Articles - Page 195

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

bmckeiver

The winners have been selected and contacted by email. This contest is now closed. Thank you for participating.
Great news everyone! Today we're starting a giveaway with which you have a chance to get one of 10 MotoCMS website templates (normally priced at $139 each). Our good friends from MotoCMS are known for providing beautiful website templates with a built-in admin panel. The best thing about their products is that they are functional enough to be used by professional web developers and at the same time are simple enough for the end users who actually know nothing about coding.
On November 4th 2013 folks at MotoCMS celebrate their company's birthday (they're 4 years old by the way). As a part of the celebration, they are giving away 10  <a href="https://www.motocms.com/website-templates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> MotoCMS website templates</a> to CMS Critic readers and subscribers. So in case you're planning to create a new website sometime soon, or if you're working on a client's project you definitely want to take part in the giveaway – you may be lucky enough to win a free license!
<h3>Why Exactly Should You Be Interested in MotoCMS?</h3>
 Every MotoCMS license includes: 
<ul>
<li>Content management system;</li>
<li>Professional website template;</li>
<li>Mobile website template;</li>
<li>WYSIWYG editor;</li>
<li>A set of media galleries;</li>
<li>Free lifetime updates of the CMS;</li>
<li>Free 24/7 support.</li>
</ul>
<h3>How to Participate</h3>
Ok, you're now very close to your free template. And entering this giveaway is very simple – just register and activate a free trial version of the MotoCMS template you like. And that's it! Click the button below to browse MotoCMS templates and to find the design you like. On the template's page click the ‘Try It Free' button and enter your email address. Then make sure to confirm your participation by clicking the confirmation link in a message you'll receive (only confirmed trial accounts are eligible to win in a contest).
A week from now, on November 11th, 2013 we will announce the contest winners. The winners will be contacted at the email addresses they use for registering trial accounts. Another nice birthday surprise from MotoCMS is a big discount – for those who don't want to wait for the giveaway results or simply need more licenses. No one is leaving this birthday party without presents today. During the whole month of November 2013 you can buy a MotoCMS website template for as low as $99. Here is the discount code to use:
 “MOTO99” (copy the code without quotes, paste it on the checkout page to have the price reduced) 
Happy MotoCMS birthday everyone!

We Have 10 MotoCMS Website Template Licenses to Give Away!

