Articles - Page 175

What I Mean to Say: A Practitioner Perspective on AI, Semantics, and Content Evolution

msalvatierra

There is no disputing that there are tons (and I mean tons) of premium WordPress theme providers out there but for those on a budget who are looking for excellent quality themes with solid support, there simply is no better option than ElegantThemes.
These guys offer 100% access to over 70 themes all for one price, $39! This is an absolutely tremendous price and for most themes you find in theme stores such as ThemeForest, you'll pay that price for a single theme, never mind access to over 70 of them which you can use as you wish.
Here are two of their most recent themes:
<h2>Nimble</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/nimble_blogpost_full-469x1024.jpg" />
<h2>Lucid</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/lucid_preview31-423x1024.jpg" />
Beautiful aren't they? Don't forget there are over 70 themes for various types of websites ranging from Business to Personal to pretty much everything.
Check them out if you want the best bang for your buck and are in the market for a solid WordPress theme. There's no point in paying hundreds of dollars for multiple themes when you can get them all for under $40.
<a href="/elegantthemes">Visit ElegantThemes now</a>.

ElegantThemes Review - Quite Possibly The Best Value for WordPress Themes

mike-johnston

<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/hoopla-site-600px.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
Create your own social community at <a href="http://www.hoop.la">hoop.la</a>. Bring everything and everyone together on one site. One site with forums, blogs, photos, videos, chats, events, tweets, and more!
A hoop.la website is easy to set up and manage. It offers quick access to editing content from any page and has options and settings to easily customize your site. Building a community website has never been easier. Bring your social networks together in one place. Increase community involvement by letting members easily see conversations from Facebook, Twitter, and other social communities.
The standard community site at hoop.la has the following sections:
<ul>
<li>Home</li>
<li>Blog</li>
<li>Gallery (also known as clips)</li>
<li>Calendar</li>
<li>Forums</li>
<li>Chat Events</li>
<li>About</li>
<li>Members</li>
<li>Search</li>
<li>Activity</li>
</ul>
<h2>Setting up the Website</h2>
<img style="max-width:449px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/site-setup.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
All the settings for the website, monitoring community involvement, editing content, etc. are inside Site Setup. It's also very easy to get to these individual settings from any page of the site.
<h2>Themes</h2>
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/theme-settings-600px.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
Not only can you select any of the available themes, but you can easily customize your theme or create your own.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/content-area-theme-settings-620x361.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
Each section can be designed to your liking. This gives you a lot of flexibility and options in customizing your website.
<h2>Modules</h2>
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/image06_ggmkjy.png" alt="hoopla review" />
Any of the standard pages for the initial website can be turned off/on inside the Modules/Configuration page. You can also rename any of the standard pages to your liking.
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/configure-menu-600px.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
You can customize the menu under the Community Menu option. You can easily move, add or delete menu items. A nice-to-have option would be the ability to add and manage drop down menus – especially when setting up custom pages.
<h2>Custom Page</h2>
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/custom-page-600px.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
You can easily add your own pages to your hoop.la site. This can include any html content and can inherit the same headers/footers as the rest of the site, or you can include your own. Add custom pages to the menu by updating the menu through the Community Menu.
<h2>Blog</h2>
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/blog-settings-600px.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
You can easily set up your own blog. You can allow anyone to post or allow only certain members to post. You can also connect to a Twitter account so posts from your Twitter account also post to the blog.
