into accessibility is because information about the level of accessibility of software is very hard to come by. CMS developers themselves are often not in a good position to give that information. It requires a lot of time and niche expertise to make that assessment. And also because none of the CMSes out there fit the bill, we had to be creative in coming up with a solution to meet the accessibility requirement.”</blockquote>
There’s now also an <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/atag/report-tool/">ATAG Report Tool</a>, which was released in June. The tool helps evaluators report on the accessibility of authoring tools and guides you through the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) requirements.
The Web Accessibility Initiative (a working group in W3C) are trying to use this tool to help create a list of accessible authoring tools (e.g. CMSs). This list doesn't exist yet since they don't have enough data.
In a recent talk on <a href="https://talks.hiddedevries.nl/2AxSl2/advancing-authoring-tool-accessibility">advancing authoring tool accessibility</a> by Hidde de Vries he looks at how better “authoring tools” can improve accessibility (for content editors and for web users), and share some of the new resources that the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is working on.
My take:
These days, it’s far from unusual for accessibility to be a topic when it comes to website design, also due to government regulations. Still, it’s quite rare that editor accessibility is such a decisive factor in selecting which platform to choose.
When we covered this case study in our recent <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/groups/cms-experts">CMS Expert group</a> meeting, we talked about accessibility not being high enough on the list for most customers.
Kudos to W3C as a standards organization for raising the topic!
<h2 id="final-thoughts-improving-the-cms-marketplace">Final thoughts: Improving the CMS marketplace</h2>
In our conversation with the CMS Experts, several vendors said that their clients are asking more and more for an accessible CMS. This increased focus on accessibility is now visible on roadmaps and will hopefully lead to tangible improvements soon.
On the agency side, one of the Boye members had to switch the CMS at the last minute in order to use an accessible tool.
As a community, we are big fans of this type open of sharing and reflection. While vendors move quickly and clearly keep innovating, more openness about the process can help us all push the marketplace forward.

What can we learn from the W3C CMS selection process

janus-boye

Contentstack, a headless Content Experience Platform (CXP), has <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/partnership-with-gatsby-to-build-fast-enterprise-mach-enabled-websites">announced</a> a strategic partnership with Gatsby – a modern React-based, open source framework for creating high-performance websites and applications. The partnership will enable customers to leverage the combined power of both platforms to build high performance, blazing-fast websites to deliver personalized, omnichannel experiences at scale.
The partnership between Gatsby and Contentstack is the latest in a year of significant moves across the CMS landscape, including the <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">recent purchase of Optimizely by Episerver</a>. As competition continues to increase, platforms are seeking more strategic avenues – including partnerships – to position their offerings.
For Contentstack, Gatsby represents a powerful channel of opportunity for accelerating website performance with a headless CMS that is purpose-built for omnichannel experiences. The partnership offers an enterprise-class, cloud-native solution to provide the best possible speed, security and flexibility for creating digital experiences.
<h3 id="going-headless">Going Headless</h3>
Over the last few years, headless CMS platforms have become far more prevalent, evolving from template-based platforms to API-driven and decoupled systems. Unlike traditional content management systems where the content is tied to the frontend, headless CMS platforms separate the content from the presentation – allowing creators to pull, store, and display their content any way they want, using the frameworks or programming languages they prefer.
As an API-first headless SaaS platform, <a href="/contentstack-introducing-headless-cms/">Contentstack</a> is at the intersection of content management and digital experiences, enabling business and IT to “remove the silos” and more easily collaborate. Their microservices architecture provides an extensible framework for scaling across endpoints, from websites to devices to frontend apps, giving content creators more control over an expanding world of channels and services.
Gatsby also takes a headless approach to content, leveraging modern web technologies such as React, GraphQL, and Javascript to provide a faster frontend experience powered by a headless CMS. The result is a dynamic, lightweight website that improves the user experience without compromising control from the CMS layer.  
"In today's digital world, speed matters – losing customers to a slow, low-performing website is not acceptable," said Peter Fogelsanger, Global Head of Partnerships at Contentstack. "Ensuring that the storytelling from the content creators is delivered to customers quickly and seamlessly is critical to every company's success. This partnership with Gatsby makes it possible. Businesses can bring together their marketing and development teams to deliver blazing fast websites and applications with the best, most up-to-date digital content for their customers."
Together, Contentstack and Gatsby are providing a complete solution for improving website performance and unifying both marketing and development teams. By adopting the MACH (Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS and Headless) approach delivered by both platforms, businesses can now create faster, more scalable websites that enhance the customer experience.
"Working with Contentstack allows marketing and content to harmonize with the development team," said Linda Watkins, Vice President of Partnerships at Gatsby. "When both business and technical teams are enabled by a microservices-based architecture, the agility in adapting and improving customer experiences is a game changer. Gatsby Cloud enables businesses to integrate seamlessly with Contentstack's API to manage content and control publishing. Our joint customers can more easily deliver the best digital experiences and truly stand out from their competition."
As part of the partnership offering, joint customers will have access to an API-connector between the Contentstack and Gatsby technology platforms. Contentstack <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/docs/developers/sample-apps/build-a-sample-website-using-gatsby-and-contentstack/">offers</a> a tutorial, providing step-by-step instructions on how to create a website using Gatsby and Contentstack. Gatsby also has an exclusive <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/guides/contentstack/">guide</a> for integrating Gatsby with Contentstack.
<h3 id="about-gatsby">About Gatsby</h3>
<a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.org/">Gatsby</a> is a web development framework that brings together all the best, modern ways to build on the web. Specifically designed to help frontend engineers leverage the advantages of cloud native architecture, Gatsby provides the most collaborative, secure, and performant way to build websites with access to a broad ecosystem of tools and enhancements via easy to setup integrations. Used by Fortune 500 companies including ButcherBox, Capital One, DraftKings, IBM, and Impossible Foods, the company is backed by Index Ventures, CRV, Trinity Ventures, Dig Ventures, Mango Capital, Fathom Capital, and prominent angel investors.
<h3 id="about-contentstack">About Contentstack</h3>
<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/">Contentstack</a> is a headless SaaS Content Experience Platform (DXP) that enables enterprises to manage content across all digital channels. The preferred API-first CMS for SAP customers, Contentstack was designed from the ground up for large-scale, complex, and mission-critical deployments. Contentstack is a founding member of the MACH Alliance, an industry organization that advocates for an open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystem that is Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native and Headless.

