Articles - Page 179

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

msalvatierra

Joomla Review - An In-Depth Look at the Popular CMS

mike-johnston

As companies grow the need for great interdepartmental communication becomes even more important. Telephone and email are great tools but do not completely fill that need. The introduction of social intranet solutions is a big step towards a unifying employee communication.
Elcom CMS is stepping in and providing such a solution with their upcoming release. A leading provider of enterprise web content management, Elcom's release of version 8 will decidedly focus on social intranets. As companies evaluate the purchase of a CMS this feature will no doubt be on the “wish list.” Elcom is very excited about this new release:
<blockquote>
Anthony Milner, Elcom’s Product Director, commented “elcomCMS 8 is a major release and is literally bursting with great new features. It has a strong focus on social collaboration, calendaring and team workspaces, so if you’re evaluating Yammer or other similar solutions, we suggest that you down your tools and take a look at what we’ve delivered. We’ve also been working hard on delivering a fresh user interface which is targeted at ensuring the elcomCMS experience will delight our users and help you get the job done quicker.”
Elcom’s General Manager, Ryan Bloch followed on with “It’s an exciting way to start the new financial year. For over 15 years we’ve been working with organizations to deliver outstanding intranets. We can proudly say that this next release will take our intranet offering to the next level. We understand corporate intranets, we understand the best-practices and challenges, we have the experience and now we have great social tools to help organizations shine a light on hidden pockets of talent and bright ideas.”
</blockquote>
Elcom 8 has an official release date of Tuesday July 10 2012. CMScritic will covering this release in more detail as it becomes available. For more information visit <a href="http://www.elcomcms.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.elcomcms.com</a>.

Elcom 8 will focus on Social Intranets

With the exponential use of mobile devices it is becoming common to expect sites to adapt to tablet and smartphone screen resolutions. You want mobile site visitors to have a pleasant browsing experience and ClickTale Mobile gives you a unique perspective in this regard.
Site owners go through many pains at times to make sure their site brings the best mobile experience possible. Maybe you hired a developer to morph your site into mobile-friendliness using CSS and media queries. Maybe you spent hours finding just the right WordPress mobile responsive theme. Whatever path you decided to travel you have put in the effort, now you want to see if it has paid off.
ClickTale is bringing their web experience analytics to mobile. While it is important to see if mobile users are accessing your site, ClickTale takes it a step further in that you can actually “watch” the user as they browse the site. Now before you call “foul” and start making references to 1984's “big brother”, think about what valuable information is obtained when you actually see somebody browse your site:
<img style="max-width:577px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen_shot_2016-03-02_at_18_34_40_jhznbo.png" />
<ul>
<li>Are users tilting their device into landscape or portrait mode?</li>
<li>What areas are being tapped and swiped across most often?</li>
<li>Are users zooming in more than you had planned?</li>
</ul>
In order to present the best mobile experience, you need answers to these questions. ClickTale Mobile can give site owners and developers the aggregated data to make informed decisions on mobile design improvements. You can even watch individual sessions as video playback. This way you can actually see what is working and what is causing your users frustration. Do you have a high bounce rate for mobile users? ClickTale Mobile can show you why.
This becomes even more apparent when we think about mobile eCommerce. Online shopping is huge, but when not using a huge screen it can be a huge frustration. Keep your users on your site even when using mobile browsers. Design your eCommerce to respond and do not lose potential buyers. The buyer may be inspired to purchase while all they have is their phone or tablet. If they have to wait until they get home to their computer to have a decent shopping experience you have probably lost a customer, forever. Don't let that happen! Use these tools and make your site part of the mobile experience hall of fame.
For more information and to join in on the private beta go to <a href="https://contentsquare.com/clicktale/" target="_blank">www.clicktale.com/mobile</a>.