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/create-blog-post-600px.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
Adding a blog post is very straightforward. You can assign a post to a collection (similar to categories in WordPress) and can add tags. A post can also be assigned as premium content (see Premium Membership section below).
<h2>Forums</h2>
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/forum-settings-600px.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
You can easily add forums and topics within a forum. It's easy to monitor who can view, post, and reply within a forum. Hoop.la also lets you set up a customized url for the topic (common throughout all modules) and choose specific ads to show in the right side bar for that particular topic. This is great if you have sponsors that are a good match for a particular topic.
<h2>Calendar</h2>
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/calendar-600px.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
The Calendar module includes all the common options. It's easy to add events, manage events, and track number of attendees. A nice-to-have feature would be to integrate this with registration options for events that require registration.
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/calendar-event-600ox.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
Adding an event to the Calendar is straightforward. Google maps are integrated with an event if an address is provided.
<h2>Widgets</h2>
<img style="max-width:610px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/add-widgets.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
One of the great features of hoop.la is the ease in adding widgets to sidebars – whether it's for the home page or for an ‘inside' page. You can add a standard widget that comes with hoop.la or any 3rd party widget by selecting ‘Create New Custom Widget'.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/manage-widgets.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
The option to manage widgets is readily available on each page from the sidebar area. It is also very easy to move these widgets up or down from within a sidebar or to a different location (up or down, right or left sidebar) on the home page.
<h2>Social Network Integration</h2>
Combine and view all your social network conversations in one place by integrating popular social networks into your hoop.la website. Community members can sign in using their social network account information and connect their hoop.la profile to their social networks. This expands your community exponentially. The instructions provided by hoop.la to integrate the various social networks are thorough and easy to follow.
<h2>Premium Memberships</h2>
You can easily charge members for access to premium features or content. All transaction processing is handled by hoop.la and you keep 70% of the revenue. They also automatically handle the membership list.
I think this is one of the best features of hoop.la. Where else can you so easily set up a membership site within minutes? Give the membership level a name (VIP), enter the fee and you are off and running. You can even set it up for members to sign up for a trial period. One nice feature to add would be to have multiple membership levels.
<h2>Manage Content</h2>
<img style="max-width:548px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/moderate-rules.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
Hoop.la provides a lot of flexibility in setting up your moderation rules. Do you want to moderate everything? You can do that. Do you want to moderate just Event posts? You can do that. Do you just want to moderate content with attachments, or content by a certain member, or content that contains certain words? You can set up rules to do so. The options provided within Moderation Rules covers it all, giving you as much flexibility as you want.
<h2>Permissions</h2>
<img style="max-width:484px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/permissions.jpg" alt="hoopla review" />
It is easy to add member groups and assign permissions to a group. Permissions range from type of 
events group members can view to which forums they can view.
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
Hoop.la has it covered when it comes to setting up a community site. The features and options are all encompassing in giving you all of the flexibility and customization choices you would expect when setting up your community site. Take hoop.la for a <a href="http://www.hoop.la">trial run</a> and try it out for yourself.
Are you a fan? Have you used it? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Build a Community at Hoop.la - Review

