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The Top 10 AI Tools for Small Business: From Automation to a Coordinated Team of AI Agents

matt-garrepy

The Hero’s Journey to Composable: A Conversation with Uniform’s Mark Demeny

In a recent interview, I invoked the original Star Wars film as a thematic backdrop. It seemed an apropos analogy for exploring the galactic frontier of composable – and, hopefully, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/the-heros-journey-to-composable-a-conversation-with-uniforms-mark-demeny/">made for a fun read</a>.Now, at great risk of crossing my sci-fi streams, I’m going to channel Star Trek.I know, I know. What is he thinking? These are distinct mythologies, each with a fiercely devoted fan base. But rest assured, my goal isn’t to stir up debate over <a target="_blank" href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/star-wars-vs-star-trek-which-one-is-better/">which is better</a> – I’ll leave that to you. Think of me as Switzerland… if it was a planet in the Dagobah system.So why am I doing this?Because every time I read the words “content federation,” I can’t help but think of Star Trek’s unmistakable “United Federation of Planets.” Key to the franchise canon, this futuristic authority has unified species and cultures across the expanse, enabling a utopian coexistence built on collaborative exploration and the betterment of humanity.In so many ways, this mirrors the mission of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/graphcms-rebrands-to-hygraph-launches-new-federated-content-platform/">Hygraph</a> – a headless CMS designed for the purpose and promise of content federation. Its captain, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/critics/michael-lukaszczyk/">Michael Lukaszczyk</a>, is seeking out ways to chart this frontier by uniting content data from different sources with one universal API.It’s not science fiction. Much like Star Trek’s Federation, Hygraph is pioneering a new quadrant of headless space as the first “Federated Content Platform,” ushering in a new reality for content management. It’s a strange new world where a headless platform is both frontend and backend agnostic, and data can be joined across multiple sources using a single <a target="_blank" href="https://graphql.org/">GraphQL</a> query.With so much change and commoditization in the headless category, I connected with Michael to learn more about the benefits of Content Federation, why he’s betting the future on it, and how it's powering the warp drive behind Hygraph’s market acceleration.<h2>A digital experience explorer</h2>For some DX professionals, the path to a platform is often incongruous. But for Michael, it seemed his destiny was always in the stars.Joining me from his home base in Germany, about an hour north of Frankfurt, he chronicled his origin story. At age 11, he was already adopting the mantle of a digital wunderkind, building websites for friends and family. He pursued this passion at the university level, studying abroad in Spain and Sweden.After completing his master’s degree, he began his career at a company called <a target="_blank" href="https://www.canto.com/">Canto</a>, a digital asset management (DAM) vendor. While challenging, it wasn’t entirely his cup of early grey tea.“I was in professional services, but I didn’t enjoy it,” he confessed unabashedly. “I was building integrations, but I always wanted to work on the core product and in distribution.”It was at Canto in 2015 that Michael met <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-winter-403059118/">Daniel Winter</a>. The two would become thick as thieves – much like Kirk and Spock – sharing a common sentiment on architecting and delivering software. By early 2016, the pair had already built a prototype for their own DAM solution.“But then, on a Friday night,” Michael recalled vividly, as if only yesterday, “I was scrolling through my Twitter feed before going to sleep, and I stumbled onto a post called <a target="_blank" href="https://css-tricks.com/what-is-a-headless-cms/">‘What is a Headless CMS’</a> by Chris Coyier from CSS Tricks. I didn’t know what a headless CMS was. No one did [in those days]. But as I read the post, I was impressed.”As Michael shared, the durability and sustainability of the headless CMS product model is what really appealed to him. “Whatever comes next in terms of digital channels, wherever you want to distribute your content to – AR, VR – you’re already set. Headless lets you build a sustainable content strategy.”After sharing the article with Daniel, they took a risk and pivoted from DAM to headless CMS, with one unique etch: the introduction of <a target="_blank" href="https://graphql.org/">GraphQL,</a> a new query language for APIs. They had already been experimenting with it in their DAM prototype and knew its potential for improving the developer experience. The rest, as they say, is history.“The next day, we started to build the first GraphQL native CMS out there,” he said. “[We introduced] the product in early 2017, got some angel funding, and grew to a company of 90 people across the globe, from San Francisco to Manila.”What followed can only be described as a meteoric rise. After an initial raise of $13 million, the company closed on a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hygraph-secures-30-million-in-series-b-funding/">Series B of $30 million</a> in March of this year. They christened the vessel “GraphCMS,” but later rebranded to “Hygraph” to avoid any confusion or biases around page-building capabilities or publishing workflows. It also sounds cool and futuristic – exactly where the company wants to be. <h2>The voyage from headless CMS to federated content platform</h2>Over the last few years, Michael and his team have been chasing the answer to a very simple question: what will the next generation of CMS actually look like?As you might guess, that question isn’t so simple to answer. The evolution of CMS has been a long one – and with the explosion of the device ecosystem, things changed significantly. Demands shifted from a single web channel to multiple channels. This paradigm gave rise to the headless CMS, rendering the CMS frontend agnostic and turning it into a one-to-many relationship of content sources and destinations.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/hygraph-diagram-1024x432.png" alt="Hygraph diagram of content federation evolution" />“What we launched last year – what we call the federated content platform – is turning the promise of the headless CMS around,” he said. “Now, it’s not just frontend agnostic, but also backend agnostic, meaning you can source the content and data that lives in your backend stack on the other side of the API.”Bottom line: Hygraph has transformed the headless CMS from one-to-many to many-to-many across content sources and destinations. Developers and product builders can turn all backend systems into one universal API, allowing users on the frontend to work in any way with their data.This plays directly into the concept of federation. As Michael pointed out, the term originated in the GraphQL community, with the basic idea of merging multiple APIs together in a sort of “Super API” (powered by dilithium crystals?)“It was a very easy progression to being a GraphQL headless CMS to adding federation capabilities to the mix,” he added. “We were already so strong on GraphQL that it just made sense.”I asked Michael what else was driving this change, aside from the obvious. That brought us back to the core question about the next generation of CMS, and a key word: composable.<hr /><h4 style="text-align:center">We’re adapting to a new reality where content and data aren’t residing in one source anymore... content federation is content management for a new reality.</h4><hr />“We’re adapting to a new reality where content and data aren’t residing in one source anymore,” he professed. “The typical stack now is modular. With composability, the monolith is going away, and companies are establishing more modular architectures in their tech stack and picking the best tool for the job.”While building so-called “best-of-breed” stacks sounds great, composable has its share of side effects. As Michael reinforced, things aren’t integrated as tightly, and this can cause huge problems and delays. Enterprises are left tending to these integrations, and man… it’s hard.“Before content federation, the biggest challenge we saw was building middleware,” he said. “It’s really expensive and painful to develop. You have to design, maintain, authorize, secure, make fast, wire up with CDNs. Each time there’s a new component or system coming in or new business requirement, you have to adapt the code base. It’s an innovation bottleneck.”This is where Hygraph fires its photon torpedoes to eliminate that bottleneck, allowing you to configure all your systems downstream and easily tap all content sources and destinations with a single API. It solves the customization and integration challenges that hold back innovation or slow time to market.As Michael punctuated, “Content federation is content management for a new reality.” And it certainly feels like a Star Trek-level next generation of headless CMS.