Watch Your Mobile Site Visitors with ClickTale Mobile

A new version of the wildly popular open source content management system, Joomla, has been made available. Version 2.5.5 was released today and brings with it the introduction of 11 new features and 2 security fixes for the CMS.
<h3>New features:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Add ability to copy a template</li>
<li>Implementation of Terms of Service</li>
<li>Option to disable the ability to change the Username in Profile</li>
<li>Set the CSS class for JForm field label</li>
<li>Add counter to redirect component</li>
<li>Add feature read more in feed items. Also bug fix for full text in feed items.</li>
<li>Media form field: show preview</li>
<li>Add the ability to limit the number of password resets within a time period</li>
<li>Improve user feedback during automatic version update</li>
<li>Add buttons in each menu selection tab in the module admin manager.</li>
<li>Multi-File Upload</li>
</ul>
Full details on this release can be found on <a href="http://www.joomla.org/announcements/release-news/5427-joomla-255-released.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Joomla.org</a>

Joomla 2.5.5 brings 11 New Features and 2 Security Fixes

I will be the first to admit that I do not have the best recall. If I do not somehow capture what is inspiring me at that moment, odds are it will be forgotten and lost forever. Bo.lt allows you to keep whatever inspires you on the web, forever! Here is a quick review of this service.
<h3>Bo.lt it and its Yours … for Good</h3>
Save photos you find across the web or just save the whole page. Bo.lt Makes it easy to save and share what you like on the web. We have seen similar services before and sharing web pages and photos is not new. Where Bo.lt is unique is that when you save the photo or you save that website it is yours forever. They actually make a copy of the whole page and thus eliminating broken links.  Bo.lt boasts that you can save anything you find on the web forever.
<h3>Using Bo.lt</h3>
The act of “bolting” stuff you find on the web is quite simple. Bo.lt give you several ways to save what you find on the web, add a comment, and assign a picture:
<ol>
<li>Chrome extension Just browse to a page you want to “Bo.lt” and click on the icon in Chrome's toolbar.</li>
<li>Bo.lt Bookmarklet similar action as the Chrome extension for other browsers.</li>
<li>Email to photo@bo.lt or email@bo.lt</li>
<li>Use the plus sign at bo.lt</li>
<li>Use bo.lt/url method</li>
</ol>
<a href="/bolt-quick-review"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bolt_addpage.png" /></a>
Creating “bolts” is easy enough what about sharing? You can share individual bolts or an entire collection using the “share” links provided. Others can follow all of your bolts or just a collection. Commenting is also allowed on bolts which makes collaboration fast and simple.
<h3><a href="/bolt-quick-review"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bolt_comment.png" /></a></h3>
<h3>Why would I use this?</h3>
Lack of consistent recall aside, I can think of at least a couple of reasons this service could be useful.
<ul>
<li>Saving the site's look at that moment.
<ul>
<li>Most web pages are dynamic and therefore change often. If you want to share a snapshot of the way a site looks at the moment, this would fill that need.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Web Design Portfolio
<ul>
<li>Make a collection of your website designs across the web and easily share them with clients. Perhaps before the owners of these sites made design changes after you handed them the finished product.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
For more information and to try it out yourself visit <a href="http://bo.lt" target="_blank">http://bo.lt</a>