As you know, we offer private audits for companies looking to get our feedback on their products. We have two remaining spots for this year available.
Here's how the process works:
We review your system and write an unbiased review that focuses on the good and bad including any bugs we find during the use of the system. We assess your website landing page for the product and provide you with feedback as to how well tailored it is towards what customers are looking for.
We send the final document to you for your review. Your team then has three choices:
<ol>
<li>Ask for the review to be published, in which case, we will do so.</li>
<li>Ask for the review to not be published, in which case, you can retain it for your records.</li>
<li>You can take up to 90 days to resolve any issues identified within the review and ask us to re-assess those areas once complete, after which, we will publish the review.</li>
</ol>
This is a popular service we recently began offering this year and with only two spots left, they will go fast. Grab your audit today for 50% off before they are all gone.
If you are interested in learning more (and getting pricing), drop me a line using the form below and I'll get back you as soon as possible.
Error: Contact form not found.

Private Audits 50% off for a limited time. Only two available.

Ben Vallack's unique CMS, SetSeed, has just seen a major new update. SetSeed 7 beta.
The idea behind SetSeed has always been to create a central website development platform for developers to create complete websites for their clients. Developers can build websites using the powerful template system, and their clients get to edit their own content using the CMS itself. As such, the CMS application is designed to be wonderfully slick and easy to use.
It's that distinction between content and style that is the absolute backbone of SetSeed's design and user experience principles.
That's why, when editing content in the CMS, you won't see a WYSIWYG editor or, in fact, any stylistic representation of content. You simply see your content. Each paragraph and heading is it's own selectable item, making it effortlessly easy to apply formatting, reorder, delete and copy or paste. Just double click an item to edit text using a standard bullet-proof plain-text editor with short-codes for inline formatting.
Speed of development is also at the heart of SetSeed's raison d'etre. SetSeed is fully featured right out of the box – that means no plugins to faff about with. It also powers all your sites from a single installation, which means you don't need to install the same software over and over again each time you deploy a site. What's more, it means you can update your application just once to keep all your clients' sites up to date. They'll love you for that.
SetSeed 7 adds a host of exciting new tools at the developer's disposal as well as radically reinventing the CMS user experience. SetSeed 7 even works gracefully on iOS devices and desktops thanks to a completely responsive application interface.
Creating a responsive interface for a CMS is not a challenge for the feint hearted. Most CMS's try and emulate the front-end page layout within the back end, or overlay editing tools on the front-end itself. That just isn't going to happen on a 320 pixel wide device.
The solution is to make a bold decision to do away with front-end emulation completely. For example, multi-column layouts in SetSeed are represented by full width droppable content zones. No room for ambiguity and it all works just as well on a tiny screen as it does on a big one. When you use it, you'll wonder why all CMS's aren't like this.
Editing content efficiently requires a streamlined interface; not one distracted by front-end styles. WYSIWYG and front-end live editors need not apply.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/devices-620x273.jpg" />
Another significant improvement with SetSeed 7 is workflow. The all-new user interface has been built from the ground up to make working in all areas of the fully-featured CMS consistent, fast and enjoyable. Keyboard shortcuts play an important role in that for power users, and a familiar list + toolbar graphical UI makes it foolproof if your'e only using a mouse or touch.
One area that's always posed a problem for CMS's is how to handle image scaling and cropping. As a design, you'll probably have designed a beautiful page layout with a certain image size/ratio in mind. So what happens to your layout when your client uploads an image straight from their camera and in the wrong ratio?
SetSeed 7 now features an elegant and powerful way of handling images. Your clients can go ahead and upload whatever size and ratio image they like. They can then choose from a list of present crop/size profiles which you create when building the theme. You can choose to constrain or crop images and scale by one or both axis. Images can also be rotated in the CMS too. This all happens on the server-side and the images and cached once they've been modified. Your clients won't see all this happening, but they'll love how their website always looks ‘just right'.
SetSeed has always included a comprehensive set of training material to help your clients get to grips with the CMS. SetSeed 7 takes this to new levels with a fully integrated interactive step-by-step walkthrough mode. Gorgeous animated arrows guide the user through complete tasks, showing them how to work with the system as they proceed with the walkthrough. This is going to be a much loved frustration squasher.
SetSeed 7 has also seen a big update to the email newsletter system. Email newsletter templates can now feature multi-column layouts and use template Sections. This really makes SetSeed a solid contender for a business-in-a-box platform.
Other highlights in SetSeed 7 are the Embed Codes feature, theme variables, multiple gallery styles, cut/copy/paste (when working with content and pages) and loads, loads more. Check out <a href="http://beta.setseed.com">http://beta.setseed.com</a> for more information.

SetSeed CMS Gets New Update with SetSeed 7 Beta

The popular open source CMS, MODx, has seen an update with the release of MODx Revolution 2.2.5. This update promises improved Media Source function, Caching enhancements and a handling to prevent blank pages occurring on some older hosting environments.
Here are the highlights of the 2.2.5 release:
<ul>
<li>Media Source fixes with Elements and Static Elements</li>
<li>Corrected Media Source errors with modParser-&gt;getElement()</li>
<li>Corrected Media Source errors with static element paths</li>
<li>Optimized cache refresh query, big boost for sites with large Contexts, on MySQL 5.1 or earlier as well as addition cache fixes.</li>
<li>Added support for environments not supporting flock causing blank pages due to corrupted cache files</li>
<li>Corrected various Resource editing bugs related to changing template</li>
<li>ResourceGroup restricted TV's losing value when edited by users w/o access</li>
<li>Form Customization rules now applied when changing Template</li>
<li>Changing Template no longer unsets Empty Cache for Resource</li>
<li>For more details read the <a href="https://raw.github.com/modxcms/revolution/v2.2.5-pl/core/docs/changelog.txt">complete changelog</a></li>
</ul>
Interested? Check it out at <a href="http://www.MODx.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MODx.com</a>