<h2>Charting the composable frontier</h2>Hygraph is a member of the <a target="_blank" href="https://machalliance.org/members">MACH Alliance</a>, a not-for-profit organization focused on open, best-of-breed technology ecosystems – and the defacto voice of the composable movement. As I shared in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-two-conference-wrap-six-takeaways-from-the-composable-event-of-the-year/">previous posts</a>, I had the opportunity to judge entries in the MACH Two Impact Awards this past June.During our conversation, I shared with Michael how inspiring and intimidating some of the project examples were. The system integrators behind these transformations were creative and ambitious. In some cases, the resulting stacks felt a bit like Frankenstein’s monster coming to life – miraculous, but potentially scary. Could content federation help change this?“I actually think Frankenstein is a good term for it,” he replied. “What led us to content federation is that we would see the integration requirements and what kinds of Frankensteins [our customers] would build. One reason why it’s hard to maintain is that very often, the people who can build these Frankensteins can be strong characters – very experienced enterprise architects. There’s a human factor, and there can be a lot of arguing about how things are built.”The human factor. Of course. One of the biggest risks to the success of a modular, composable architecture is the mindset – which, by its very nature, is about people and processes. Larger organizations have the resources to support both, but I wondered if Hygraph might be looking downstream as it removes many of the challenges from going composable.“We want to make complex architectures feasible, not just possible,” he said. “Even for the mid-market. A lot of vendors in the MACH space address [that segment], so there has to be some way to get those technologies together more easily.”<h2>A warp engine for content-rich applications</h2>In the expanding universe of digital experiences, content is fueling opportunity – hence the continued explosion of CMS, DXP, and other technologies in the ecosystem. Some estimates put the market potential at over <a target="_blank" href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/04/11/1802414/0/en/Global-Content-Management-Software-Market-Will-Reach-USD-123-500-Million-By-2026-Zion-Market-Research.html">$123 billion by 2026</a>, with a CAGR of 17 percent.At the same time, the headless CMS market is approaching a Neutral Zone of commoditization, with composable forcing greater downward pressure on price and parity. Most platforms provide similar functionality, and some are feeling the pinch to add new features that challenge their MACH posture as pure-play composable solutions.I asked Michael what gives Hygraph an edge in this battle.“A lot of CMS vendors focus on websites and marketing personas. But we’ve built powerful capabilities that have attracted different kinds of use cases to our platform, the kind that we were surprised to see a CMS being used for and not a database.”Michael referred to these as content-rich applications, where the content itself is the main asset of the product being sold. Like Netflix for streaming movies or Peloton for workout classes, content creators only need tools to maintain those experiences. In these cases, it’s not marketers using Hygraph, but domain experts that don’t require page builders or WYSIWYGs.On the channel side, Hygraph is partnering with SIs and collaborating with other MACH vendors to build deeper API-based integrations. While much of this attention is focused on enterprise, there’s some solid mid-market in the mix, where it’s easier to find early adopters of their technology. Regardless, organizations stand to gain significant benefits from content federation.“It can help consolidate the legacy stack within an organization,” he explained. “You integrate all the services under the hood, and you get a fresh façade, like a renovation for all the APIs you have. All of a sudden, a company can attract better developers because they can work with modern tools. If you want top talent, you have to keep iterating.”Content-rich applications are one dimension. Enterprises are also wrestling with multiple CMSes under on roof. “We’ve seen enterprises have as many CMSes as teams or divisions, and they need to stay there for a couple of years. Content federation is enabling this to work, making it easy to consolidate and build new digital experiences.”<h2>Phasers locked on growth</h2>As Michael noted, the biggest challenge to growth in composable is that no one knows how to Google the problem they have. It’s a bit like being trapped on an alien planet with no universal translator.“Headless CMS is mature, and people are aware, but we are so early with composability and building the tooling that a lot of education still needs to happen,” he proclaimed. “I’m happy the MACH Alliance is around, as it’s a joint effort to educate and position to other vendors. It’s the category creation process that needs to be innovated.”For Michael, the role of the MACH Alliance can’t be understated. I recall <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellygoetsch/">Kelly Goetsch</a>, one of its co-founders, saying that if the Alliance does its job, it might become less necessary in the future. That said, the rise of new certifications brings greater certainty and confidence to technology buyers.Michael said he wouldn’t be surprised if the MACH Alliance became a marketplace to bundle those services under one umbrella. Driving that belief is the challenge of procurement.“With monolithic vendors, you have all the tools with one vendor, one renewal process, one customer success manager. In a composable stack, you have ten solutions you have to deal with ten times a year. At some point, market consolidation may happen – and the MACH Alliance might be in the best spot to do this.”There are a lot of challenging headwinds, to be sure. Composable is growing, perhaps more in Europe right now, but I asked Michael how his approach to growth as a leader is setting Hygraph up for success.“It’s challenging economically, but we’re still growing at a good pace,” he said confidently. “We’ve built four strong pillars of growth: product-led strategy, a good sales team and quotient, the right ecosystem partners, and a commitment to customer success – so our customers buy again. It’s important to go the extra mile to make sure they implement successfully. Otherwise, after three or four months, it’s a safe churn.”<h2>Scotty, beam me up…</h2>Whether you’re a Star Trek fan or not (and really, who isn't?), you can’t argue its impact on pop culture. Content federation might be on a similar trajectory within the CMS industry as it evolves the composable landscape.  As Michael reflected on our conversation, he returned to that tipping point of opportunity and the importance of having a solid vision and a good story to pitch. “Innovation and differentiation are so important. If we hadn’t pivoted to GraphCMS, we wouldn’t be here. Everyone told me not to go fundraise for a Series B, but the whole process took 90 days to being at the notary and signing the round. A differentiated, unique story is incredibly important in that aspect.”I asked what’s ahead for Hygraph as 2023 warps toward a new year. I also inquired about AI, as peer platforms continue to add functionality to their toolsets.“We’re very focused on federation and larger releases, but what we see with a lot of vendors is that they’re wrapping ChatGPT around a UI plugin and giving you ChatGPT tools in their CMS. Is there a real value add? In reality, you can say you’re a CMS with AI capabilities, but you’re just copying and pasting from ChatGPT with better integration.”Michael suggested there are stronger use cases for AI in content management. For example, in the future, companies may be able to define schema and allow AI to build out the rest of an application – reducing the fail rate for software projects. There are clearly boundless opportunities for automation that still put users in control.As Hygraph continues to explore the DX galaxy under Michael's leadership, it’s clear that content federation is the prime directive. It’s the kind of innovation that could very well shape the next generation of content management and drive significant growth.I’m betting it will live long and prosper.