Bolt - A Brand New Social Network for Saving Web Pages Forever

With DotNetNuke recently updating their cms to support enhanced social capabilities, PackFlash has followed with an update to their Constellation Suite.
PackFlash has just released a new version of their Constellation Suite. The Constellation Suite is a series of 8 DNN modules that provide enhanced functionality to the DNN platform. These modules can be purchased individually, or together, and the modules are designed to work together tightly, overcoming a key liability of DNN modules which normally operate independently of each other. The suite includes Events, Image Gallery, Slideshow, Friendly URLs, Mega Drop-Down Menu, Comments, Videos, and DotNetNuke News and Blog Module. Version 3.3 is the newest installment of Constellation.
With its latest release, DotNetNuke has added a wealth of social networking features to its core WCMS platform. The focus of Constellation version 3.3 is to provide integration into these new social capabilities. The Constellation Suite provides a publishing engine to enable the dissemination of a variety of content and media using DNN, so using the DNN social functionality to allow a site’s users to discuss the content is a natural extension of Constellation’s mission. In particular, the Comments Module, which is a part of the Constellation Suite, has new options to push comments to the “journal feeds” that are a key component of DNN’s social toolset. Another integration point allows content creators to announce the publication of new content to their personal journal feed, or to the feeds of any “social groups” which may be applicable. The creator has the choice of which locations will receive each posting rather than the system assuming everything should get pushed to the creator’s journal feed.
<blockquote>“There is a lot of buzz about social within the DNN community, and we’re excited to announce our new social features amidst all of this global excitement. These features represent just the first step in our support of DNN Social. Stay tuned.” says PackFlash Co-owner, Jason Lichon.</blockquote>
The DNN Social integration isn’t the only notable enhancement in Constellation 3.3. Other new features include: the ability to display tooltips from item lists to provide more details about an item during mouse hover, the ability to incorporate PackFlash Categories within the Mega Menu Module, and URL rewriting has been added as part of the Friendly URL &amp; SEO Module for DotNetNuke. This URL rewriting applies to ALL URLs generated by the CMS, including those generated by 3rd-party modules. In addition, a new module called PackFlash Collections is included with version 3.3 that allows for users to save and group items providing watchlist or personal library type functionality. Administrators can choose the content types which can be saved to a group by the users. More details about all of these features will be forthcoming.
To find out more visit PackFlash.com

PackFlash updates Constellation Suite to reflect DotNetNuke's new features

CMS Kickoff 26

Find out at CMS Kickoff 26, January 13 - 14, St. Pete FL

What's the future of CMS in the AI era?

#ffffff

The final stable release of version 3.4 is now publicly available for install via the dashboard updates for those already running it or the WordPress website at <a href="http://www.wordpress.org">http://www.wordpress.org</a>
Some of the most significant changes with this version are the introduction of the theme customizer which allows users the opportunity to play around with various looks and settings for your current theme or one you’re thinking about switching to without publishing those changes to the whole world.
According to the release posting, other changes include:
<ul>
<li>quicker to browse themes without paging in the dashboard.</li>
<li>the ability to use images from your media library to populate custom headers, and for you to choose the height and width of your header images.</li>
<li>improved embed support to include tweets: just put a Twitter permalink on its own line in the post editor and WordPress will turn it into a beautiful embedded Tweet.</li>
<li>image captions have been improved to allow HTML, like links, in them.</li>
</ul>
For more details on this release: <a href="http://wordpress.org/news/2012/06/green/">http://wordpress.org/news/2012/06/green/</a>