MODx releases Revolution 2.2.5 - Improves Media Sources, Caching & More

We are excited to announce that <a href="http://www.siteground.com">SiteGround</a> has elected to sponsor our <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/cms-critic-awards/">Critic's Choice CMS Awards</a> this year. We decided to interview them to find out more about their decision and to learn a bit more about their products and services. Here is the interview.
CC: What connection is there between SiteGround's hosting services and the CMS industry?
SG: We’ve always been very closely connected with the CMS industry; especially with the free and open-source CMSs like Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, Typo3, and others as we seem to target one and the same user group – people who need shared hosting. We are big on shared hosting and combined with our long-term experience and expertise on fine-tuning our servers for optimized CMS performance, we seem to be a good match!
CC: What CMS platforms do you support?
SG:  The list with our supported CMS is really long, but for the sake of clarity and brevity, we’re compatible with any PHP/MySQL based CMSs.
CC: What other involvement does SiteGround have in the CMS industry?
SG: We have been sponsoring and attending numerous JoomlaDays, WordCamps, DrupalCons and this has been a great experience – all those CMS have unique communities by itself and meeting up and talking to the people behind the CMS has given us an opportunity to know better their needs and thus – improve even further our solution for them!
Aside from that, one of our goals as a hosting company has always been to educate our customers and make it easier for them to get started with their preferred CMS, which is why we have created a lot of free resources like tutorials, templates and plugins/extensions for the most popular CMSs. They are available for everyone of course, no matter an existing client or not ☺
CC: Why did SiteGround choose to sponsor the Critic's Choice CMS Awards this year?
SG: Two reasons, we've been in that industry for a very long time and believe that we can contribute with knowledge and advise for the nominations and awards themselves. The other reasons is that a competition like the CMS Awards fosters competition and competition is what makes the CMSs out there innovate and grow further! In the end of the day, growing and developing CMS community is what we want to see!
CC: What can you tell us about your product offerings?
SG: We provide a wide range of hosting services, thus ensuring that we can accommodate the needs of your website every step of the way. We offer several shared hosting solutions, VPS, dedicated and reseller packages. Our most popular plans are the shared plans – standard shared hosting, shared PLUS and the semi-dedicated hosting offer. The standard shared is the entry level hosting package and thus suitable for any start up website. The next level is the shared PLUS plan – it is mainly for customers with multiple websites and is also used for upgrade when a little more CPU power is needed. The most advanced plan we provide on a shared platform is our semi-dedicated offer. This is a service we are particularly proud of, as it provides better performance than most of the dedicated solutions for a small fraction of their cost. We achieve this performance by combining RAID, SSD and internally developed security and speed increasing systems.
CC: Do you offer Cloud hosting solutions? If so, what makes them unique?
SG: Yes, we do. What is different and unique about our cloud offering is that it is a combination of VPS and a cloud. It is an all-inclusive VPS server with all the advantages of cloud hosting. Our Cloud VPS Hosting offer allows you to have a private server with guaranteed resources, typical for the VPS technology, together with the redundancy and storage distribution over multiple machines, characteristic of the cloud. And last but not least, it is extremely affordable compared to the competitive cloud offerings.
CC: What other resources, other than hosting, do you offer your customers?
SG: Aside from the free tutorials, templates and extensions that I’ve already mentioned, we offer our customers a lot of additional features like tools for creating a mobile version of their websites, free website promotion tools, tools for malware protection and many more. We also offer backups, CDN, caching services, SSL certificates, to name a few. The reason for offering so many other features and resources is that we want to offer not just a hosting plan, but an integrated hosting solution where you can easily get started with your website, promote it and develop it, while we take care of the technicalities for you.
CC: What do you hope to see as a result of these awards?
SG: We hope that we’ll see which CMS has been doing great throughout the years and am positive that the awards will be representative for the CMS industry trends so that we can all cross check if we’re moving in the right direction.
CC: Do you have any closing comments?
SG: Good luck to all participants in the CMS Awards and hat tip to you Mike and your whole team for the effort and time organizing this great initiative!
Visit <a href="http://www.siteground.com">SiteGround</a> to find out more about their exceptional hosting offerings.

Interview with SiteGround, Sponsor of the Critic's Choice CMS Awards

[note color=”#cfcfcf”]This article is an opinion piece contributed by Hemant Prasad. You can visit him on his blog, <a href="http://ecmwise.blogspot.com">http://ecmwise.blogspot.com</a>[/note]
Gartner released 2012 Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management (WCM) sometime back and the next in line will be MQ for ECM. While the WCM player's positioning remains pretty much the same compare to 2011 report, it was quite surprising to see a sudden drop in the rating of Autonomy after being acquired by HP. Gartner has dropped its rating both in terms of ability to execute and in vision, primarily due to the uncertainty over HP's commitments and business plan for Autonomy.
Though there was no surprise to miss the name of one of the ECM leader, EMC from the WCM Magic Quadrant. The curiosity however grew over EMC's strategy for adding this missing piece in their ECM offerings. Now I'll be eagerly waiting to see the 2012 Magic Quadrant for ECM which is expected to be delivered by Gartner in Q4, hopefully in October itself and see how will the EMC's absence from WCM arena affect their position in ECM MQ.
A quick comparison of various players in Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM 2009, 2010 and 2011 shows the following trends:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/gartner-ecm-magic-quadrant20091011-620x231.png" />
 