Content Management for a New Reality: A Conversation with Hygraph CEO Michael Lukaszczyk

<h5>TL;DR – Recently, there was an epic but friendly debate in the Boye &amp; Company CMS Experts Slack channel about the confusion surrounding DXC as a category. We asked the three main voices in the conversation – Rasmus Skjoldan, Andrew Kumar, and Sana Remekie – to discuss their thoughts on Zoom. Matt McQueeny helped moderate the conversation.</h5>
<hr />
Of the great mysteries that scientists, philosophers, and theologians grapple with, one question is often overlooked:
What, exactly, is professional wrestling?
I’m not referring to school leagues or Olympic competitions – I’m talking about the <a href="https://www.wwe.com/" target="_blank">WWE</a> and its brand of sportstainment. And I don’t mean to be glib or insulting with any comparisons; heck, I’ve been to a live wrestling event many moons ago, and it was kinda fun (particularly the people watching). 
But really, what is it? Is this a legitimate sport replete with feats of athleticism? Or is it truly just performance art following a well-oiled script? If you ask <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_Hogan" target="_blank">Hulk Hogan</a>, the iconic figurehead of the modern experience, he might say, "Well, let me tell you something, brother…" and launch into a dissertation about sport versus stage. 
As humans, we’re classically conditioned to put things in boxes so they’re easier to understand. Sometimes, that’s not so simple. This has long been the case in the software industry, where confusion often precedes clarity when new ideas takes the mat – like <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2023/1/whats-the-real-story-about-digital-experience-composition" target="_blank">Digital Experience Composition (DXC)</a>. 
A short while ago, members of <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/groups/cms-experts" target="_blank">Boye &amp; Company’s CMS Experts</a>, a peer group focused on content management, were treated to a sort of WWE-styled “Smackdown” in the community’s Slack channel. In truth, it was a friendly exchange of ideas, with no bodyslams or half-nelsons to report (those are wrestling moves, BTW).
Still, it was spirited. And for several days, this epic “Slackdown” generated significant interest from across the DXP and DXC spectrum. It all started with a simple, poignant question from <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rasmusskjoldan/" target="_blank">Rasmus Skjoldan</a>, Chief Evangelist at <a href="https://www.magnolia-cms.com/?mgcid=19746730468&amp;utm_campaign=&amp;utm_content=&amp;utm_campaign=brand-protect-jf_us_2023&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_source=google&amp;utm_content=19746730468&amp;utm_term=magnolia%20cms&amp;gad=1&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjw0ZiiBhBKEiwA4PT9z53dpcpsB0M2J-tIRhHdpnwYRHUwbjghkhAGI6_Azq8wWtHBU4ic8xoC4N0QAvD_BwE" target="_blank">Magnolia</a>, a leading DXP:
“I feel like some of the Digital Experience Composition positioning going on isn’t super helpful to customers, to be very blunt about it. What’s genuinely in it for them?”
This drew several DXC defenders to the ring, but the most vocal participants were <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkumarxyz/" target="_blank">Andrew Kumar</a>, VP of Customer Solutions at <a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank">Uniform</a>, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sana-remekie/" target="_blank">Sana Remekie</a>, CEO of <a href="https://conscia.ai/" target="_blank">Conscia.ai</a>. It was entertaining to watch these adroit leaders wrestle with a red-hot topic, but it was incredibly informative for the fans in the stands – so much so that I partnered with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/critics/matthew-mcqueeny/">Matt McQueeny</a> at <a href="https://konabos.com/" target="_blank">Konabos</a> to take the show on the road.
A few days later, we invited Rasmus, Sana, and Andrew to join us for an informal follow-up on Zoom to wrestle down some answers.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/04/dxc_boye_debate_debrief_720.png" alt="Zoom photo of Matt Garrepy, Matt McQueeny, Rasmus Skoldjan, Andrew Kumar, and Sana Remekie" />
<h2>In this corner… DXP</h2>
<a href="https://www.forrester.com/analyst-bio/joe-cicman/BIO14164" target="_blank">Joe Cicman</a>, an analyst at Forrester, has been on a quest to decipher the Digital Experience Platform. As he noted <a href="https://www.forrester.com/blogs/dxp-you-keep-using-that-term-i-dont-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means/" target="_blank">in a recent blog</a>, DXP is still misunderstood from a compositional perspective. The definition can be nebulous based on whether it’s delivered by a single vendor or assembled by an enterprise – or, in some cases, both.  
I like Joe's observation in the same post: “Every day I asked myself, ‘How is it possible for one vendor to create one product that works across multiple industries and grows in scope as a company’s digital remit grows?’ After talking to the vendors, turns out … it’s not possible.”
That might be the vein Rasmus tapped: confusion is everywhere. While DXC is emerging, DXPs continue to evolve in their own space. As he pondered in Slack, would it not be better to reenergize, modernize, or even reinvent the more established DXP label and category than trying to teach customers about another new acronym?
Add this to the confusion: Magnolia was included in an early DXC report by <a href="https://www.gartner.com/analyst/56850" target="_blank">Mike Lowndes of Gartner</a> as a vendor in this emerging field. So how does this color Magnolia’s positioning?
“When I speak to our composable die-hard customers, they are much more passionate about getting projects done, getting rid of the worst legacy apps, and reaching business goals than they are in the vendor/analyst-centric views on what’s in or out of categories,” Rasmus said. “Magnolia is seen as a DXC by some – which is fine, of course. We definitely cover that space with our own twist. To me, it just feels more like a use case than a real software category.”
That might be true. But vendors and buyers still refer to those MQ reports with biblical reverence.
Gathered in our cozy Zoom room, Matt McQueeny asked Rasmus why he felt compelled to engage with the community around these opinions.
“I'm very focused on looking at all this from the customer's perspective,” he said. “Every time I see a proposal for a category change, I'm just always asking myself, 'okay, who's actually behind this and who's to benefit from it?' Even for DXP, I sometimes have question marks around whether that really helps customers. So I felt that introducing new variations would be a significant sort of – not a disruption – but more confusion. And that's what I’m quite passionately against because I want to keep the focus on what has real value for customers.”
<h2>DXC enters the ring</h2>
TLAs (three-lettered acronyms) might be the bane of our technology existence. When I was consulting at IBM GTS, we were unpacking a catchy new triptych every week from across the cybersecurity theater. Heck, even “IBM” is an acronym... it's a bit like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception" target="_blank">Inception</a> with TLAs. 
I asked Sana Remekie about her take on this acronym acrimony – and how she perceived Rasmus’ call to quell the challenges by refocusing on the established DXP category.
“There's lots of three-letter acronyms popping up all over the place,” she said. “I think the movement towards composability and having that best-of-breed architecture is real. Customers are asking for a choice in terms of all the packaged and business capabilities that they need to build their overall architecture, and there's agreement across Gartner and Forrester on that. They may call it different things, but everybody’s starting to agree that we should give customers the ability to create and assemble their own solutions.”
So how does this momentum towards composability and DXC impact the more traditional definition of DXP – particularly as an established category? 
“Some folks are saying very clearly that a single DXP – what they call a monolithic DXP – should no longer be a thing at all,” she added. “Customers should be able to create their own DXPs by picking best-of-breed applications from across the ecosystem. With this phenomenon, we're now giving choices to the customer and power to the SIs to make those choices for the customer. Sometimes it's an IT team within the organization making those choices with, hopefully, the business in mind. And sometimes they say, ‘alright, Deloitte, Accenture, Valtech, go make that choice for me – go directly to those vendors and put together a solution that is composable.’ That happens a lot as well.”