WordPress 3.4 now available

Mobile Marketing is huge and businesses around the world are scrambling to find ways to reach mobile customers in new and innovative ways. There are an estimated four billion mobile phones in use around the globe, 75% are SMS-enabled and 27% are smartphones.  It goes without saying that this is the market to be in if you are an advertiser.
ExactTarget has foreseen this and has announced the release of their new mobile marketing tool, MobileConnect.
<h2>What is MobileConnect?</h2>
MobileConnect is a tool designed to make it easy to create, target, send, and track SMS marketing campaigns.It integrates with their <a href="http://www.exacttarget.com/interactive-marketing-hub.aspx" target="_blank">Interactive Marketing Hub</a> as well giving you a unified view of each customer across all your marketing channels.
Here are some screenshots to give you a better idea as to what it looks like / how it works:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mobileconnect-01-message-editor-620x430.png" alt="Send personalized SMS marketing campaigns and preview your messages." /> Send personalized SMS marketing campaigns and preview your messages.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/booking-image11_dfmdbb.png" alt="Store your customer data in the Interactive Marketing Hub to easily create email and mobile marketing campaigns." /> Store your customer data in the Interactive Marketing Hub to easily create email and mobile marketing campaigns.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mobileconnect-03-message-details-620x465.png" alt="Gain access to real-time reporting on your SMS program performance." /> Gain access to real-time reporting on your SMS program performance.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/best-social-network-software_al3f93.gif" alt="Manage SMS marketing alongside other interactive channels with one central calendar. " /> Manage SMS marketing alongside other interactive channels with one central calendar.
The SMS functionality within the system allows marketers to send SMS messages in over 80 countries which makes it a valuable asset for those with either a local or global presence. Also, within the application, you can easily manage short codes,  add or remove keywords, and edit subscriber lists.
Looking to do some reporting? MobileConnect offers real-time reporting on your SMS program performance, including summaries of opt-ins, opt-outs, messages sent, and delivered. There is also the ability to utilize a host of template ranging from quizzes, surveys, and contests to mobile tickets, alerts, and coupons.
According to ExactTarget CEO, Scott Dorsey:
<blockquote>
“With the launch of MobileConnect, ExactTarget is democratizing mobile marketing, providing a new approach that makes mobile more accessible and easier to use than ever before. Our revolutionary approach to mobile enables marketers across all segments of the market to easily create and integrate SMS into interactive campaigns across email, social media and the Web – all through an intuitive user interface that serves both beginners and highly technical marketers.”
</blockquote>
Interested? You can learn more about MobileConnect on their website: <a href="http://www.exacttarget.com/products/mobile-marketing.aspx" target="_blank">ExactTarget MobileConnect</a>

ExactTarget Introduces MobileConnect to Help Businesses Market Across Mobile Devices

<a href="http://www.shoplocket.com" target="_blank">ShopLocket</a> makes eCommerce accessible. Plain and simple as that. With the technical skill it takes to upload and share a photo you can setup a product for sale. That sounds easy, but what about the real life process? As I have said before “I am glad you asked!” Read on to find out how we rate this eCommerce tool in this ShopLocket Review.
<h3>It is really easy, I'm serious</h3>
Start by visiting www.shoplocket.com. You can log in using your Facebook credentials or using your email address and a password you specify. Big points for logging in via Facebook account. Who wants to have to remember another account name and password right?
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shoplocket_login.png" alt="ShopLocket review" />
You will see a page listing your products you have for sale with some stats for each. If you have no products set up yet you can start by clicking on New Product.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shoplocket_yourproducts-620x416.png" alt="ShopLocket review" />
You will get to the new product setup page and start by adding the name, description, price, and “multiple options” if appropriate.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ingeniux_cms_assets_f0bxh8.png" alt="ShopLocket review" />
Then your product will need an image … or four, but no more than four because that is all that is allowed at this time.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ingeniux_cms_assets_2_dwjqra.png" alt="ShopLocket review" />
The “Customize” tab lets you add tax, shipping, number of items, sale price comparison, and expiration. Do not let your item go stale, put it on sale. Ok that was a bit much, but you get the opportunity to bring increased interest using sales pricing and urgency with expiring the item after so long.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shoplocket_customize.png" alt="ShopLocket review" />
<h3>Time to Share</h3>
You have your products set up and ready to go. Now you just have to share them with the world. ShopLocket has you covered with many sharing abilities over social media, but with the iframe embedding option, you can drop the product on almost any webpage or blog post.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bigstock-website-analytics-and-seo-data-77090498_ucc6vp.jpg" alt="ShopLocket review" />
Here is a link to the product I created for this ShopLocket review: Good Reputation for Sale and here's the embedded product straight from ShopLocket.
[[shoplocket]]
Pretty cool isn't it?
<h3>Wait a minute, how do I get paid?</h3>
ShopLocket connects to PayPal and Stripe for easy payment options. You get email notification on orders purchased through their eCommerce platform. What about fees? No upfront fees so if your product totally bombs you will not be charged. If you do make a sale, then there is a one time $2 publishing fee and 2.9% transaction fee after that for each sale in addition to PayPal or Stripe fees.
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
That is my ShopLocket Review. ShopLocket has made eCommerce easier and dare I say “more fun.” Not only that but they have given clients a way to leverage their social networks to get followers directly to the sales page.  Interested in learning more? Visit <a href="http://www.shoplocket.com" target="_blank">ShopLocket</a> or leave your comments on this ShopLocket Review below.