Contentstack and Gatsby Announce Partnership to Power Ultra-Fast Websites with Headless CMS

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

#ffffff

Hyland, an enterprise content management (ECM) and process management provider, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-enters-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-alfresco/">announced</a> that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Alfresco Software – an open source content services platform.
Both vendors appeared on the <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/explore/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-content-services-platforms#:~:text=In%20its%202019%20Magic%20Quadrant,vision%20and%20ability%20to%20execute.&amp;text=For%2010%20years%20in%20a,(ECM)%20and%20content%20services.">Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM in 2019</a>, with Hyland ranking as a “Leader” in the overall category. With Alfresco firmly in a challenger position, the combination brings a number of market-leading advantages to Hyland’s global growth strategy – particularly as it looks to the cloud.
“With this acquisition, Alfresco brings significant geographic and industry experience to Hyland, as well as an open-source community as a new source of product innovation,” said Jay Bhatt, president and CEO of Alfresco. “Both companies share the same passion for customer success and innovation and together will offer increased value for customers and partners.”
Hyland’s news is the latest in a recent “buying spree” that’s been playing out across the digital experience landscape. In just the past few months alone, <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">Acquia received a major investment from Vista Equity Partners</a>, <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">Episerver announced</a> plans to buy Optimizely, and just last week <a href="/nordic-capital-invests-in-siteimprove-plans-international-expansion-and-development/">Nordic Capital acquired 70% of Siteimprove</a>.
A leading ECM provider, Hyland is best known for its Onbase and Perceptive content management products, which securely centralize enterprise content and deliver relevant information to users across a wide variety of industries – including healthcare, finance, insurance, higher education and manufacturing.
Headquartered in Boston, Alfresco offers a modern, cloud-native Digital Business Platform that delivers enterprise content services and solutions to connect, manage, and protect critical information for organizations. Alfresco’s cloud capabilities may be a big ingredient in Hyland’s recipe for success as they eye a more cloud-centric strategy to scale their growth.
<h3 id="a-legacy-of-strategic-acquisitions">A Legacy of Strategic Acquisitions</h3>
Alfresco is one of Hyland’s many purchases, which have included a number of smaller digital optimization tools. Just this year, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-acquires-rpa-software-provider-another-monday/">Hyland acquired</a> Another Monday, the robotic process automation (RPA) software, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-completes-acquisition-of-streamline-healths-ecm-business/">Streamline Health ECM</a>, and <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-acquires-blockchain-credentialing-provider-learning-machine/">Learning Machine</a>, a company that develops and markets blockchain-secured digital credentialing solutions. Other acquisitions include OneContent, Perceptive (which became one of their flagship products) and <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/company/acquisitions">many more</a>.
“We continue to grow our business and advance our platform organically and via acquisitions,” said Bill Priemer, president and CEO of Hyland. “This acquisition will expand our global reach, enabling us to help more organizations achieve their digital transformation goals and become more informed, empowered, and connected.”
Alfresco has also had its own share of acquisitions, <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/news/press-releases/alfresco-acquires-content-services-specialist-technology-services-group">purchasing</a> its long-time services partner, Technology Services Group (TSG), to leverage their deep expertise in the insurance, manufacturing, life sciences, and compliance verticals. They also purchased <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/news/press-releases/alfresco-acquires-integration-specialist-pernexas">Pernexas</a> to add their portfolio of SAP capabilities.
<h3 id="why-the-alfresco-acquisition-is-important">Why the Alfresco Acquisition is Important</h3>
Over the years, Alfresco has grown into a respected and innovative enterprise content management provider with an array of proven solutions. But perhaps their most prudent and prescient decision was embracing the cloud – and partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to scale their service offerings. Within the ECM industry, this has proven to be a uniquely strategic asset, and one that Hyland can use to accelerate their journey to a more modern, cloud-native posture. If properly integrated, this could be a game changer for Hyland – the kind that puts them in the leadership position on the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
<h3 id="about-hyland">About Hyland</h3>
<a href="https://www.hyland.com/">Hyland</a> is an enterprise content management (ECM) software platform, combining integrated document management, business process management, and records management in a single application. Hyland software allows organizations to manage, control, and share digital content with employees, business partners, customers, and other constituencies.
<h3 id="about-alfresco">About Alfresco</h3>
<a href="https://www.alfresco.com/">Alfresco Software</a> is a commercial, open-source software company. The Alfresco Digital Business Platform accelerates the design and delivery of “cloud-first” solutions for the enterprise that are process and content-intensive. It is a single, integrated platform built from the ground up to digitize processes, manage content, and securely govern information. Alfresco helps more than 1,300 industry-leading organizations, including Cisco, Pitney Bowes, Capital One, US Department of Navy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and NASA, to be more responsive and competitive.