<h2>Finding the right place to “poke the DXP bear”</h2>
As the wrestling match commenced, we turned to Andrew Kumar for more insight on what ignited the debate on Slack. He took us on a brief trip in the wayback machine to his days at <a href="https://www.telus.com/en" target="_blank">Telus</a>, where the company assembled what we now call a composable or <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/the-future-is-composable-a-conversation-with-new-mach-alliance-president-casper-rasmussen/">MACH</a> architecture. 
“There weren’t these sexy marketing terms that exist today,” he said. “But in 2016, we [already] had this concept, and we created our own internal site builder on top of Contentful – and that's now part of DXC.”
Andrew also talked about the importance of the different roles and responsibilities that DXC needs to support and the tendency to lump the audience of potential users under a generic “business user” mantle. This might be a limiting descriptor, as the pool could include a wide range of team members from marketing, content ops, merchandisers, UX designers, product managers, or even data analysts.
Clearly, there’s room to improve the positioning and messaging around the DXC terminology – to find the right TLA, so to speak. And this confusion makes sense when we’re still in the early growth phases.
“Adoption and demand are still very, very nascent, but it's starting to get viral,” he said. “Despite being so nascent, it is disrupting and really ‘poking the bear’ on the big players in DXP. It's really shaping and adding maturity to headless and MACH – and these kinds of technical terms are now growing in maturity.”
Poking the bear sounds dangerous, but that’s what market challengers do. TLAs aside, Andrew went on to say that he would not recommend a “rip and replace” from DXP to DXC, but to take incremental steps towards composable.
“There are some bridges in place,” he said. “Uniform has one that can help Sitecore and AEM customers start to make those leaps. But there’s still a place for a DXP.”
<h2>What’s old is new</h2>
By this point in the match, we had wrestled multiple messages from our participants. Without question, DXC is the shiny new object blazing trails. At the same time, DXPs are evolving their posture to remain marketable. Andrew noted, “They’re decoupling and decomposing themselves, playing ball with others and having that multi-manufacturer style where you can build with OEM parts from all over the place.”
Pivoting back to Rasmus in the DXP corner, we inquired about his response to Andrew regarding the long history of APIs connecting different platforms – and how there are even use cases of Contentful feeding into Magnolia.
“I can totally back up that it's not really anything new,” he remarked to Andrew. “Magnolia has been producing a solution that is fundamentally a composable DXP for a very long time, since 2013 or 2014. We've had clients compose platforms out of multiple best-of-breed applications they put together in a joined platform for a long time.”
While Rasmus reinforced his criticism of a new TLA being injected into the ecosystem, he did express his support for how the narrative was being projected.
“If I look at some of the stuff I felt Uniform did super well, it was just a very clean story they came out with,” he said. “I totally love that. And it felt like a really novel spin that they would be the glue between all these different applications and allow the marketer the freedom to assemble, curate, and aggregate all their content and put together experiences based on many different services. I do see really good stuff about DXC. It's just not a category – and I don't think it will become a category.”
OK, so if it’s not destined to be officially blessed, where do we go from here? As Andrew pointed out, the roadmap might rest with user behavior.
“In some enterprises, there could be 60 times more technical folks that don't write code, but they're still making meaningful contributions to digital experiences. That is a huge user base. And that's where the DXC is really going to make its mark, and really going to – and this is probably an unpopular opinion – start to take over the DXP. It's serving so many more users in a more democratic low code, no code interesting way. It's empowering to that user base.”
<h2>A DXC by any other name is a… DXCP? DXO? EDP?</h2>
While pondering the future of a DXC category, Andrew quickly pointed out one basic flaw with the acronym: <a href="https://dxc.com/us/en" target="_blank">DXC Technology</a> is the name of a well-established global agency (which happens to sponsor <a href="https://dxc.com/us/en/manutd" target="_blank">Manchester United</a>). To that end, he feels “DXCP” might be a more suitable mantle – which Uniform has already been using across its communications.
He also talked about the long shadow cast by large competitors and the importance of establishing authority as a new category. “It’s really a challenge for new players to enter [the DXP market]. There's just so much <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-cloud-adds-new-headless-cms-capabilities-updates-to-commerce-integration/">Adobe</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizely-partners-with-google-cloud-to-take-experimentation-to-the-next-level/">Optimizely</a>, or <a href="https://www.magnolia-cms.com/" target="_blank">Magnolia</a> dominance. They've been around for so long. There’s no space for new entrants without a large insurmountable challenge.”
Sana also shared her perspective on the DXC category conundrum, which echoed my recent conversations with other vendors under the DXC umbrella. While <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/occtoo-dives-deep-to-unify-data-and-kill-integrations-a-conversation-with-ceo-niclas-mollin/">Niclas Mollin at Occtoo</a> is positioning around the Experience Data Platform, Sana is building a beachhead for Conscia as Digital Experience Orchestration.
“Conscia's not a DXC, even though we're playing in the space,” she explained. “There's a lot of confusion, so we said, you know what? We don't want to call ourselves a DXC because that would mean that we're tied too closely to a specific front end. So we’re going to act as the central piece of the composable ecosystem, which connects all the dots from the back end to the front end and is agnostic of both – and we’re able to orchestrate API's and experiences.”
<h2>And the winner is…</h2>
Er… not clear. We’re still wrestling with the answers, and the analysts have yet to canonize anything. But if we can smell what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwayne_Johnson" target="_blank">The Rock</a> is cookin', we might be in for more confusion as DXC continues to find its footing. 
What’s abundantly clear to us, however, is that DXC is building real momentum, and DXP continues to drive demand. With the advent of AI and other innovations, the DXP market is still predicted to grow to over <a href="https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/digital-experience-platform-market" target="_blank">$30 billion by 2030</a>. While our guests shared strong opinions about DXC's future as a category and the underlying challenges, each seemed committed to demonstrable value over category woes.
At the end of our session, Matt McQueeny noted that we ended up where we always end up: with a clear mandate to focus on the business and the customer. 
The best part of this conversation was each participant's undeniable respect and reverence for one another, despite their competitive position or conflicting ideologies. Collectively, this industry powers millions of websites, apps, and experiences. Yet, the top minds shaping its trajectory represent a tightly-knit community of shared innovation – and we had three of the best participating in this forum.
We'll give Andrew Kumar the final word: “It’s definitely a fun time to be in this space. It can be confusing, but there's a lot of innovation and disruption happening – and it's ultimately for the business and end customer's benefit.”
I can hear Hulk Hogan saying, “Amen, brother…”
<hr />
Big thanks to: 
<ul>
<li>Rasmus Skjoldan. Andrew Kumar, and Sana Remekie for participating</li>
<li>Matt McQueeny for helping to moderate, facilitate, and transcribe this session</li>
<li>Janus Boye for creating a community to host these kinds of debates</li>
</ul>