mike-johnston

So you’re in the market for a new CMS. You’re likely feeling anxious about making sure your final decision is one that you’ll still be happy with in five years. Since today is Halloween and we’re all a little focused on the things that may scare us, I figured this would be a great week to offer up some pointers on how to avoid having your CMS purchase come back to HAUNT you. (Boo!)
Shopping for a CMS can be frightening. You don’t want to pour your budget down the drain, only to experience regret due to the fact that your decision left your organization’s needs unmet. So let’s discuss some points to consider right now when the only investment you’ve made so far is time in the buying process.
You Need to Take a Test Drive
When comparing options for your next CMS, what better way to get an inside look than to experience a demo or free sandbox or both. These options can be really insightful into how a system operates. And let’s be honest, just as with other large purchases in life, would you really be comfortable buying a car without a test drive or a home without an inspection? The same theory applies here.
You’ll Actually Want the “Warranty”
This point goes with the one above, but let me explain what I mean by “warranty”. Whenever I buy a large, costly item, the warranty always seems much more attractive and important. When it comes to a new CMS, you could compare having a warranty to the level of customer service and support you will receive once your CMS has been purchased. Will you have access to benefits such as an extensive and active user community, installation flexibility, an annual user conference you can attend, and unlimited support contacts? Also, will the CMS provider release regular updates, and for that matter, will they still be in business five years from now? Research what real benefits come post-purchase and make sure they’ll meet your needs.
 Don’t Get Fooled By Flashy
When shopping for a CMS, try to look past the flashy features that sound great on paper but won't ever actually be used by your content contributors and CMS administrators. Sure, having an infinitely customizable workflow sounds awesome in theory, but you know that most of your users have no desire to jump through hoops to get their content published. Evaluate your true needs first, so you won't get distracted by flashy features that aren't necessary for your organization. If you’re a large organization with many sites, data portability, copying sites, and sharing content may be incredibly important components of a quality CMS for you. If you’re a smaller organization, you may be more concerned with a short learning curve for end users, easy content creation wizards, and in-context edit. Look for the qualities you need, and don’t get distracted by those you really don’t.
 Are They Resourceful?
You’ll want to purchase your CMS from a resourceful vendor. They should be versed not only on their product but also on the industry as a whole and the needs of their target audience. Some of the best resources include webinars, case studies, and of course, white papers. For example, one white paper that applies to this article’s topic is The Top 10 CMS Buying Mistakes, which you can download for free by simply filling out the short form below. This white paper is a fantastic resource covering topics such as factors you should consider in your purchase, why you need to look beyond pricing, and CMS selection pitfalls to avoid.
 [[halloweenform]]
Is there a Return Policy on this?
Lastly, the return policy can also be a deciding factor when it comes to your purchase of a larger item. To be clear, there isn’t usually a return policy on content management software. What I mean is that often, the time and resources it will take an organization to implement a CMS almost make it impossible to change course after you get up and running, even if you are didn’t invest all that much “money” into it. You’ve already invested a lot of time and energy and–let’s face it–emotion into moving your site over to the new CMS, so it’s that much more important that you make the right choice.
Halloween may be almost over, but you CMS selection decision could haunt you year-round for years to come if you choose the wrong one. <a href="http://www3.hannonhill.com/cms-critic-top-10-link">Download The Top 10 CMS Mistakes white paper now</a>, so you can avoid the biggest mistakes and keep the Trick out of you CMS Treat.

Trick or Treat? Don’t Let Your CMS Purchase Mistakes Come Back to Haunt You

With so many content management systems to choose from, how do you select the right one for your marketing team? One item that always seems to fall to the bottom of the consideration list – after a lengthy analysis of features and price – is the quality and availability of on-going services after your new website is launched.  You can quickly focus your search for a new vendor by considering what level of service you need from your <a href="http://www.marqui.com/landing-pages/CMSCriticMorethanSoftware.aspx">CMS provider first.</a>
Maybe you are a crack coder or have an IT team in your organization with a ton of experience building and maintaining websites. If this is the case in your organization, you may decide to manage the build and ongoing maintenance of your website internally. The question you really need to be honest about at this point is – do you want to? The ongoing maintenance and time required to ensure that software updates or patches are applied correctly, without breaking any of the plug-ins or custom code you’ve created will continually fall to your IT team. If something does break, are you confident that there is time to hunt through forums to find solutions and then implement them yourself? For mission critical websites, the time to get a page fixed or a patch installed can make the difference between a successful campaign launch and explaining to the CMO why you missed a key Q3 initiative. You also want to know that after the initial excitement of launching the site is over, there is a commitment to keep the site up to date in a timely manner. You might find that choosing a vendor with a technical support team that specializes in working with your CSM just makes your marketing teams life easier, allowing everyone to focus on marketing rather than the technology.
On the other hand, if you are a marketing department that doesn’t have access to a website development team or IT resources are thin, you should seriously consider the advantages of having a CMS with ongoing technical and design support first. Although I have been talking about services in general, it makes sense here to talk about the different kinds of support available. First, there is technical support. You need a team of people who understand the CMS you’re using, your website, and your overall marketing efforts. Knowing how these elements work together is the key to quick troubleshooting and fast resolutions of issues. Beyond being experienced, the technical support team must also be available when you need them. Always be sure to check the support availability for your time zone and the average turnaround times to respond to phone calls or email.  The second type of support is design and best practices support. A digital services team should be able to advise you on ways to improve your site design to take advantage of your technologies and improve the effectiveness of your digital campaigns. Most importantly, a services team that knows your CMS and marketing programs can make value added suggestions, knowing that you can implement them with your current technology platforms.
If your CMS provider has a <a href="http://www.marqui.com/landing-pages/CMSCriticMorethanSoftwareServices.aspx">digital services team</a> or partner program for building, designing or re-designing websites your next web update will be considerably easier. Being able to engage with a team that understands the capabilities of your CMS means that design choices can be made that allow you freedom (after the build is complete) to update more of the content. Hiring an agency that is not familiar with your CMS risks you having a site that does not work optimally with your CMS. For example, a site design may be unsuitable or expensive to build, or there is too much hard coded design on websites that you cannot update or modify through the CMS.  Whatever you do, don’t let an agency pick your CMS because it is the one that they like best! You will be the one who will be using it day in and day out and it must suit your needs first.
Although there are pros and cons to using installed software versus a cloud-based CMS services, cloud-based content management systems and services work together very nicely. Not only does the maintenance of the CMS fall to the solution provider, the very nature of cloud-based platforms means they are accessible by a support services team and are not locked behind your IT firewall. You don’t have to open up your internal IT systems to outside support teams or play guessing games about what can be seen on the screen – your service provider can log in and troubleshoot quickly and easily.
For your next CMS purchase, considering the level of services that works best for your organization can help you short list the right vendors. After all, choosing the right CMS for you make your team more effective and your day to day work trouble-free.
<a href="http://www.marqui.com/landing-pages/CMSCriticMorethanSoftwareGeneral.aspx">Marqui</a> provides web marketing software and services to help our customers engage members, customers and prospects through the web. Our on-demand software combines powerful web content management and drip email marketing without compromising ease-of-use for non-technical users. Our customers receive industry-leading support and a range of services focused on helping them succeed including web marketing consulting and website design and build.