Hyland Acquires Alfresco, Focuses On Cloud and Global Expansion Of Enterprise CMS

In a year that’s already seen major shifts in strategy from enterprise software vendors, Sitecore is shaking things up with the appointment of <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/company/news-events/press-releases/2020/09/sitecore-names-steve-tzikakis-as-chief-executive-officer">Steve Tzikakis as its new CEO</a>. 
Effective immediately, Tzikakis will take the reins from Mark Frost, who over the last three years successfully led Sitecore through a radical transformation of its business, transitioning to a multi-product company with managed cloud and SaaS offerings. Frost worked closely with the Sitecore Board of Directors during the past several months on the transition plan and will remain on in an advisory role. 
Tzikakis is an experienced digital transformation technology leader with a strong track record for translating vision and strategy into world-class, go-to-market execution – and the ability to bring together teams and ecosystems to drive rapid growth. A 13-year veteran of SAP, Tzikakis spent the last five years as President of SAP’s South Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, spanning more than 43,000 customers, 19,000 partners, 4,700 employees, and 85 nationalities. While in this role, Tzikakis doubled business in the region. 
This announcement follows a <a href="/sitecore-updates-experience-platform-and-experience-commerce-releases-new-sitecore-content-hub/">major release to Sitecore’s flagship products</a>, Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) 10 and Sitecore Experience Commerce (XC) 10, as well as the launch of <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/company/news-events/press-releases/2020/07/sitecore-leverages-ai-for-smarter-management-of-images-and-video">Sitecore Content Hub 3.4</a> – which offers enhanced Digital Asset Management (DAM) and smarter orchestration of images and video.
“Global Markets today are undergoing monumental shifts, and the need for digital experiences that fabricate and define Human Connections are becoming more important,” <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tzikakis_today-is-a-very-special-day-on-my-journey-activity-6706590350095523840-ndmi">said</a> Tzikakis. “Our customers and partners can expect to see us accelerate our global expansion plans and innovation of more market-leading cloud and SaaS solutions, while further increasing our customer-centric DNA.”
Given Tzikakis’ background and experience, it’s clear that Sitecore is shifting its focus to global reach and brand awareness. This may be due in no small part to rising opportunities within digital transformation. The market’s reaction to COVID-19 has resulted in significant turmoil and budget slashing, but areas like eCommerce have been bright spots as businesses adapt to new B2B and consumer behaviors. With a new product model and the introduction of managed cloud and SaaS, the company seems poised for growth.
<h3 id="about-sitecore">About Sitecore</h3>
Sitecore delivers a digital experience platform that empowers the world’s smartest brands to build lifelong relationships with their customers. A highly decorated industry leader, Sitecore is the only company bringing together content, commerce, and data into one connected platform that delivers millions of digital experiences every day. Leading companies including American Express, ASOS, Carnival Cruise Lines, Kimberly-Clark, L’Oréal, and Volvo Cars rely on Sitecore to provide more engaging, personalized experiences for their customers. Learn more at <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/">Sitecore.com</a>.