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
 

</td>
<td>
<div>
Ability to execute

</div></td>
<td>
<div>
Visionaries

</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div>
2009

</div></td>
<td>
<div>
IBM led the race in this area, followed by Microsoft, Oracle and EMC. EMC was at No. 4 and OpenText at No. 5

<div>
 

</div></div></td>
<td>
<div>
Microsoft was the visionary leader, which reflected in its ability to execute in 2010 report.

<div>
 

<div>
Followers were Oracle, EMC IBM and OpenText.

<div>
 

</div></div></div></div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div>
2010

</div></td>
<td>
<div>
Microsoft pushed IBM down claiming the top spot followed by Oracle.

<div>
 

<div>
EMC lost 4th spot to OpenText and got pushed to below OpenText.

</div></div></div></td>
<td>
<div>
Oracle led the race leaving behind Microsoft, IBM, OpenText and EMC.

<div>
 

<div>
EMC was not only lacking in ability to execute, but also in vision behind OpenText.

</div></div></div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div>
2011

</div></td>
<td>
<div>
IBM gained top spot back and the positioning was similar to 2009, except that EMC was performing below OpenText now.

</div></td>
<td>
<div>
Oracle led the race leaving behind Microsoft, IBM, EMC and OpenText.

<div>
 

<div>
EMC was seen to be giving positive signals in terms of their ECM vision.

</div></div></div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div>
2012

<div>
(My predictions)

</div></div></td>
<td>
<div>
IBM should still make it to top with its clear product strategy and overall viability. The positioning is not expected to change since 2011.

</div></td>
<td>
<div>
Microsoft should gain the top spot due to the recently announced SharePoint 2013, followed by Oracle, IBM, EMC and OpenText.
 

</div></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
So what do you think is wrong with the once market leader Documentum? Where has EMC gone wrong in its overall ECM strategy? Or is it just that the sluggish license sales is pulling them towards ‘fancy' solutions like D2? which might help them acquire more new customers with the sales pitch of ‘new user', since Webtop was perceived as a very complex user interface with the arrival of SharePoint.
In ECM MQ 2011, Gartner had highlighted the (1) Lack of synergies with its hardware and services team (2) Lack of SI and ISV ecosystem (3) Confusion over its product strategy in Social collaboration and WCM space as the key caution points for EMC.
In 2012, the challenges seems to have not gone away. EMC still doesn't have a Social Collaboration and WCM solution and future for eRoom or CenterStage remains uncertain. With the arrival of D2, it's certain that EMC will not invest into Webtop and TaskSpace anymore, which might scare the customers who have been using either of these applications since long and have built critical business applications using either WebTop or Taskspace. While EMC has been proposing D2 for content applications, xCP is being promoted for the case management/business process applications. There doesn't seem to be an automated migration path to convert Webtop/Taskspace based applications to D2/xCP 2.0 and customers might have to spend hefty sum to redevelop the same on newer platforms, which will be a painful exercise and might drive customers towards alternate solutions.
Though EMC has made lots of noise about “ECM in cloud” partly relying on their cloud storage business, but the successful roll-out of the service is yet to take shape, wherein Microsoft has already left their rival behind with the successful operation of Office365 in cloud (including SharePoint).
OpenText on the other hand seems to be enjoying relationship with SAP with few small wins in recent past primarily in the area of SAP content archival (that's the only product OpenText sales team seems to be selling), but still lacks larger customer acquisitions, which isn't a sustainable business strategy, unless they have already got into the comfort zone of eventually being acquired by SAP in due course of time. While the OpenText corporate seems to be on an acquisition spree with recent <a href="http://business.financialpost.com/2012/05/01/open-text-announces-us232m-acquisition-of-easylink-services/">acquisition of EasyLink</a>, the sales seems to be enjoying honeymoon with SAP.
Oracle made a daring announcement in Oct 2011 to <a href="https://blogs.oracle.com/webcenter/entry/stop_maintaining_documentum_and_start">swap Documentum platform licences for free</a>. It reflected Oracle's desperation to get a few customers on their side quickly and set a precedent of acquiring rival's customers. The offer was shot down by analysts soon after the announcement, who proved that the clever math of Oracle was nothing but a marketing gimmick and customer didn't really have anything in the offer to be excited about. I haven't also heard if any customer picked-up the Oracle's offer till date. The outlook for Oracle hasn't changed much since then and they still seems to be spending lots of time in just renaming the product again and again (from Stellent to UCM to Webcenter now). Though I have heard few sizeable customer acquisitions by Oracle in recent past, but they have a long way to go in positioning their solution right against the well-established players like IBM, EMC and Microsoft.
IBM has its usual problem, a behemoth which has many dishes in its kitchen and is really confusing customers with the choices it can offer on ECM. It has IBM Content Manager, the Lotus suite and the FileNet ECM, so the sales folks seems to be often giving more than the required choices to customers or competing within. While analysts have rated FileNet BPM better than the rival's case management platforms, its facing competition within, by the Lombardi or Websphere BPM sales folks. Moreover in my experience, IBM is not known for doing justice with software acquisitions and we have a disappointing history of Lotus and Rational acquisitions, which have been fast losing market attention, though being the market leaders in their segment at the time of acquisitions.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM 2012: What to expect?