Wrestling with Category Confusion in the DXC "Slackdown"

What to know:<ul><li>TinyMCE has introduced AI capabilities to its rich text editor</li><li>Powered by OpenAI, the new feature is available and easy to activate</li><li>The solution provides pre-written prompts to help users create content</li><li>CMS platforms that use TinyMCE can offer AI in their editors and plugins</li></ul><hr /> You might not know it, but many CMS platforms have been “tinyfied.”I don’t mean “minified,” as in made smaller – or “gentrified,” though some apps out there could use a bit of that.No, “tinyfied” is how <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiny.cloud/">TinyMCE</a> refers to content management systems that utilize its rich text editor. It’s a fun moniker for a tool that’s essential to every CMS, enabling users to create formatted content using simple WYSIWYGs.The role of the text editor in a CMS can’t be overstated. In addition to adding raw content, they can be used to create lists, tables, and other elements. The functionality of an editor can also be extended via plugins and customizations based on a platform’s needs.Many CMSes have adopted TinyMCE as their default editor, while others have implemented it into various modules and plugins. Which platforms, you ask? According to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiny.cloud/docs-3x/extras/TinyMCE3x@Software_using_TinyMCE/#:~:text=Many%20CMSs%20have%20been%20'tinyfied,it%20in%20a%20module%2Fplugin.&amp;text=ARNIA%20CMS%20.,is%20part%20of%20the%20CMS.">company’s documentation</a>, the list includes <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/">Alfresco</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/dotcms-adds-additional-static-publishing-features-and-new-four-eyes-workflow-approval-in-latest-version-release-dotcms-4-3/">dotCMS</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/umbraco-cms-acquired-by-software-investor-monterro-interview-with-ceo-kim-sneum-madsen/">Umbraco</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/wp-engine-releases-worlds-first-study-of-the-wordpress-economy-cites-awe-inspiring-numbers/">WordPress</a>, and other notable brands (like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/cms-monthly-recap-shopify-invests-in-sanity-dotcms-updates-content-authoring-experience-wp-engine-acquires-plugins-and-more/">Shopify</a>) – all relying on TinyMCE to shape content editing.Now, TinyMCE is introducing <a target="_blank" href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI’s</a> powerful GPT models to its text editor. The new solution comes with pre-written prompts and writing tools and provides a familiar, intuitive UI that works within existing designs and structures.I recently spoke with TinyMCE’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredrikdanielsson/">Fredrik Danielsson</a>, Principal Product Manager, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisebentley/">Elise Bentley</a>, VP of Marketing, about the company’s new AI Assistant. They shared how the novel features will benefit users while helping CMS platforms accelerate their AI roadmap.<h2>Adding AI to an API-first portfolio of solutions</h2>Over the last few months, I’ve spoken to numerous CMSes about their emerging AI strategies.As I’ve noted in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/a-closer-look-at-contentstacks-ai-features-with-christine-masters-senior-product-manager/">previous articles</a>, some have charged full speed ahead, adding <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/kontent-ai-pioneers-native-ai-in-headless-cms-interview-with-vojtech-boril/">native solutions</a> to their workflows. Others are waiting it out, trying to divine the hope from the hype.While not a CMS itself, TinyMCE is a key part of the content ecosystem. Despite being a new entrant to the AI game, its AI Assistant fits squarely with the company’s ambitious API-first strategy and its goal of powering CMS users with more advanced functionality.“TinyMCE has focused on the content creation space for almost 20 years,” said Elise. “When you think about CMS users, it’s actually the rich text editor that they’re connecting with. We’re creating a seamless experience by bringing AI into a workflow they already know.”According to Elise, there are currently over 350 million downloads of TinyMCE a year – and that includes a very broad spectrum of CMS, DAM, workflow collaboration, email tools, and more. While all of these applications co-exist in the DX stack, Elise noted that understanding the CMS user was fundamental to building the right kind of AI strategy.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tinymce-editor-1024x663.png" alt="TinyMCE rich text editor" />“Content creators are ultimately using [TinyMCE], so what are the top things they’re creating? For a CMS, it was blogs and website copy – so whatever we delivered, we needed to make sure it worked great for those use cases.”TinyMCE’s impressive footprint has certainly bolstered its market position. In March of this year, the company was purchased by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiny.cloud/blog/tiugo-portfolio-with-tinymce/">Tiugo Technologies</a>, a PSG portfolio company offering a family of innovative, API-first developer platforms – which includes <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tiugo-technologies-enhances-its-portfolio-of-developer-platforms-with-buttercms/">ButterCMS</a>.While many technologies in a wide range of industries have rushed to market with AI solutions, some have been met with delays or even less-than-stellar outcomes. I asked Elise how Tiny has focused on quality while ensuring timely delivery to the market.“We have a big emphasis on quality here, and we don’t release things to market unless we believe they are market-ready,” she affirmed. “AI Assistant has gone through robust QA processes, and it’s stable. We have a lot of users signed up, and we’re actively gathering feedback.”<h2>Making AI more useful with ready-made prompts</h2>Along with his mantle of product manager, Fredrik has also been the internal AI champion for TinyMCE’s new functionality. I asked him what fueled his interest – and why it mattered.“We think this is a really important innovation in rich text editing,” he said. “It’s opened up so many opportunities in human-computer interaction and how we can use this technology for all sorts of things. It’s similar to when the iPhone came out, and we suddenly had the internet and computers in our pockets. AI is almost a must, and we have to be doing this.”It’s true that AI has captured the zeitgeist of the moment, spurring CMS platforms to introduce AI features at a breakneck pace. But the hype cycle can be tenuous, and user experience can sometimes be a victim in the race to innovate.<hr /><h4 style="text-align:center">"It’s not just about connecting with AI – it's about unlocking the power of AI and helping you to learn how to use it for content creation purposes, so you’re not on your own."</h4><hr />Tiny aimed to avoid that trap by putting the user first. As Elise explained, the company had been exploring AI for over a year, and the decision to act only surfaced when customers started asking how to add it to their applications. Thoughtful research helped reveal where the TinyMCE’s capabilities could align with the promise of AI.“When we went out to explore AI, we did the demand studies,” she punctuated. “What people are actually struggling with is how to interact with AI. That’s where our solution is much more advanced. We provide the pre-written prompts and the assistance. It’s not just about connecting with AI – it's about unlocking the power of AI and helping you to learn how to use it for content creation purposes, so you’re not on your own.”Fredrik further codified this, describing TinyMCE’s ready-made prompts as a sort of “discovery feature” that helps inspire end users by giving them a starting point while providing convenient actions such as rewriting, fixing grammar, and creating alternative variants.<h2>Adding AI where content creators need it</h2>For CMS platforms using TinyMCE, the clear benefit is the easy, frictionless addition of AI to the text editing experience.Designed as a core part of the content creation workflow – as opposed to a bolt-on component – the solution’s UI works out of the box without adding any extra AI development burdens. What’s more, it can be up and running in a couple of hours with just a few steps.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tinymce-steps-1-1024x217.jpg" alt="TinyMCE AI Assistant steps " />As Fredrik outlined, the AI Assistant is an extension of TinyMCE, so you simply activate it within the plugin and connect to OpenAI via your <a target="_blank" href="https://platform.openai.com/account/api-keys">OpenAI API key</a>. The AI Assistant provides a configurable, intuitive interface for OpenAI prompts, while your API key sends and receives prompts and responses from OpenAI.When you’re ready for production, you can set up a server-side proxy for secure communication with OpenAI. And presto… you’re off to the races.“The fantastic thing about TinyMCE and how we operate is that we provide APIs and actually allow you to customize the prompts if you want to put in the engineering effort,” said Elise. “You can customize it around your own use case.”While other CMS platforms are home-growing their capabilities, TinyMCE is effectively shortcutting the complexity and laser-targeting AI at precisely the right places. Along with the essentials for improving grammar and writing, users can target the AI Assistant to summarize, explain, or simplify language with an easy-to-use picker. There's also the ability to generate content from custom prompts and insert it instantly into your post.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tinymce-screenshots-1024x540.jpg" alt="TinyMCE product screenshots" />“We’re providing the UI and prompt engineering so you can quickly get started, instead of spending months trying to figure out how to do it yourself,” said Fredrik, summing up one of the core benefits. “With OpenAI and TinyMCE, it’s the speed.”<h2>What does TinyMCE's AI Assistant cost?</h2>When it comes to new features, the million-dollar question is always the price.According to Elise, the AI Assistant is an additional $29 per month – which is nominal, considering the advanced resources the company is dedicating to the technology. I asked how users are responding to this price point and the value position. “Everyone that has signed up is accepting of the cost, and it’s appealing for both startups and enterprises,” she said. “Part of our research was to examine price and how we sustain engineering on such a revolutionary new feature set.”Because TinyMCE’s AI Assistant requires you to create and connect your own OpenAI API key, platforms are also responsible for <a target="_blank" href="https://openai.com/pricing">any direct costs from OpenAI</a> associated with its usage.<h2>Wrestling with security, data privacy and copyright issues</h2>One of the biggest challenges with tapping large language models like ChatGPT is data privacy. And rightly so: since its introduction, OpenAI has spurred multiple security concerns, including a <a target="_blank" href="https://securityintelligence.com/articles/chatgpt-confirms-data-breach/">data breach</a> that exposed active user data to would-be hackers.OpenAI has made great strides in firming up its protection. Additionally, CMS platforms that have introduced GPT connectors have gone to great lengths to wall off enterprise data from the GPT learning pipelines, so a company’s data doesn’t become part of the LLM’s general training lakes.I asked Fredrik and Elise how TinyMCE was handling the data privacy concerns with its new AI, and how questions around content copyright might impact their strategy.“This is a huge, huge question,” Fredrik said. “We’re talking about privacy and copyright on the internet. We deal with a lot of enterprises, so naturally, we get that question. In the vast majority of use cases, it’s about building trust with vendors [and letting them know] we take care of your data.”Elise expanded on this, adding that TinyMCE is actively monitoring and looking at ways to create more secure and private solutions with ChatGPT.<h2>Expanding the horizon of AI for platforms and users</h2>In the quest to provide meaningful AI to more content creators, TinyMCE has certainly introduced a unique offering at the text editing layer – and done so in a familiar and accessible manner.I asked Fredrik where he sees the greatest opportunity for TinyMCE’s AI to transform the content experience.“This is completely new for us, and it’s fun,” he mused. “We’re innovating and exploring and starting fresh. As with all these things, there are no conventions right now. But it should be simple, intuitive, and designed for everyone – not just power users. I want everyone to be able to harness the power of our AI.”While the new AI features are already GA, TinyMCE is just getting started. According to Elise, they plan to support more than just ChatGPT in the future and continue a healthy pace of innovation based on customer needs.“As more people come on board, we want the feedback loops to make an even better, more robust product,” she said. “But right now, we’re very happy about this new feature.”Being happy about your product? There’s nothing tiny about that.You can experience that happiness yourself by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiny.cloud/tinymce/features/ai-integration/">adding the new AI Assistant</a> to your existing TinyMCE account with an exclusive 14-day free trial.