ShopLocket review - Embed Your eCommerce

All of us would love to create the perfect product that never needs support. Realistically even extremely user friendly products generate some questions and do “gasp” break at times! Providing great support can make a good product even better. MindTouch is upping their already remarkable support game by adding integration with SalesForce.MindTouch, the company dedicated to creating the world’s best self-service help experiences, announces that its social help system now integrates with SalesForce.com Help Desk and support ticketing to dramatically improve support agents’ efficiency and customers’ help experiences.The MindTouch social help platform is revolutionizing the user manual and SaaS customer experiences through a web-based environment that includes a knowledge base, help center, ticketing integration, and help button. Agents using CRM and web-based support ticketing systems have instant access to MindTouch powered help articles and knowledge base assets, thereby speeding time to resolution for customer issues. For support agents using SalesForce.com, MindTouch enables them to quickly pinpoint customers the most relevant content and to easily publish new content to the MindTouch knowledge base, as well as identify gaps in product documentation assets–all without ever leaving the SalesForce interface.<blockquote>“Salesforce.com views customers as database fields, but exceptional customer experiences are not delivered by a handful of database fields. This is precisely why many of our customers have asked MindTouch to improve Salesforce.com by integrating our social help center,” said Aaron Fulkerson, founder and CEO of MindTouch. “Our customers are upgrading their customer experience and support tenfold by adding MindTouch. Quality customer experiences aren’t just about responding to support requests, it’s about delivering an experience that turns users into product experts and customer advocates.”</blockquote><ul><li>Faster support resolution (lowered support cost): Support agents provide faster resolution with the help of recommended articles and real-time search delivered by MindTouch adaptive search, a powerful search engine that indexes articles, comments and even the contents of file attachments to suggest the best content for any question.</li><li>Happier customers: 65% of software users prefer self-serve help (2011 TNS research). Users do not want to wait for a support response or be forced to sift through forums. MindTouch enables users to self-serve effectively.</li><li>Create experts and advocates: Context-rich help delivered just-in-time maximizes user learning and satisfaction, rapidly creating experts to advocate products and brands.</li></ul>Find out more at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.MindTouch.com">www.MindTouch.com</a>