Confidence and Support: Why A CMS vendor should provide more than just software

In an unfortunate turn of events, Adobe, makers of the popular Business Catalyst and Photoshop products, have had their systems compromised by hackers.
According to a blog post by Adobe's Chief Security Officer, Brad Arkin, several million accounts are believed to have been compromised.
<blockquote>
Our investigation currently indicates that the attackers accessed Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords on our systems. We also believe the attackers removed from our systems certain information relating to 2.9 million Adobe customers, including customer names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders. At this time, we do not believe the attackers removed decrypted credit or debit card numbers from our systems. We deeply regret that this incident occurred. We’re working diligently internally, as well as with external partners and law enforcement, to address the incident.
</blockquote>
Some of the information believed to have been compromised include customer names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders. An approximate estimate by Adobe is that 2.9 million accounts have been affected by this hack.
As a reaction to this, Adobe has announced the following courses of action are being taken:
<ul>
<li>As a precaution, they are resetting relevant customer passwords to help prevent unauthorized access to Adobe ID accounts. If your user ID and password were involved, you will receive an email notification from Adobe with information on how to change your password. They are also recommending that you change your passwords on any website where you may have used the same user ID and password.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>They are in the process of notifying customers whose credit or debit card information they believe to be involved in the incident. If your information was involved, you will receive a notification letter from Adobe with additional information on steps you can take to help protect yourself against potential misuse of personal information about you. Adobe is also offering customers, whose credit or debit card information was involved, the option of enrolling in a one-year complimentary credit monitoring membership where available.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>They have notified the banks processing customer payments for Adobe, so that they can work with the payment card companies and card-issuing banks to help protect customers’ accounts.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Theye have contacted federal law enforcement and are assisting in their investigation.</li>
</ul>
In addition to this particular compromise, they are also investigating the illegal access to source code of numerous Adobe products. For more information, please see the blog post <a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/asset/2013/10/illegal-access-to-adobe-source-code.html">here</a>. If you are concerned or believe your account to be affected, read the <a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2013/10/important-customer-security-announcement.html">post here</a> and take the appropriate actions.