TinyMCE Brings Advanced AI to CMS Text Editing: Interview with Fredrik Danielsson & Elise Bentley

Reflections on WordCamp Europe 2022

paris-tuzun

With a release date of March 17 th, PrestaShop version 1.6 is right around the corner.
<a href="http://www.prestashop.com/" target="_blank"> PrestaShop's popular ecommerce platform</a> powers over 165,000 online stores across the globe, throughout 160 different countries.
Version 1.6 promises to bring about an array of new features, including a completely re-designed front and back end.
The team over at PrestaShop recently gave me early access to version 1.6, and with just days to go before launch, I can confirm that PrestaShop users have a lot to be excited about.
<h2>A Revamped Front End</h2>
Before I delve into what PrestaShop admins will soon be enjoying, there are some notable improvements made to the PrestaShop “Front Office” which will drastically improve the shopping experience for customers.
PrestaShop has gone into detail about all of the updates version 1.6 brings to the front office via their <a href="http://www.prestashop.com/blog/en/prestashop-version-1-6-a-look-at-the-redesigned-front-office/" target="_blank">official blog</a>, but I was less concerned about the features list, and more concerned about how it all came together – so I made my way over to PrestaShop's brand new Front Office myself.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta7700x0.png" alt="PrestaShp 1.6 Front Office" /> 
First things first, I think that PrestaShop 1.6 brings about one of the best looking default themes offered by any ecommerce platform on the market.
The theme is sleek, responsive and beautifully presents customizable banners in a way which is eye-caching, yet professional. Also, thanks to Sass Compass technology, you can edit colors, fonts, CSS and much more with just a few clicks using the Live Template Edit feature directly from the Front Office.
Another notable feature I quickly came across was the “Quick View” functionality for all listed products. The feature brings up a “Quick View” button whenever customers hover over a product, which in turn opens up a lightbox presenting key product information, images, pricing, social sharing buttons, and so forth.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta5700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Product Quick View" /> 
Changes to the catalog pages also stood out for me. Customers can choose between viewing products in a grid or in a list, with both options looking and working well.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta9700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Catalog" />
Furthermore, the catalog pages house a host of search filters, making shopping extremely easy. Customers can filter products by colour, size, materials, styles, price and more with just a few clicks.
Banners make another appearance on catalog pages, allowing you to add some colour and creativity to the page. The sidebar beneath the filter section offers more space for promotion, enabling you to showcase new products, special products, previously viewed products, and so forth. This may sound like a lot of features to include on one catalog page, but thanks to the very light and spacious design of the theme, it all just works.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta10.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Sidebar" />
Finally, I can't ignore PrestaShop's brand new and improved Shopping Cart system – which is arguably the most important element of an ecommerce website.
Quick access to the cart is available via the top right-hand corner of the page, but unlike previous versions of PrestaShop, the drop-down menu gives you a large, cleaner window, along with the featured image of the products in your cart.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta11700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop1.6 Shopping Cart" /> 
The shopping cart page itself is once again sleek and easy to understand. Check out is separated into five sections: Summary, Login, Address, Shipping and Payment. Pretty straightforward stuff.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta8700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Shopping Cart" />
All of these features and modules make shopping on PrestaShop 1.6 a breeze. Customers receive a professional browsing and purchasing experience from the homepage, and all the way through to check out.
Social sharing buttons are common place throughout the theme, catalog filtering is easy to use, and the overall design of PrestaShop's new responsive defealt theme is simply elegant.
<h2>Back End Beauty</h2>
To accompany an impressive new Front Office, PrestaShop 1.6 also introduces an all new modern and user-friendly “Back Office”.
Much like with the Front Office, PrestaShop have documented many of the new features of their new Back Office via their  <a href="http://www.prestashop.com/blog/en/prestashop-v-1-6-back-office-whats-new-and-improved/" target="_blank"> official blog </a> , but I was more interested in perhaps shedding some light where it had yet to be shone.
So I got to grips with its sleek interface, and I have no qualms in confirming that it is indeed a colossal improvement on the current PrestaShop admin panel.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta12700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Back Office" />
The top menu, which provides access to latest orders, registrations, messages, achievements, and more, is very neatly laid out and unintrusive, even with drop-down menus. The left-hand sidebar contains the bulk of available features and functions, all of which are listed below a handy search bar.
Quick access to product uploading, profile settings and your store's homepage is provided by the top menu bar, which sits above a secondary tab containing a help button specific for each page of the Back Office.
The sidebar can be minimized too, allowing the main window to take center stage.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta2700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Back Office" /> 
PrestaShop 1.6's dashboard itself is a sight to behold. It houses a wide range of statistics, insights, useful links, news and even gives you the ability to add further measurement tools via <a href="https://addons.prestashop.com/en/" target="_blank"> Addons </a> , if you so wish.
All the interfaces I came across in the back office of PrestaShop 1.6 maintained the modern feel I found on the dashboard, with each section offering detailed functionality.
Further statistics could also be found via the newly introduced “Intelligent Merchant KPI” feature, which displays relevant facts and figures relating to stock levels, profit margins, abandoned carts, and more. These stats are all displayed across the top of different pages and sections of the Back Office.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta3700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Intelligent Merchant KPI" /> 
Another feature I noticed, was that certain back-end pages offered me “Recommended Modules”. For example, the “Orders” page recommended me modules pertaining to fraud and feed management systems. Impressively, I didn't even need to leave the lightbox in order to install these modules.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/presta4.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Recommended Modules" /> 