MindTouch - May the 'SalesForce' Be With You

Mozilla Firefox has long been one of my favorite browsers. I think perhaps it stems from the fact that it was one of the first to really take over from the dreaded Internet Explorer monster that still haunts me to this very day. The latest release of Firefox 13 really helped seal the deal for me as far as confirming why I use it as my regular browser day to day. Today, I thought I'd take a look at the latest release and share with you my Mozilla Firefox Review.
Mozilla Firefox 13 brings with it some welcome enhancements such as the introduction of a thumbnail page that functions almost exactly the same as the Speed Dial page found in Opera.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/8x5txlt3f7st_kk4upn.png" alt="Mozilla Firefox Review" /> Firefox 13 -Thumbnail Page
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/opera-speed-dial-620x406.png" alt="Mozilla Firefox Review" /> Opera – Speed Dial
Opera has had their Speed Dial functionality for quite some time and it's good to see that Firefox has gone this route as well (as has Google Chrome).
From within the thumbnail page, you can easily pin your favorites or remove them using the icons that appear when hovering over each individual thumbnail:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/firefox-13-pinnable-thumbnails.png" alt="Mozilla Firefox Review" />
The only obvious difference I can find between this implementation and that of Opera is that you can not add your own custom thumbnails manually. Firefox simply pulls them from your recently visited websites. Perhaps, if it's a feature people decide they want, the Mozilla guys will have it implemented down the road.
Along with the thumbnail page is the introduction of a new Mozilla Firefox home page, complete with handy quick link icons that launch the most common menu items within the browser:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/content-1_png_1170x1170_q90_crop_subsampling-2_y8v6z0.png" alt="Mozilla Firefox Review" /> Firefox 13 – New Home Page
The team at Mozilla have done a great job putting this together and these simple touches to the home page make it a great default for users. Just like we see in the CMS world, customer experience is the key and Mozilla appear to be both aware of this and focused on it.
Of particular interest in this release is the introduction of Tabs on demand. This means that when you have to restart your browser (after installing an addon, etc), the browser will only reload your last active tab. Your other tabs will open as well but will not load until you actually click on one of them. This is handy for those of you that surf with 10+ tabs at a time and often have to wait for each one to reload on a relaunch before beginning to continue your work.
It's the simple things that matter and Firefox 13 brings some definite improvements. This release also incorporates the SPDY protocol and it's completely enabled with this release. It was present in previous ones but not enabled by default.
For those unfamiliar with the SPDY protocol, it was developed primarily by Google and here's how it's described (warning: Serious geek speak ahead!):
<blockquote>The goal of SPDY is to reduce web page load time. This is achieved by prioritizing and multiplexing the transfer of web page subresources so that only one connection per client is required. TLS encryption is nearly ubiquitous in SPDY implementations, and transmissions are gzip or DEFLATE compressed by design (in contrast to HTTP, where the headers are not compressed). Moreover, servers may hint or even push content instead of awaiting individual requests for each resource of a web page.</blockquote>
For those who glazed over trying to read and understand that, I apologize and welcome back.
To summarize this Firefox Review, Firefox 13 feels faster and more usable to me and even if it's on account of a placebo effect, I'll take it. I think this new release brings this great browser one step closer to perfect (when combined with the amazing Firebug that is) and I can't wait for the next release.
To learn more about Firefox 13, check out the <a href="http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/06/05/firefox-has-a-redesigned-home-page-and-new-tab-experience-that-make-browsing-the-web-faster-and-easier/" target="_blank">introduction post on their blog</a> or <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fx/" target="_blank">download it</a>. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this Firefox Review or the product itself. Share them in the comments below!