Hotjar - Spot what confuses

Spot what confuses your users with Hotjar & AI

#ffffff

YikeSite recently hit its 5th birthday milestone and we're taking the opportunity to launch our new API with continued focus on developers.
Here is a list of new additions to our API:
JSON via REST Today we are announcing an expanded JSON/REST API that resellers can use to create websites and manage content entirely via direct calls to the YikeSite web service. This will allow app developers to create fully functioning websites in just a few lines of code. We're really excited about what developers will do with our API and we've put a few integration ideas on our new developers page: <a href="http://www.yikesite.com/developers" target="_blank">http://www.yikesite.com/developers</a> and we have updated our example app showcasing the new features at http://yikesite-api.heroku.com
MetaWeblog XML-RPC Each page in YikeSite comes with out-of-the-box XML-RPC functionality. We have configured each page in a site to behave like its own blog where sub-pages behave like blog posts. Because of the MetaWeblog API, customers can use 3rd party tools such as MarsEdit (http://api.yikesite.com/xml-rpc/3rd-party-apps/marsedit) or have content pushed to it from a content marketing tool such as Intigi (http://api.yikesite.com/xml-rpc/3rd-party-apps/intigi).
“Always On” RSS Each page in a site has an RSS feed. All you need to do is add “.rss” to any page and the RSS feed will return all visible sub-pages. Each sub-page shows up as an entry in any given page's RSS feed.
Customer Signup Notifications Each YikeSite reseller gets to have their own signup form to receive signups to their branded CMS. We notify Mailchimp or Campaign Monitor with the contact details of each signup. If you want to roll your own notifications into your own app, we also support webhooks (http://api.yikesite.com/webhooks).
More Features In addition to the above API features we are pleased to announce the following features:
1. Markdown Editor
Markdown is a markup language that is growing in popularity and allows people to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid HTML. In addition to our simple WYSIWYG editor we have just released a page setting which will allow customers to edit all or a portion of their site's pages using Markdown.
2. WYSIWYG Editor Enhancements
The new simplified WYSIWYG editor features integrated Flickr and YouTube embedding as well as advanced table formatting. And as always, this in-place editor allows the end-user to edit the content and see exactly how it will look while working.

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/api-screenshot-620x400.png" />

For more information, check out <a href="http://www.yikesite.com">YikeSite</a>

Developer Friendly CMS YikeSite Celebrates 5 Years

The Elxis development team are happy to announce the release of the next generation of their CMS, Elxis 4.0 Nautilus. Elxis 4.x is a brand new CMS built with object oriented programming.
Features include:
<ul>
<li>Uses PDO as a database layer</li>
<li>Supports multiple sites under one installation (multi-sites)</li>
<li>Extends the use of AJAX</li>
<li>jQuery ready</li>
<li>Mobile ready</li>
<li>XHTML5/HTML5 ready</li>
<li>Small footprint</li>
<li>Optimized for use on large scale sites</li>
<li>Supports logging</li>
<li>Automatic error notification alerts</li>
<li>Integrated web statistics</li>
<li>New Elxis Defender for extra protection against web attacks</li>
<li>APC caching support</li>
<li>New extension types</li>
<li>New search system</li>
<li>Much much more.</li>
</ul>
See the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">elxis.org</a> and use it for your site. We are interested in your opinion. If you wish visit the