Sitecore Names Steve Tzikakis as Chief Executive Officer

2020 has been both a challenging and active period for content management platform providers. Despite battling the persistent headwinds of COVID-19 and the looming specter of economic uncertainty, it’s clear that businesses are embracing digital transformation at all levels of the market – and shifting resources from physical to virtual.
This has been a transformational period for some vendors, particularly those focused on digital experience (DX). In fact, <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/five-fifty-the-quickening">a recent study by McKinsey</a> suggests that we’ve just experienced 10 years of eCommerce growth in the last 3 months.
As the study suggests, that pain you feel in your neck might just be digital whiplash.
Market challenges aside, this has clearly been a dynamic news cycle for the CMS industry. Soon after Acquia <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">released its new Open Digital Experience Platform</a> with the vision of bringing marketers and developers closer than ever, Sitecore announced a major release to its flagship products: Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) 10 and Sitecore Experience Commerce (XC) 10.
What’s more, both releases follow the recent launch of <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/company/news-events/press-releases/2020/07/sitecore-leverages-ai-for-smarter-management-of-images-and-video">Sitecore Content Hub 3.4</a>, which offers enhanced Digital Asset Management (DAM) and smarter orchestration of images and video.
Based on these releases, it seems like the pandemic hasn’t slowed down the rise of digital experience. On the contrary, with DX becoming the lifeblood of many organizations, companies are working harder and faster than ever to provide the best customer experiences online. Sitecore’s latest updates reflect this goal, bringing marketing and IT teams together and allowing them to work more efficiently.
<h3 id="what-you-can-expect-from-sitecore-s-new-releases">What you can expect from Sitecore’s new releases</h3>
As a legacy leader in the CMS space, Sitecore commands a strong footprint in the enterprise market. This is both an advantage and disadvantage, as their monolithic ecosystem has been challenged over the past few years by mid-level market solutions with smaller pricetags. As digital and content professionals demand greater freedom and control over their martech stack, they have embraced API-driven and <a href="/contentstack-introducing-headless-cms/">headless platforms like Contentstack</a> to shape experiences across a broadening landscape of endpoints and devices.
What’s evident is that Sitecore is responding to their market shifts, investing heavily in the transformation of their products and services to meet a changing world – one where flexibility is essential. At the enterprise level, there continues to be demand for well-architected, highly integrated solutions that provide the trusted scalability for distributing content across a multitude of channels, and making the “Holy Grail” of personalization less of a myth to marketers.
If you’re not familiar, Sitecore is composed of four integrated products: Sitecore Experience Platform, Sitecore Experience Commerce, Sitecore Experience Manager, and Sitecore Content Hub. When combined, they form Sitecore Experience Cloud: the end-to-end content, commerce, and personalization platform.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5T7qzvHbEcE7rzExxw3BkwoQQBUel03jMcvE_mKuofsJTpiINkmy4uQLWIsh6u7sBE7QYlujU4stKWnS2v0jT1QeNN7SyMsNRgPrsJ1Vbh3YafLk4T3VDP1BLANbQkWvOQ0HdiTRT2tfsyyQwg" alt="" /></figure>
If you’re interested in diving deeper into each of Sitecore’s products, <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/products">click here</a> for more details.
<h3 id="sitecore-experience-platform-xp-10">Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) 10</h3>
The new Sitecore XP 10 comes with updates such as enhanced analytics reporting, ASP.NET Core headless development, and Sitecore Containers – which provide greater efficiencies across teams. Now, IT and marketing can accelerate customer success by aligning workflows and timelines, evolving customer experiences quickly, and deploying data-informed updates or new experience elements faster than ever.
Sitecore XP 10 features new innovations around usability and performance. The updated editing environment offers an intuitive, easy-to-use interface, and provides real-time insights for multisite and multilingual experiences as content is created and published – giving marketers the knowledge they need to drive improved conversions.
In addition, Sitecore XP 10 includes enhanced reporting that enables marketers to make informed decisions with more granular visibility, specifically with how personalization is driving performance. It also includes improvements to out-of-the-box forms and enhancements to email and marketing automation.
With full container support, XP 10 eliminates that problem with smooth deployment flows between environments through consistency, isolation, and reproducibility.
XP 10 also makes collecting, analyzing, and acting on enhanced customer data faster for marketers, providing even deeper insights for audience segmentation to strengthen personalization capabilities across channels and grow customer loyalty.
Other XP 10 updates include:
<ul>
<li>Enhanced data capabilities coupled with the ability to extend targeting with auto-personalization.</li>
<li>Horizon editing interface, providing in-context insights across multilingual and multisite experiences.</li>
<li>Updated connector functionality for sending current visitor Experience Database® (xDB) information to Salesforce Marketing Cloud in real-time, enhancing Salesforce marketing automation.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="sitecore-experience-commerce-xc-10">Sitecore Experience Commerce (XC) 10</h3>
The new Sitecore XC 10 release truly reflects the market shift towards eCommerce. It provides more tools to drive higher average order value and revenue with dynamic product bundling and new promotion capabilities.
For example, using the new product bundling capability, brands can sell related and complementary products and services together at one price, driving higher order value and selling more products and services.
Sitecore has also been doubling down on their container infrastructure for deploying their solutions. To accelerate time-to-value and increase agility, Sitecore XC 10 includes broad support for <a href="https://www.docker.com/">Docker</a> and <a href="https://kubernetes.io/">Kubernetes</a>, making the deployment process more lightweight and faster than ever. Containers are generally complex, particularly Kubernetes, and require an advanced level of expertise to manage successfully.
<h3 id="sitecore-content-hub">Sitecore Content Hub</h3>
Formerly Stylelabs – which was acquired by Sitecore in 2018 – the new Sitecore Content Hub provides a 360º view of your content landscape, helping you manage every dimension of your marketing content through a single, integrated solution.
More than a DAM, Content Hub provides a broad array of features. Along with housing all of your digital assets, media, and content elements, Content Hub allows users to “feed” their Sitecore personalization with AI/ML content tagging and Image Similarity. The entire system is designed to integrate with Sitecore CMS and Experience Commerce, so you can seamlessly organize your assets and plan around content production and operations – and power your campaigns for the right channels, regions, and audiences.
The other cool aspect of Content Hub is its marketing resource management, allowing teams to sync more effectively and collaborate across workflows. Content Hub also features product content management, so you can control versions of catalogs and eCommerce items and more personalized web-to-print capabilities.
If you’d like to try out Sitecore, you can request a demo <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/request-a-demo">here</a>.
<h3 id="about-sitecore">About Sitecore</h3>
Sitecore delivers a digital experience platform that empowers the world’s smartest brands to build lifelong relationships with their customers. A highly decorated industry leader, Sitecore is the only company bringing together content, commerce, and data into one connected platform that delivers millions of digital experiences every day. Leading companies including American Express, ASOS, Carnival Cruise Lines, Kimberly-Clark, L’Oréal, and Volvo Cars rely on Sitecore to provide more engaging, personalized experiences for their customers. Learn more at <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/">Sitecore.com</a>.

Sitecore Updates Experience Platform and Experience Commerce, Releases New Sitecore Content Hub