Mozilla Firefox Review: A Faster, More Efficient Web Browser

Piwik is a free web analytics platform. Worked on by a dedicated group of developers as a free, open source, real-time web analytics platform, Piwik provides a nice interface and great functionality that is easy to install and use. I like it so much that I use it in conjunction with Google Analytics here on CMS Critic and thought I'd share my thoughts in this Piwik Review.
Piwik web analytics comes in a small 5.7 mb package that can be install on any traditional web server or host that uses PHP. In my case, I installed it on our web hosting service but you can use pretty much anything or host it yourself. Installation is one of the smoothest and quickest I've experienced and in the number of times I've installed it, I've never encountered any hiccups preventing me from completing successfully. I'd show you the install routine but it's really quite quick and I'd rather dive right into the meat of the matter and show you the tool itself instead.
This is what the default setup looks like once you've installed Piwik web analytics and have logged into the tool for the first time. In this Piwik review, we're using screenshots pulled from their demo (we'll post a link to it at the end of this article).
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bigstock-customer-relationship-manageme-95142614_ammalr.jpg" alt="piwik review - screenshot #1" />
As you can see, the dashboard is made up of a number of widgets which you can remove, minimize or re-add with ease using their Widgets &amp; Dashboard drop down menu. By default, Piwik has the following widget areas enabled, but you can easily add more if you like:
<ul>
<li>Last Visits Graph</li>
<li>Visitors in Real Time</li>
<li>List of Keywords</li>
<li>Visitor Countries (Map)</li>
<li>Visitor Browsers</li>
<li>Best Search Engines</li>
<li>Visits by Server Time</li>
<li>List of External Websites</li>
<li>Length of Visits</li>
<li>RSS of the Piwik.org Blog</li>
</ul>
There are a number of tabs along the top of the dashboard that take you to even more information. The first of which is the Visitors tab which gives you an overview of the visitors to your site over the last few weeks with additional information such as the percentage of bounces, downloads, outlinks and actions.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/piwik-2-620x393.jpg" alt="piwik review - screenshot 2" />One of the sub categories on the Visitors tab is the Engagement one. In this section, you are provided with a look at the number of returning visits to your site (graphed out over a period of a few weeks) as well as the Visits per visit duration, visits per number of pages and visits by visit number. Piwik Web Analytics also gives you a quick list of additional info such as the number of returning visits, actions by the returning visits, average visit duration of returning visitors and return visitors that have bounced.
I particularly find it useful for finding out how engaging our content is and this is a often frequented page in my daily review of statistics to see how well the site is performing. Of particular interest is the number of actions per visit as this is directly indicative of how well additional content is positioned within the site.
On the Actions tab, you will find information about the performance of various Pages within the tracked site. In the screenshot below you'll see that each page has it's own Pageviews, Unique Pageviews, Bounce rate, Exit Rate and Average time on the page tracked. This is obviously a great overview as to what content is being consumed on the site and how engaging it is.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wordpress-589121_960_720_qr4zun.jpg" alt="piwik review - screenshot 4" />
Have a high bounce rate? Perhaps the title isn't well aligned with the content or you need to consider restructuring the article to better present your points. Is the bounce rate low on a particular page? I guess you've nailed it and people find the content useful and well targeted towards what they were searching for.
Obviously, as with anything, this is a tool best used in conjunction with others content analytics tools in order to get truly in-depth detail, but it certainly assists in giving you the quick and dirty info on content / site performance.
On the Referrers tab you'll find information about (wait for it…) referrers. Shocking right? The overview page gives you quick information about the type of referrers (direct, search engine, websites or campaigns) and various information about each including evolution over a period of time.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/piwik-5-620x409.jpg" alt="piwik review - screenshot 5" />
In the past, the Search Engines &amp; Keywords sub category was a favorite haunt of mine but with the recent changes made to the way Google handles tracking of these things, a large portion of the keywords passed by Google are no longer provided and come across as “keyword not defined”. This is the same for other analytics tools we've tried although the results may not come across with the same term. For instance, in Google Analytics, they show up as “not set” as opposed to “keyword not defined”.
Some keywords still come across from Google users who are not logged into a Google account so it's still a good stop on the review but not as valuable as it once was.
Piwik also provides you with the ability to create and track goals using their Goal Conversion tracking option. Simply add a new goal using the screen below and you'll be able to track performance quickly and easily.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/piwik-8-620x414.jpg" alt="piwik review - screenshot 8" />
The results of your goal tracking will be shown as below on the Goals tab. You can select an overview or individual goals in the sub categories provided.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ingeniux_cms_logo_bpfghz.png" alt="piwik review - screenshot 6" />
Piwik doesn't just work for a single website either, you can manage multiple websites from a single installation. To change, simply select the one you wish to view statistics for. To track a site, you add a simple snippet of javascript to your site and you are off to the races.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/piwik-7-620x114.jpg" alt="piwik review - screenshot 7" />
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
This brings me to the end of my Piwik Review. While it's certainly true that I can get this same information (in some form or another) from Google Analytics as well.. I find the Piwik interface to be faster and easier when it comes to finding something out quickly and easily. That is not to say that it is better than Google Analytics but they are, in my mind, two completely different beasts. I tend to use Google Analytics for advanced reports and in depth research, while with Piwik, I get quick insight into site performance, visits and referrers.
If you are looking for a quick, easy to install, real time analytics platform that is both open source and free, look no further than Piwik. You won't regret it.
You can try out a <a href="http://demo.piwik.org/" target="_blank">demo of Piwik</a> or download it from their webpage, <a href="http://piwik.org/" target="_blank">Piwik.org</a>. Do you have any thoughts you'd like to share on Piwik or this Piwik Review? We'd love to hear them in the comments below!

Piwik Review - An Open Source Web Analytics Tool

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

Kentico EMS+ Managed CXM in the Cloud

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