Elxis CMS 4.0 Nautilus Beta Released

Movable Type has announced version 5.2 of their CMS, which is now available for purchase on <a href="http://www.movabletype.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.MovableType.com</a>.
This new release comes with a few new features, which is sure to please existing customers. These features include a new rich text editor (based on TinyMCE), new security features and added support for PSGI and Nginx followed by VM images and new Windows Platform (Azure).
We haven't heard much from the MovableType PR team for quite some time so it's good to see they are still alive and kicking.  While still a reasonably well used platform in Japan, MovableType has lost quite a bit of it's former foothold here in North America so it's good to see they are putting the focus back on getting into the public eye here.
I've always found the platform interesting and compelling so it's good to hear they are still working on improving it and making things better. For those who prefer, there is also an open source edition which you can grab from <a href="http://MovableType.org">MovableType.org</a> as well.

MovableType 5.2 now available

There are a variety of CMS options available, ranging from ‘plugging in' to your current website to fullfledged administrative, database-driven, create-your-website-in-our-CMS options. In this post our goal is to focus on simple CMS options. Some of the options below ‘plug-in' to your current website, others require developing your site from the ground up using their CMS system. But, all of them lean towards simplicity: easy to learn and easy to use.
<h2>CushyCMS</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editing-cushycms-620x385.jpg" alt="cushyCMS" />
<a href="http://www.cushycms.com">CushyCMS</a> is a great option for already developed websites. Add ‘hooks' into your website for CushyCMS to see your website. Then, access your site through CushyCMS. Editing the site becomes much like using a word processor with all the common editing icons at the top of the editing window. Want to add a new page? You can also do that through CushyCMS.
<h2>SimpleCMS</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editing-simplecms-620x342.jpg" alt="simplecms" />
Make your site quickly editable by using <a href="http://www.simplecms.com">SimpleCMS</a>. Within minutes you can start editing your site. Enter the necessary FTP information, define your editable areas, and you are off and running.
Small icons appear next to the areas that you can edit. Simply click the icon and update the text and/or image. Images can be added to text areas simply by dragging an image into the text area. You can also add new pages.
You can save drafts till you are ready to publish. When all is done, simply click on Publish to update your live site.
<h2>Surreal CMS</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editing-surreal-620x329.jpg" alt="surreal cms" />
<a href="http://www.surrealcms.com">Surreal CMS</a> is another CMS that plugs into your current website to give you easy editing options. Add the necessary ‘hooks' to your website, then login at SurrealCMS to update your site. The editable regions will have an icon at the top left. Simply click on the icon to open an editing window for that region.
The editing window has all the familiar icons and formatting options to easily update your site.
You can also add new pages by creating a template from a current page. Save a draft of your changes, publish your changes, or schedule date and time to publish your changes.
<h2>PageLime</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editing-pagelimes-620x375.jpg" alt="pagelime" />
<a href="http://www.pagelime.com">PageLime</a> is another simple CMS option for editing content on your website. After entering the necessary FTP information to access your site and the required CSS class, the content area of your site is editable through Page Lime. Click on the icon next to your editable region. The editable content opens in an editable window with all the common icon options at the top of the window. You can choose to save a draft or publish your changes.
PageLime also lets you create a new pages based on a current page.
<h2>Zimplit</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editing-zimplit-620x365.jpg" alt="zimplit" />
Zimplit is a CMS that lets you create and edit sites from scratch. It requires uploading just a few files to your server, logging in, and you are off and running. It has an easy-to-use menu on the left side to add pages, change settings, and edit menus. Click within any page area to edit that area. If you want to add media to the page, simply click on the appropriate icon in the edit bar and select the type of media.
<h2>Perch</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/admin-perch-620x386.jpg" alt="perch" />
<a href="http://grabaperch.com">Perch</a> is a CMS that lets you create new websites, as well as integrate it with existing sites. Because of how it manages the content, content can easily be shared across multiple pages.
Within the admin area, drill down to the desired page or to where you want to add a page. A page can consist of multiple regions (content, sidebar, map, etc.). Edit each region is desired.
This CMS is a bit more robust than others. It requires becoming familiar with their admin interface, but with that comes more flexibility.
<h2>GetSimple CMS</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editing-getsimple-620x375.jpg" alt="getsimple" />
<a href="http://get-simple.info/">GetSimple</a> lets you create websites, then easily manage them. It has an intuitive web editing interface, including options to edit content, add pages, manage pages, and create simple themes. It is designed for the small-site market, keeping the complexity of databases and extraneous features non-existent.
<h2>LightCMS</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editing-lightcms-620x442.jpg" alt="lightcms" />
<a href="http://www.lightcms.com/">LightCMS</a> is a web-based CMS, offering easy options for creating websites and editing them. Select your design from a variety of themes or create your own, then edit the elements and regions as needed. Each section has it's own editing area for easy on-page editing. It also offers an online store option for your website.
<h2>Concrete5</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/studiopress_sites_review_-_8_ext5jt.png" alt="concrete5" />
<a href="http://www.concrete5.org">Concrete5</a> can integrate with your current site or be used to build a new website. It offers intuitive onpage editing. Simply click in an area and select to edit, copy, move, delete, or design that area. Their editing window contains all the common editing icons and functionality. It's also easy to change color, font, border, and spacing of an area using their design options.
<h2>SilverStripe</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/studiopress_sites_review_-_9_x7ty61.png" alt="editing-silverstripe" />
<a href="http://www.silverstripe.com">SilverStripe</a> is a robust, yet easy-to-use CMS. It can plugin to current websites or be used to create new websites. Editing content is like using a word processor. It's also easy to manage pages through their control panel, as well as manage files and settings. It even comes up with very helpful standard reports for your website.
What has been your experience with a simple CMS? Which ones would you recommend?