It’s impossible to deny Wix.
Just ask supermodel Karlie Kloss, the star of their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4meDcOLeWSs">2019 Super Bowl ad</a> – and founder of a <a href="https://www.kodewithklossy.com/">code camp for young women</a>.
In 30 seconds, she shared her personal Wix website with millions of viewers, highlighting features like the Wix Pro Gallery and SEO Wiz (both catchy names for an event that involves a lot of catching). 
Needless to say, it was a touchdown.
Kloss isn’t the first celebrity to promote Wix as the world’s premier website building and content management platform. A quick YouTube search will bring up the likes of Jason Statham and Gal Gadot in a 2017 Big Game spot. And it’s no surprise they can foot the bill for these heavy hitters and massive media buys: at last count, Wix is host to 160 million websites.
That’s worthy of a Super Bowl ring. Or five.
Wix has certainly established itself as the go-to solution for small, do-it-yourself entrepreneurs (think local florist or photography studio), competing with other “pre-fab” solutions like <a href="/squarespace-7-review/">Squarespace</a> and <a href="/weebly-review-2016/">Weebly</a>.
Like these platforms, Wix has always lead with simplicity. Basic templates and attractive themes allow for mobile responsiveness and limited control over images, color, content, and other dimensions. You can easily add features like photo galleries or browse the Wix App Market for some nifty integrations. It’s also one of the only platforms that allow you to animate elements and offers an AI-driven design bot that (sort of) assists with simple tasks.
When it comes to offering more advanced designers the freedom to explore and customize – while still delivering a low-code experience – Wix has generally fumbled the ball. But the game might be changing with Editor X.
<h3 id="introducing-editor-x">Introducing Editor X</h3>
Previously available as a closed beta program, Wix recently launched its new Editor X, specifically built for web designers and digital agencies that are seeking to push the aesthetic limits without the hassle of coding from scratch. Much of the emphasis has been on adopting drag-and-drop feature sets, which has been the main focus of many CMS platforms – the most popular being <a href="/gutenberg-2-years-later-is-wordpress-better-off/">Gutenberg</a>.
Wix has now entered the competitive field with Editor X, combining advanced drag-and-drop capabilities with cutting edge responsive design, flexible grids with full breakpoint control, and advanced CSS editing and control (in fact, you don’t even need to know CSS). For designers who are seeking to create more bespoke, hand-crafted experiences, Editor X could be a win.
“Gifted and talented creators have the ability to see the invisible and create the unimaginable,” said Wix Co-founder and CEO, Avishai Abrahami. “Until now these creators’ only option was platforms with restricted design freedoms or limited business web infrastructure that demanded code and multiple plugins. With Editor X, we’ve built the world’s best CSS editor and designed a radical new creative landscape for designers and web professionals, one in which the technology keeps pace with designers’ visions and enables them to swiftly create breathtaking websites, applications and digital experiences that continually raise the standard of the web.”
Here's a short video introduction to Editor X:
<figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card kg-card-hascaption"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bpEHKYd51cY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><figcaption>Introducing Editor X</figcaption></figure>
<h3 id="what-features-come-with-editor-x">What Features Come with Editor X?</h3>
<a href="https://www.editorx.com/">Editor X</a> is made with designers and agencies in mind. It offers advanced layout capabilities that allow you to create more complex website designs for any device – all without using code.
While that’s the main selling point of Editor X, it actually comes with a number of additional features and capabilities for development, business solutions, digital marketing, and SEO.
Main Features
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/HVzjSdXdJCfiAg_T3SxrcCqzypCRDEhp2tyjBcSsc9noz5agWsbPDz5Jx8FF9TM1NZdXVsjScpkEqT0kGvdA5uavmE79DPZWq34zUt8xXy-RAd2MAG142nDy-xCZGKxv_qdnwBMwZA8GNJUPng" alt="A picture containing electronics, table, monitor, deskDescription automatically generated" /><figcaption>Editor X Responsive Views</figcaption></figure>
Editor X manages to solve some of the biggest challenges facing modern designers and web professionals – from custom code to no code. The core <a href="https://www.editorx.com/features">features</a> include:
<ul>
<li>Breakpoint Precision: Create custom breakpoints, rearrange layouts, choose what to show or hide, and fine tune sites at every viewport.</li>
<li>CSS Grid: Design with CSS – without even thinking about CSS! Editor X brings a truly accessible, easy-to-use gateway to CSS.</li>
<li>Flexbox Technology: Let your content automatically adjust to every screen in single, multiple, and repeating layouts.</li>
<li>Custom Code: Integrate custom code and connect to internal/external APIs.</li>
<li>Integrated Business Infrastructure: Access Wix’s expansive range of business solutions to manage multiple sales channels, set up online bookings and scheduling, improve SEO performance, and more.</li>
</ul>
Design &amp; Layout
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/2F6sAkhXXmMn6_jYC4rKjBcvMrQfnsK-lqI1ACjWUfHJL-aKce6TkUJ-tfyqBaSf4RcVQ_v5grWu8mHz_YnusRc_VjLQ0V_BJhbVQU7vjQu36VQ0GZ3Od_aY9ya29C-dnFy3DWliYPFzrbGzow" alt="A screen shot of a computerDescription automatically generated" /><figcaption>Editor X Aligning Elements</figcaption></figure>
Editor X was built to expand the Wix design potential. It offers granular layout capabilities that allow you to create complex website designs for any device, all without using code. Some of the coolest design features include:
<ul>
<li>Grid Layouting: An advanced two-dimensional layout system based on CSS grid.</li>
<li>Docking: Anchors elements to a specific position as the viewport changes.</li>
<li>Stack &amp; scale: Reorient media for seamless responsive behavior.</li>
<li>Text scale: Create scalable font sizes as part of a design solution.</li>
<li>Flex Layouter: A smart layout system that relies on Flexbox technology for automatic reorganization of content while resizing.</li>