Adobe Hacked - User Accounts believed to have been Compromised

b2evolution, the open-source blogging software, has a new update available. Version 5.0.6 has been released and includes some bug fixes over the previous release as well as some additional feature enhancements.
If you aren't familiar with b2evolution, check out their page in our <a href="/products/b2evolution/">CMS directory</a>.
A list of some of the changes in this version over the previous:
<ul>
<li>In 5.0.5 we had turned off detailed error messages. This has turned into a support nightmare in the forums where people were unable to report proper error messages when asking for help. Therefore error messages are turned back on by default. But we strongly recommend you learn to turn them off and back on when you need them: <a href="http://b2evolution.net/man/advanced-topics/security/exposing-errors-to-visitors">Exposing Errors to Visitors</a></li>
<li>Fixed AJAX moderation</li>
<li>Post filtering in back-office:</li>
<li>If more than 20 members, do not list all possible authors or assignees. Show a suggest box instead.</li>
<li>Only display list of assignees if Workflow is enabled in advanced options.</li>
<li>Fixed tool which removes per-user email sender settings</li>
<li>Better MySQL database backups (compatible for reload on servers, even if they have strict mode enabled)</li>
<li>i18n/l10n</li>
<li>Strings update</li>
<li>Removed “de_DE” and “es_ES” locales from the standard distribution until we have new maintainers for them</li>
<li>Bundled “fr_FR” (and other “fr_*”) locales now use UTF-8 (“ru_RU” was already using UTF-8)</li>
<li>Enhanced email Return-Path handling default setting</li>
<li>Enhanced Code Highlight plugin</li>
<li>Security enhancements (noncritical)</li>
<li>Quite a few more bug fixes</li>
</ul>
For more info, check out <a href="http://b2evolution.net/">b2evolution</a>.

Blog Software Update: B2evolution 5.0.6 Released

Adobe Business Catalyst, for those of you who are unaware, is a website builder with a ton of built-in functionality and the product is also in the running for one of our CMS Awards this year.
To help introduce the product, I put together a video walkthrough which you can watch below that guides you through the various features of Business Catalyst. Don't mind the Canadian accent! It's pretty obvious apparently!
In a nutshell, it's a powerful website builder with integrated CRM, Ecommerce, Mailing List Management, and tons more that is easy to use for the newbie yet powerful enough for an advanced user. While this isn't a full blown review (that will be coming soon) it does serve as a good introduction to what you can expect.
Check out the video below to learn more:
http://youtu.be/o6G8_ey52jg
Would you like to learn more? Check out Adobe Business Catalyst in our CMS Directory.

Adobe Business Catalyst - Video Walkthrough

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This is the final day of voting for the People's Choice portion of the CMS awards. We've had an incredible response this year and we're incredibly excited to begin announcing the winners, which we will be doing throughout the month of October as deliberations begin for the second stage of the awards, The Critics Choice portion.
If you haven't cast your vote as of yet, be sure to use the form below to get it in before the end of the day. Voting closes at 9PM MST today!
Updated 9pm MST – Polls have officially closed. Thanks for voting!

Last day of voting for the Critics Choice CMS Awards!

The development team at CMS Made Simple have churned out another release to address some issues with the September 9th release of CMS Made Simple 1.11.8. This newly minted edition aims to address those issues and a few others within the popular open-source CMS.
According to the release announcement:
<blockquote> …the 1.11.8 release introduced a new event (TemplatePreFetch) that would make modules like CmsTouch and TemplateExternalizer more powerful. Unfortunately, the schema version did not change properly, so only users who did a fresh install would get this event. Additionally, we should not have distributed the 1.11.8 diff packages. These were subsequently removed (if you installed the 1.11.8 diff, don't worry—you can still upgrade to 1.11.9).</blockquote>
Some of the additional changes and improvements include:
<ul>
<li>Users with ‘Modify Any Page' and ‘Remove Content' permissions can now delete almost any content page.</li>
<li>Fixed error handling so that error pages won't be indexed by search engines</li>
<li>Some minor security improvements</li>
</ul>
Grab your latest copy from the <a href="http://www.cmsmadesimple.org">CMS Made Simple website</a> or learn more about the product by visiting their page in our CMS Directory.