It was these smaller elements which were standing out for me. Each page had its own dedicated help page, a set of recommended modules, relevant statistics and more. All of these features combined to give the entire admin panel a real sense of detail.
<h2>Real Time &amp; Forecasted Statistics</h2>
PrestaShop version 1.6 really is all about the statistics. The dedicated “Stats” page is still around, but with a brand new look. It allows you to get a wide range of statistics from all the nooks and crannies of your store – all of which are automatically measured.
The Stats page offers insights into areas like best product categories, best customers, best sellers, sarch engine kewords, visitors, best vouchers and many more. Although this feature isn't new, the enhanced design makes it feel as if it is. There is so much to monitor, and yet the simple graphs and lists associated with each parameter makes that monitoring easier to do than ever before.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/prestaaa700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop 1.6 Stats" /> 
But wait, there's more.
PrestaShop 1.6 also brings about a truly unique ecommerce feature – “Real Time Net Profit Margin”. As the name implies, it automatically updates net profit margins in real time, presenting you with sales and your profit figures instantly, every minute of the day.
Finally, the “Forecast Statistics Panel”, lets you see how your sales are trending and what the outlook is for the future. Using this tool, you can make smarter business decisions based on current trends and forecasts based entirely on the performance of your store.
These progress measurement tools, accompanied by the “Intelligent Merchant KPI” I mentioned earlier, makes PrestaShop 1.6 a statistical powerhouse, enabling you to monitor various metrics from a variety of helpful angles.
<h2>Newly Integrated Technologies, Seamless Upgrading &amp; More</h2>
Technologies such as Bootstrap 3.0, FontAwesome, Sass Compass and D3 Data Driven Documents have all been integrated into version 1.6 of PrestaShop, putting it right up there with the most technologically advanced ecommerce platforms.
Seamless upgrading for nearly all PrestaShop users is also offered, thanks to version 1.6 having virtually zero core changes from 1.5x – meaning that any 1.5x store can be upgraded with minimal effort.
Additional noteworthy features include integrated product comparisons with dedicated URLs, cross-selling features via the “Add to Cart Confirmation” screen, and more.
<h2>Community Driven Progress</h2>
If you caught my <a href="/prestashop-a-free-feature-filled-online-store-builder-with-a-thriving-community/" target="_blank"> previous coverage of the PrestaShop </a> , you'll know that they are an ecommerce platform who are big on community.
Whilst piecing together version 1.6, PrestaShop have worked closely with their expert community volunteers <a href="https://github.com/PrestaShop" target="_blank"> through GitHub </a> , and have also obtained feedback and suggestions from their thriving online forum which is populated by over 620,000 members.
Because of this community connection, PrestaShop have been able to gather feedback directly from their user base, and implement it into version 1.6.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/prestaaaaa700x0.png" alt="PrestaShop Forums" />
The proof of this community driven progress is in the pudding. For example, PrestaShop have listened to the calls from their community by taking a number of paid-for features from their Addons store, and have converted them into integrated features included as standard in PrestaShop 1.6 – making them completely free of charge for everybody.
Such features include Rich menu navigation, Add to Cart with Cross-selling, Quick Product View and Advanced statistics.
Now that's what I call giving back to the community.
<h2>Just Days Away</h2>
Version 1.6 of PrestaShop has been in development for a while now, but its launch date is now tantalisingly close. Just days away in fact.
There is excitement within the PrestaShop community, with merchants the world over anticipating new ways to sell, monitor and improve their online stores. The first impressions were extremely good, and the platform only grew on me as I explored it further.
I believe many of the new and unique features implemented by PrestaShop will become indispensable for store owners before very long. Many will forget what it was like to run their store without instant profit margin reports or forecasted sales figures – and for those reasons alone, PrestaShop 1.6 is an impressive piece of software.
PrestaShop 1.6 is set to be released on March 17th at 12:00pm EST. To find out more about PrestaShop, visit their <a href="http://www.prestashop.com" target="_blank"> official website </a> , or check out the <a href="http://www.prestashop.com/en/progress-1-6" target="_blank"> PrestaShop 1.6 progress page </a> .
Additionally, you can explore more of <a href="/products/prestashop/" target="_blank"> PrestaShop via our CMS Directory </a>

Hands-on With PrestaShop 1.6

mike-johnston

Power your CMS on AWS

Manage your websites & apps in the most trusted cloud.

#ffffff

<a href="https://wpengine.com/" target="_blank">WP Engine</a>, the managed WordPress hosting solution, has been very busy lately.
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/wp-engine-page-performance/">Page Performance</a> was recently rolled out by the company, a feature that makes WP Engine the first managed WordPress hosting platform with a web page speed performance tool built into the user dashboard. This new interface gives users actionable insights to help quickly and dramatically improve the speed of their websites.
WP Engine also just <a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160707005380/en/WP-Engine-Unveils-Web%E2%80%99s-Wordpress-PHP-7">unveiled a PHP7 compatibility checker</a>, which is a plugin that they're toting as the internet's first tool to verify PHP 7 compatibility on WordPress website.
Amidst all this news, I managed to grab a moment with WP Engine's Vice President of Product, Jason Jaynes.
<h2>Who is Jason Jaynes?</h2>
<img style="max-width:175px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/biopic_jaynes_web.jpg" alt="Jason Jaynes" />Jason Jaynes is an experienced software executive with eighteen years of practice across multiple functions including marketing, product management, sales and software development; and multiple disciplines including social media, security, mobile, online advertising, and SAAS.
Jason is currently the Vice President of Product at WP Engine where he oversees product management and product strategy. Prior to WP Engine, Jason served as the co-founder and CTO of Apptive where he oversaw all product strategy and development. Prior to Apptive, Jason has served in numerous roles including Vice President of Business Marketing for Demand Media, Vice President of Product and Marketing for Demand Media's social division, and Director of Product Management for Credant Technologies.
Jason holds an MBA degree from the University of Texas and a B.S. in Computer Science from Texas A&amp;M University.
<h2></h2>
 