<li>Custom Breakpoints: Tailor designs to any viewport, not just classic devices.</li>
<li>Flexible canvas: Leverage resizing handles to instantly see and customize your design across viewports.</li>
<li>Advanced sizing control: Define your element as fixed or fluid, using wide support for modern CSS units.</li>
<li>Wix Design System: Features sections with built-in responsive behavior matched to the color palette of your site.</li>
</ul>
Development
Editor X also provides plenty of tools for developers who want to add custom code and build data rich websites. Some of these features include:
<ul>
<li>Dynamic Pages: Design one-page layouts or create unlimited pages – each with their own content, URL and SEO.</li>
<li>Database APIs: Use data APIs in your website’s front-end or backend code to manage and organize data.</li>
<li>Built-in IDE: Make coding more productive using the built-in IDE, equipped with syntax highlighting, code completion and more.</li>
<li>Custom Interactions: Create unique user interactions by triggering events when visitors perform specific actions.</li>
</ul>
Business Solutions
Running an online business always requires a few third-party applications. With Editor X and the Wix platform, you can have all of it in one place. Add an eCommerce store and accept payments, or a member section where customers can sign in and manage their personal accounts. You can also offer live chat, set up automations to collect leads, and <a href="https://www.editorx.com/features/business-ecommerce">so much more</a>.
The Wix App Market offers a wide range of integrations like form generators, social plugins, marketing tools and more. But builder beware: like open source marketplaces, many of the apps are made by third parties – and aren’t guaranteed by Wix.
Web Solutions
On Wix, every website you build is completely hosted – and includes an SSL certificate (which is being deprecated and replaced by TLS). Wix provides automatic updates, so your websites stay secure without any hassles or concerns over managing your own security requirements.
You can also search, purchase, and register domains directly through Editor X.
Marketing &amp; SEO
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/19u-wog6LhGCOi3lLpgMVChee4T3Kcx2xuCEK1NLbBzoDAUZrbNpoGNFI0jlt6xL1zv5LZM0ne1hPlxoBP-KpJVvx6a8ajhu_nkAP0MLsJvuDrAKl4XPe3FVk7Ba8lwxR5lpklq4BxR3ZZiCdA" alt="A screen shot of a clockDescription automatically generated" /><figcaption>Editor X SEO Settings</figcaption></figure>
In addition to providing basic SEO tools such as XML site maps, structured data, canonical URLs and 301 redirects, Editor X offers custom SEO plans and email marketing. Every website comes with a tailor-made SEO package that helps ensure your websites rank decently on Google. You can also drive traffic with professional email marketing campaigns, and review how visitors interact with your client sites by tracking visits through their built-in analytics tools.
<h3 id="performance">Performance</h3>
So far, Editor X looks a bit like “Weapon X.” It’s got everything that’s been missing from Wix and gives designers and agencies a more customizable platform to build on. Why choose anything else?
One word: performance.
When testing the <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.editorx.com%2F">page speed</a> of <a href="https://www.editorx.com/">editorx.com</a>, the score is staggering 34 out of 100 – almost exactly the same as the Rotten Tomatoes score for “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” That’s not good.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/nsje8VvBnPAjtAcOsfn-F19_BGM9JgOsUeJs4MOxkeNski7caip-zddZcI1bb1brGYdJlwChaywa25b1oTQ69St5e7LN_nL6mZAAK-4QP79S128N8e4orDa6JNhvT62ri_R6IX7iO4w1IAK4qg" alt="Editor-X Page Speed Screenshot" /><figcaption>https://www.editorx.com's Google Page Insights Score</figcaption></figure>
This is not a problem unique to Editor X, of course. All website builders since Dreamweaver have been plagued by the code bloat problem. In case you’re not familiar, code bloat is unnecessarily long or wasteful code that slows down websites. A lot.
When Squarespace pioneered code-free website building and attracted millions with its style and aesthetics, it seemed like everyone could build websites with no working knowledge of HTML and CSS. Over time, as it became more complex and conflated, the entire platform evolved into a page-loading nightmare.
If performance really matters, you might want to think twice about Editor X. 
<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion </h3>
Editor X was conceived with designers in mind. And it tends to deliver with a richer, more complete set of tools and greater domain over the design experience. Even a small business or solopreneur that craves more control could get a lot of value out of Editor X. The problem lies with performance: if page speed and loads times are critical – and you have a larger, more expansive website – you might want an enterprise-worthy solution that can handle the demands of a content team.
Ready to try it out? Click <a href="https://users.editorx.com/signin?sendEmail=true&amp;view=sign-up&amp;originUrl=https:%2F%2Fwww.editorx.com&amp;loginCompName=Signup_H&amp;referralInfo=Editorx_Signup_H&amp;postLogin=https:%2F%2Fmanage.editorx.com%2Faccount%2Fsites&amp;overrideLocale=en&amp;forceRender=true">here</a>. 
<h3 id="about-editor-x">About Editor-X</h3>
<a href="https://www.editorx.com/">Editor X</a> is an advanced creation platform for designers and web professionals. The platform combines cutting edge responsive design with smooth drag and drop. Those that want to can add custom code and use a powerful CMS to build data-driven sites and complex web applications. Editor X offers an unparalleled range of integrated business solutions from a leading eCommerce infrastructure to professional marketing and SEO tools. Editor X is part of <a href="https://www.wix.com/">Wix.com Ltd</a>.
<h3 id="about-wix">About Wix</h3>
<a href="https://www.wix.com/">Wix</a> is leading the way with a cloud-based development platform for over 170 million registered users worldwide. Wix was founded on the belief that the Internet should be accessible to everyone to develop, create and contribute. Through free and premium subscriptions, Wix empowers millions of businesses, organizations, artists and individuals to take their businesses, brands and workflow online. The Wix Editor, Wix ADI, a highly curated App Market, Ascend by Wix and Corvid by Wix enable users to build and manage a fully integrated and dynamic digital presence.