CMS Made Simple 1.11.9 now available

Today, ClassDojo, one of the world’s fastest-growing education technology startups, is launching in Canada with language support for French and English, as well as 14 additional languages, including Spanish, German, and Chinese. Already, teachers and students in more than 120 countries are using ClassDojo in English; however, this launch marks the first time teachers within Canada can use ClassDojo in their native language to help develop their students’ behaviors and character strengths–like persistence, curiosity, creativity and hard work–that can improve both their academic–and lifetime–success.
ClassDojo is a web and mobile service for teachers to help them improve behavior with their students. It is extremely easy-to-use for teachers: they only need one device, such as a laptop or mobile device. All teachers need to do to is:
<ul>
<li>Sign up at <a href="http://www.classdojo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.classdojo.com</a></li>
<li>Add their class list</li>
<li>Select the positive behaviors they want to develop</li>
</ul>
Teachers can then easily reinforce the selected behaviors by giving students feedback points in real time, using a laptop or mobile device. When feedback is given, a visual and auditory cue is triggered that notifies the student of their progress. These feedback points are automatically stored, analyzed, and collated into progress reports that teachers can share with other teachers, administrators, parents, and students.
Since its launch in July 2011, ClassDojo has become the world’s fastest growing education startup: in the past year alone, the company has gone from 3.5 to 17 million teachers and students using the service. The tool has seen viral success with teachers across the globe using, recommending, and sharing ClassDojo with other teachers; this growth is unprecedented in education technology and highlights the demand by teachers for a solution to behavioral development in their classrooms.
<blockquote>
“Building positive behaviors is shown to improve a child’s academic and lifetime outcomes,” says ClassDojo co-founder, Sam Chaudhary. “Our goal is to help teachers address this ‘other half’ of education that goes beyond test scores, towards helping students build positive behaviors for learning and helping them become well-rounded individuals.”
</blockquote>
ClassDojo’s co-founders, Sam Chaudhary and Liam Don – a former teacher and education technology PhD respectively – have been vocal about having teachers guide the company’s product development from the very start. In fact, the added language support was spearheaded by groups of teachers using ClassDojo internationally that were eager to translate the site into their native language. Today’s launch furthers ClassDojo’s mission to help students all over the world develop the behaviors and character strengths they need for academic and lifetime success, in and out of the classroom.
ClassDojo is a web and mobile classroom tool that helps teachers improve behavior and built positive learning habits and character strengths with their students. It is free for teachers. Find out more about ClassDojo here: <a href="http://www.classdojo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.classdojo.com</a>.

World's Fastest Growing Education Startup Launching in Canada

Wow, some interesting news has come out of the Telerik camp this morning. Apparently, their flagship product, Sitefinity has hit 70,000 users which is a huge gain of 40,000 in the last 12 months. Ever more favourable is the news that 49 of those customers are in the Fortune 500. Pretty good statistics!
According to Martin Kirov, Executive Vice President for Telerik's Sitefinity:
<blockquote>“In 2013, we delivered the first truly mobile web content management platform that gives organizations the flexibility to pick the mobile strategy that's best for them, rather than one their vendor supports. But we've delivered so much more, too – whether aligning ourselves with the best services teams around the world or providing integrations with popular business technologies that enable organizations to deliver a more personal experience to their audience through richer context. We have no intention of slowing our innovation down. Look for more exciting announcements in the coming months.”</blockquote>
Sitefinity has also been the winner of a number of awards, namely:
<ul>
<li>American Business Awards (SM) (Stevie) “People's Choice Awards – Favorite Content Management Solution” and “New Product or Service of the Year – Software – Content Management Solution” – Gold Winner</li>
<li>KMWorld “2013 Trend-Setting Product” – Sitefinity 6 was selected by the panel because it demonstrates thoughtful, well-reasoned innovation and execution for the most important constituency: the customer.</li>
<li>International Business Awards(SM) (Stevie) “Best New Product or Service of the Year – Software – New Version” – Silver Winner – “Complete Mobile Strategies Now Possible with Telerik Sitefinity 6”</li>
<li>Golden Bridge Awards – Two finalist designations for “Mobile Innovative Products or Services” and “Mobile/Wireless Solutions”</li>
</ul>
<a href="/products/sitefinity/">Learn more about Sitefinity</a>