Top 10 Simple CMS

<a href="http://www.joomla.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Joomla</a>, one of the world’s most popular open-source content management systems (CMS) used for everything from websites to blogs to Intranets, today announced the immediate availability of Joomla 3.0. Along with new features such as a PostgreSQL driver, a new user interface for administrators, and a new front-end template, the Joomla CMS can now display content on mobile devices as clearly and distinctly as it does on a personal computer or Mac. This innovation makes Joomla the first major CMS that includes the Twitter Bootstrap framework that enables it to be 100 percent mobile-friendly by default. Over time, a native mobile optimization option becomes increasingly important for a Web presence as global information technology consulting firm IDC predicts that by 2015 mobile Internet will overtake desktop usage.
<blockquote>“As accessing the Internet via a mobile device is becoming more common than accessing it via a desktop computer, the mobile version of a company’s website will soon be more important than the desktop version,” said Paul Orwig, president of Open Source Matters, a non-profit created to provide organization, legal and financial support to the Joomla project. “With every version of Joomla, we use feedback from our community of more than a half a million contributors to add new features that will keep those who use our CMS ahead of what trends will impact the way their content is experienced. By optimizing Joomla 3.0 for mobile devices, there is absolutely no doubt as to whether what was designed for the desktop will transfer seamlessly to a phone or tablet.”</blockquote>
In this release, the goal was to make Joomla 3.0 completely mobile-friendly while still remaining recognizably Joomla. To accomplish this, Twitter Bootstrap was utilized. Bootstrap is an extensive front-end toolkit for developing websites and applications. Using Bootstrap allows Joomla to create a mobile-ready experience based on a popular framework that many other developers and designers already know and work with on a regular basis.
In total, there are more than 15 new features to Joomla 3.0. Other key features include the ability to copy a template, the option to disable the ability to change the Username in Profile and the installation of language packages directly from the extension manager, which makes it easier to manage other languages. Many of these new features have been introduced incrementally since the launch of Joomla  2.5 in January.
One of the brand new features with Joomla 3.0 is the addition of the PostgreSQL driver. This addition means that the CMS is truly database independent, as it already is integrated with MySQL and SQL Server.
Joomla 3.0 is truly a collaborative community-driven software project developed with the feedback gathered from more than 2.6 million Joomla forum posts, nearly 580,000 Joomla forum members and data from more than 9,900 Joomla extensions. To download Joomla 3.0, go to <a href="http://www.joomla.org/download.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.joomla.org/download.html</a>.

Joomla 3.0 Released; Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Newly Optimized for Mobile Devices

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

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