Wix Introduces Editor X, Offers Designers Advanced Tools for Building Custom Websites

When it comes to SEO, there are a number of tools that can help improve your website’s performance. And that’s the problem: you often need multiple resources to manage a comprehensive SEO strategy, and few platforms offer complete solution with the right mix of features.
While Siteimprove has built a strong reputation around their industry-leading <a href="https://siteimprove.com/en-us/accessibility/">accessibility scanning and monitoring solution</a>, their SEO platform boasts some powerful enterprise features for enhancing search while simplifying the overall management.
We took a fresh look at Siteimprove SEO to see what gives it an edge – and how their all-in-one platform can help power your search and Digital Presence Optimization (DPO) strategies.
<h3 id="the-impact-of-covid-19-on-seo">The Impact of COVID-19 on SEO</h3>
The Coronavirus pandemic has unquestionably changed the way we live. But it’s also dramatically elevated the value of SEO.
With more people working from home, streaming video content, and ordering goods online, internet usage has increased exponentially. While businesses have begun to reopen in most places, the effects of COVID-19 have had a profound and lasting impact on digital experience.
From events to food service to hospitality, almost every industry has been forced to transform their operations. As businesses continue to become more reliant on digital strategies, SEO is playing an even bigger role for driving leads and competing online.
<h3 id="seo-made-simple">SEO Made Simple</h3>
Digital professionals already know how challenging it is to manage a successful SEO strategy. With dozens of tools flooding the already overloaded <a href="https://chiefmartec.com/2020/04/marketing-technology-landscape-2020-martech-5000/">MarTech landscape</a> – from analytics to keyword research to linking – the choices can feel overwhelming.
Siteimprove SEO helps cut through this complexity by combining the most essential tools in one place and integrating their capabilities. This makes the SEO job less cumbersome while providing more actionable insight and value.
We’ve already mentioned Siteimprove’s best-of-breed accessibility platform. These features go hand-in-hand with SEO, as accessibility is built on structured website tagging and labeling. Search engines love these components, so fixing your accessibility means improving your SEO. It’s relatively easy to add Siteimprove’s accessibility scanning and monitoring to help flag ADA compliance violations.
<h3 id="an-all-in-one-platform-for-optimizing-search">An All-in-One Platform for Optimizing Search</h3>
While no platform can bring everything together in one place, Siteimprove gets pretty close. Here are some key features worth noting:
On-Page Diagnostics 
Siteimprove incorporates 66 unique SEO checks, including scans for missing meta descriptions, spelling mistakes, broken links, poor readability, and links to unsafe domains. Based on all the checkpoints, it then calculates your SEO score, measured on a scale of 0-100.
There are four separate categories: Technical, Content, User Experience, and Mobile Standards. Each category gets its own score with their total making up the overall score. The scoring system allows users to easily identify what needs to be improved and where they should direct their efforts. This makes managing and understanding your SEO much easier. The following ranges give an indication of how your website is doing:
- Red: 0-49 (poor)
- Orange: 50-89 (average)
- Green: 90-100 (good)
A score of 90+ will place your website in the top 5% of all websites, according to Google’s performance metrics. Making your score higher will improve your SEO, user engagement, and user experience – thus increasing conversions.
Keyword insights 
The Keyword insights feature allows for advanced keyword discovery and monitoring. Through a direct integration of <a href="https://search.google.com/search-console/about">Google’s Search console</a>, Siteimprove SEO helps you learn how Google’s search engine sees your website and which queries make your website appear in search results. With Keyword Insights, you can identify keywords that drive traffic to your website and see their search volume, estimated traffic, competition level, and even a specific keyword’s potential ranked from low to high.
Search Engine Analytics 
With Siteimprove, you can see where your visitors are coming from and how engaged they are with your content. Search Engine Analytics provides statistics on visitors from search engine referrals, their county, and even the devices they use. With all the data at your fingertips, you can enhance your digital strategies and focus your campaigns based on incredibly useful metrics.
Backlink checks 
Backlinks are hyperlinks that live on other websites that lead back to your website. Backlinks are an important part of any SEO strategy, as search engines use backlinks as an indicator of your domain authority (essentially how popular or important your website is). With backlink checks and analysis, you can see which sites are publishing links back to you, and identify links that boost your ranking or even put it at risk.
Duplicate Content Finder 
Duplicate content is a problem almost every web or content manager faces. Google and other search engines work hard to index pages with distinct information, and duplicated blocks of content can be seen as manipulating SEO to win more traffic. Even if duplicate content includes things like printer-only versions of pages, the search engines can’t always tell which version to display. Consequently, your page may rank lower or even be excluded from search results. While canonical tags can be used to combat this, it’s good to avoid the problem in the first place.
With Siteimprove, you can search and identify duplicate content, compare the percentage of similarity between pages, and provide page view statistics. Armed with this data, you can take action to remove or properly tag your duplicate content and improve your rankings.
Content Optimization 
With Siteimprove, you can map specific keywords to where they should appear in your content. You can even get recommendations on how to optimize your overall content for keywords.
Accessibility 
As we already mentioned, Siteimprove is well-regarded for their accessibility solutions. But improving your SEO can help support your overall accessibility – and adding Siteimprove’s scanning and monitoring tools can help give you a clean bill of health around violations.
Siteimprove’s scanning and monitoring tools check your website for a range of accessibility issues and compile scoring based on WCAG 2.0 ratings for A, AA, or AAA standards. If you have a big site, you can use automated accessibility checks to simultaneously test hundreds of pages. You can then generate actionable reports that allow you to remediate any issues and track your improvements for regulatory or governance requirements.
<a href="https://siteimprove.com/en-us/accessibility/">Click here</a>  to learn more about Siteimprove’s accessibility solutions.
<h3 id="integration-with-cms-platforms">Integration with CMS Platforms</h3>
Siteimprove works seamlessly with most content management systems. It offers a set of pre-built plugins for specific platforms, as well as integrations developed in collaboration with CMS vendors. There are also a number of community plugins that have been developed and supported by third parties. Siteimprove does feature an <a href="https://api.siteimprove.com/v2/documentation">API spec with complete documentation</a> for building custom integrations.
<h3 id="pricing">Pricing</h3>
Along with their suite of SEO tools, Siteimprove offers multiple enterprise products through a subscription-based model. While they don’t offer pricing on their website, you can contact their sales team to develop a custom quote around your organization’s needs and goals.
You can also get a free demo of the software <a href="https://siteimprove.com/en-us/request-a-demo/">https://siteimprove.com/en-us/request-a-demo/</a>
<h3 id="about-siteimprove">About Siteimprove</h3>
Siteimprove offers the world's most comprehensive cloud-based Digital Presence Optimization (DPO) software. The Siteimprove Intelligence Platform provides eye-opening insights that empower more than 7,500 teams to create higher quality content, drive better traffic, measure digital performance, and work towards regulatory compliance—all from one place. We are also proud to offer best-in-class technical support, academy courses, services, and technology integrations.