Telerik Sitefinity Adoption hits New High

We are half way done the voting stage for People's Choice Awards and we've seen a huge response!
We have received thousands of votes in all categories and are getting close to the end of this years People's Choice awards. We're excited to begin announcing the winners of these awards throughout October.
Also during the month of October, the judges (to be announced here shortly) will begin deliberating on the various categories for the Critics Choice portion of the awards. This is where the judges choose the best of the best based on our experience and familiarity with the market.
We wanted to thank everyone for their participation in this years awards and for making it the single most popular awards program on the ‘net. We never expected it to take off as quickly as it did, but now that it has.. we have huge plans for next year.
So <a href="/cms-critic-awards/">keep on voting</a> and get ready for the announcements starting October 1, 2013.

Keep the votes coming!

Content Management Vendor Nuxeo has announced that they have acquired an additionsal $3.8 million in funding from venture capital firms. This brings the total amount raised to $9.5 million to date.
Acording to Nuxeo, they will use the new capital to support their rapid growth in the U.S. market. Nuxeo launched a presence in the U.S. market in 2009, and has exceeded revenue expectations in the region in the past 3 years, with over 100% growth annually since 2011. The U.S. market now represents more than 50% of new subscription sales for the company.
The capital will support a range of activities, such as building out consulting and support teams, and expanding the sales presence in North America.
<blockquote>“Our product appeals to architects, developers, and project managers in technology-enabled companies,” said CEO Eric Barroca. “Nuxeo clients such as Electronic Arts, Sharp, FICO, Netflix, and Jeppesen/Boeing are using the Nuxeo Platform to build applications to solve problems in their particular business context. Our business model is based on annual subscriptions, so we are deeply invested in the success of our customers' projects. We've reached a stage in our growth where we need to expand so we can maintain our high standards for support and project guidance.”</blockquote>
Nuxeo's business model centers on a subscription offering that includes support, maintenance, and application design and deployment tools. Nuxeo is sustaining a monthly subscription renewal rate of 105% globally, indicating both a high level of customer satisfaction and bigger renewal contracts to accompany growing projects. This corresponds to a negative churn rate, which is much better than average for the software industry.
Learn more about <a href="/products/nuxeo/">Nuxeo</a>.

Nuxeo adds $3.8 million in funding

2012 was the first year we decided to step up and fill the void in the CMS community by bringing the Critic's Choice CMS Awards to the world. We never expected it to turn into such an amazing success and are very excited that it's received (and continues to receive) such great interest throughout the world. 
As you know, we have two portions of the awards; the People's Choice (where the public votes and chooses their favorites) and the Critic's Choice portion (where judges select the best of the best).
This year, we've brought on two additional judges to work with us on the hard task of selecting the cream of the crop for the Critic's Choice portion of the awards and we've got a few new categories to consider as well.
Here are the categories for this year's Critic's Choice CMS Awards:
<ul>
<li>Best Free CMS</li>
<li>Best Open Source CMS</li>
<li>Best SMB CMS</li>
<li>Best Enterprise CMS</li>
<li>Best ECommerce Solution</li>
<li>Best Website Builder</li>
<li>Best Forum Solution</li>
<li>Best Social Networking Solution</li>
<li>Best Hosted / Cloud CMS</li>
</ul>
and our additional categories this year include:
<ul>
<li>Best New CMS</li>
<li>Most Innovative Solution</li>
</ul>
Over the next few days, we'll introduce you to the judges for this years awards and give you more details on their background and why they were selected. Stay tuned!

Preparing for the 2013 Critic's Choice CMS Awards

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