Siteimprove SEO Provides All-In-One Capabilities for Enhancing Search Performance

Shopify Inc. has announced the release of Shop, a first-of-its-kind mobile shopping app designed to create a more intuitive online shopping experience from product discovery to package delivery.
We are setting out to reimagine the online shopping experience for customers — to provide them greater convenience, transparency, and personalization. As a result of social distancing and stay-at-home measures, customers have become more reliant on online ordering than ever before as it becomes more challenging to stay connected to the brands they love.
Designed to bridge the gaps in online shopping, Shop offers users the ability to easily discover local businesses, receive relevant product recommendations from their favorite brands, check out effortlessly, and track all of their online orders. We’ve brought together our expertise in commerce and proven features from Shop Pay, a one-click accelerated checkout, and Arrive, an app to track online orders, to make purchasing and order tracking frictionless for shoppers. To date, Shop Pay has processed over $8 billion in sales, while Arrive has been used by 16 million shoppers to track their ecommerce orders.
In a world of increasing physical separation, we want to help businesses deepen their connection with their customers and, over time, understand what they want to continue to build trust and loyalty.
“Shopify has focused the last decade on solving complex problems for entrepreneurs by making commerce seamless and accessible,” said Carl Rivera, General Manager of Shop. “Now, we want to do the same for customers. We set out to solve the common pain points in the customer’s shopping journey today, while developing specific features, like local business discovery, that will be relevant today and in the future.”
Shop’s features include:
<ul>
<li>Local filters: Shop’s users can locate nearby merchants to support local businesses. The app identifies businesses currently offering shipping, pick-up, and highlights return policies.</li>
<li>Seamless payment and checkout: Through Shop Pay, shoppers have fast and easy checkout across all brands on the app.</li>
<li>Transparent tracking: With the innovative technology of Arrive, all order and tracking information is stored in one convenient place. Tracking shows the status of each package and provides real-time updates.</li>
<li>Customized recommendations: Through personalized recommendations, like new releases and deals from the brands shoppers love, Shop ensures merchants’ customers consistently rediscover the storefronts of their favorite brands, as well as new brands.</li>
</ul>
The iOS and Android app are available to <a href="https://shop.app/" rel="noreferrer noopener">download</a> in the app store today. For more information, please visit <a href="http://shopify.com/shop" rel="noreferrer noopener">shopify.com/shop</a>.
About Shopify
Shopify is a leading global commerce company, providing trusted tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business of any size. Shopify makes commerce better for everyone with a platform and services that are engineered for reliability, while delivering a better shopping experience for consumers everywhere. Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, Shopify powers over one million businesses in more than 175 countries and is trusted by brands such as Allbirds, Gymshark, PepsiCo, Staples and many more. For more information, visit www.shopify.com.

Shopify Unveils Its Consumer App: Shop

cms-critic-staff

The most popular open-source headless content management system (CMS) <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=t5_FPcCTthEU0ymmYwQjMlFRUUpcDIxkDMaj-n8FfDcxPFAyPp_9LakdMWyMGO-h" rel="nofollow">Strapi</a> can now be deployed in less than two minutes on DigitalOcean. The company announced today that it has been listed on the <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=CKiPFiyUkEchztZjtKbXx6K9AjCb9BL9F24ABm8ezw1QIjXzl_S7VSrVcUazuUtjHoDmRsXsgJqAIWIPnrHzlRqh2LA5RHIW2BzKUaQYVXtYSsSQOC8aF6CM6jrkkvOz" rel="nofollow">DigitalOcean Marketplace</a> with a preconfigured one-click option.
<blockquote>Strapi’s  mission is to make content management and delivery as easy as possible  for developers and end-users,” said Pierre Burgy, co-founder and CEO of  Strapi. “Our availability on the DigitalOcean Marketplace enables users  to deploy Strapi with one-click, saving them time and deployment  headaches.”</blockquote>
Strapi works with all the JAMstack static site  generators like React, Vue.js, Next.js, Nuxt.js, Gatsby.js or Angular  supports both SQL and NoSQL databases and can be deployed anywhere:  Amazon Web Services (AWS), Netlify, Heroku, a dedicated or virtual  private server. The release of the <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=zp_N1CXQvF7NZGkv3G8p2ofk3RBDzkn-ORi4RELCgW2Z2hxWYZ3FeAaD_7wN5B7954MFXzfz0EAY4qTjz940q1GOd-f11kEB323kuUlLtD7PeAbCl5cG4aviH2hqNxNJZToKDxuJrNrhE8OLQnLRbyOhS7LwOvHfyKMPY1S7-1k=" rel="nofollow">platform.sh one-click deploy button</a> last week and DigitalOcean this week gives developers the option to  save time installing Strapi instances directly on their favorite cloud  platform in minutes.
“With this new ‘Strapi Marketplace app,’  developers can spin up Strapi instances easily and almost  instantaneously,” said Chris Sevilleja, founder, Scotch.io, and web  community manager at DigitalOcean. “With support for both REST and  GraphQL application programming interfaces (APIs), Strapi is a very good  option for the A in the JAMstack, a powerful backend that just works  with all JavaScript static site generators.”
On Thursday, March 12, Sevilleja will be hosting a <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=7lXANVhSHyzPu0FbqEDy63Qee8GAL2n6RWVgZtkhxUxOQOg7SfWl_SBPOP424czPdpRwoa6QzJHYE6OMBpBLSJ39oFg7PQYdXEHkvPaHM3Taeobu9l50RSGI39Es0sbqYNJZvFS2CN8r_vrnZONFEA==" rel="nofollow">webinar</a> discussing JAMstack best practices and ways to set up API layers by  running a headless CMS on DigitalOcean Droplets, featuring Strapi. To  create a Strapi Droplet go to: <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=Reg2XsTvoKgAV_9tgC8JTLGpB8xD9sdkQmoCOwYp5qQgfsTQ-hJ7-JEKz-ij5qDYTf3R145TQoUghIaJBvZH7zNkvDRFsa7ZkpyhMaEqjDPAtlDLAWhlEP0yQ5uBjem7upmh5x02YhyXlOlk9WSn0ZjAJ1b2wBkIZJJ5qZJAd28=" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/strapi</a>.

Headless CMS Strapi now available on the DigitalOcean Marketplace

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