<h2>The Interview</h2>
KI: Can you briefly tell us a little bit about yourself, and your role at WP Engine?
JJ: I am responsible for product management and product strategy across the entire company. I work extensively with customers to understand overall market needs and to define and create the next generation of product features. A few months ago, WP Engine released Page Performance, a solution that empowers customers to obtain and utilize actionable insights that boost site performance. It's helped many of our customers improve their site speed, typically a 15% increase in front-end performance.
However, you can only optimize your code so much. Sometimes, the answer is putting a race car engine on your site, that is what PHP 7 is, a high performance PHP engine that will bring even greater performance to our customer base. However, it’s an involved process, so we created this <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/php-compatibility-checker/">PHP Compatibility Checker plugin</a> to help our customers ready their sites for PHP 7, coming to our platform later this fall. As a managed platform, we are enabling our customers in many ways to reach their peak website performance.
KI: As the internet becomes more and more ingrained into the daily life of the human race, can you tell us (preferable with some statistics), just how demanding the average internet user is for fast-loading websites?
JJ: We actually have a great infographic on this, which explores all the ways in which the “need for speed” has evolved over the years in a range of ways:
<ul>
<li>Desire for instant gratification</li>
<li>Online shopping expectations</li>
<li>Mobile site speed expectations</li>
<li>The emotional toll of load times</li>
<li>Site speed in the real world</li>
<li>How to improve page load time</li>
</ul>
KI: What does your latest product, Page Performance, bring to the table?
JJ: It’s clear that a poor digital experience sinks sites in a heartbeat — a <a href="https://blog.kissmetrics.com/speed-is-a-killer/">study</a> by Akamai and Gomez showed that even a one-second delay in page load time will result in 11 percent fewer page views, a 16 percent decrease in customer satisfaction and a 7 percent drop in conversion. With site owners and developers literally on the clock, it’s critical that the customer experience be seamless in order to not affect the bottom line – it’s all about performance and conversion.
Our latest intelligence product, Page Performance, empowers customers to obtain and utilize actionable insights that boost site performance. Integrated into the WP Engine user portal, Page Performance provides a detailed site speed report and actionable recommendations to solve for technical issues impacting digital businesses, resulting in higher visitor retention, improved Google rankings, increased conversions and positive reputations and customer experiences. Key benefits include:
<ul>
<li>Access to key metrics on any Page with report history to see improvements over time. Report includes such metrics as cacheability, render start, visitor complete, render complete and other data.</li>
<li>Actionable recommendations with rich context, including links to a library of support material enable users to make fast, significant, measurable impact to site performance.</li>
<li>Integrated into WP Engine user portal to support a convenient developer workflow.</li>
</ul>
KI: What sets WP Engine apart from other managed WordPress hosting solutions?
JJ: WP Engine powers amazing digital experiences for websites and applications built on WordPress.
With award-winning customer support and state-of-the-art technology, our managed WordPress platform provides performance, reliability and security to brands, agencies, SMBs and individuals. Engineered at a code level to make resource-hungry WordPress deployments run faster, the WP Engine platform displays stunning speed while incorporating an industry-leading hardened infrastructure that allows webpages to load up to four times faster than any non-WordPress platform. Offering different plans to fit the needs of customers ranging from individuals to the enterprise, our platform helps our customers create robust and reliable websites with direct SFTP, Git version control, built-in CDN, enhanced security, one-click staging, automated migrations and restore and more.
Through our efforts, WP Engine has contributed significantly to establishing WordPress itself as a platform that can be reliably deployed in a range of enterprise scenarios. We were involved in introducing or popularizing platform features that have become key characteristics of hosting, including site staging (as we mention above), integration with developer workflow tools and advanced caching strategies.
With the recent launch of our Page Performance service (noted above), WP Engine is adding a layer that is likely to continue evolving customer expectations of a managed WordPress offering. Performance Intelligence for sites, of which Page Performance is the first product, will be an area of continued investment for us.
To find out more about WP Engine, <a href="https://wpengine.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>

Interview With Jason Jaynes, VP of Product at WP Engine

CubeCart has announced that their latest version is now ready for live environments, following a beta testing period.
According to the CubeCart team, CubeCart V6 is part of, “a whole new philosophy for online commerce.”
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/1634_1634_37_37_cubecart_logo210_1.jpg" /> Previously, <a href="/cubecart-goes-open-source-launches-extensions-marketplace/" target="_blank">I covered the news of CubeCart v6 Beta going live</a>, which brought along with it an extensions marketplace, as well as news that CubeCart is now totally open source.
Key Points:
<ul>
<li>CubeCart v6 is Open Source and 100% Free.</li>
<li>You can upgrade from v3, v4 &amp; v5 to v6.</li>
<li>No bloatware: CubeCart v6 ships with no additional extensions, and only one minimal, responsive theme.</li>
<li>Extensions such as payment gateways, shipping rate calculators, skins etc now have individual version releases which means updates can get to you faster than having to wait and upgrade your store entirely.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.cubecart.com/technical-support">Technical support</a> plans are available for experienced web masters and those with little or no technical expertise at all.</li>
<li>Developers can submit their extensions into the CubeCart <a href="http://forums.cubecart.com/topic/49315-four-reasons-you-must-list-your-extensions-in-the-cubecart-marketplace/#entry206138">Extensions Marketplace</a>.</li>
<li>CubeCart v6 is ported from v5 which means existing v5 skins and extensions are forward compatible. </li>
</ul>
It's always good news when open source is being embraced, although the expansion of CubeCart's extension marketplace is also well worth noting. Those are two highly approriate enhancements taken on by CubeCart in my opinion.
To find out more about CubeCart v6, <a href="/cubecart-goes-open-source-launches-extensions-marketplace/" target="_blank">check out my previous coverage</a>, as well as their <a href="http://forums.cubecart.com/topic/49383-cubecart-600-available-now/" target="_blank">official blog announcement</a>.

CubeCart v6 Released

SEO Samba have recently upgraded their CMS/Website builder, SEOToaster and we thought we'd take a look at their new release and examine the improvements. We previously shared our experiences with their tool back in 2010 and you can read that review <a href="/seotoaster-review/">here</a>.To get started, the installation process is pretty straight forward and within a few clicks, you'll be up and running with the latest version of SEOToaster CMS.Once installed, you'll be greeted with a page that contains a number of steps you can take to get started. The first step is shown below:I have a couple of issues with the way things are done with this page. First off, I noticed a spelling error with the very first paragraph on the page. As some of you know from reading my previous reviews, I've got serious issues with spelling mistakes. The issues are twofold. First, it shows poor quality control and as a result, lowers my confidence in the code and the rest of the product. Second, it's unprofessional. The word that's misspelled for those who can't tell is “Successfully” (note that it's missing the third S). To find a mistake this early on is not reassuring at all.The second issue is that I am given a rather poorly highlighted error with no instructions on how to resolve it. The error, you can see in the screenshot above, is “can not create widcard plugin. You have to install the proper loader”.  A bit vague isn't it?I checked their website (seotoaster.com) to try to find a solution to the error after Google returned no results and could not find the support section for SEOToaster CMS. I ended up scrolling to the footer of their main website, where I found a link to the forums. Assuming this would be the place to look,  I searched the forums and received no results. Frustrated, I went back to the main page and again, scrolled down to the footer to find “Q &amp; A Support” and clicked on it. I searched for the term “widcard” and finally found an article telling me I needed the IONCube Loader that the installation routine had told me was “optional” (see below):<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-4.png" />As a developer, if you are going to mark something as optional, tell the user what they will lose by not installing it so that they can make an educated decision or link to an article explaining what types of issues they will encounter when not choosing to meet the optional requirement. This will eliminate the confusion later on. Further to this, if it's going to create a confusing issue during the install routine, you are probably better off making it mandatory before proceeding.With the installation complete, I moved to the theme selection piece, which indicates that I can choose from one of their themes, download it, then reupload it back to the system and select it as a starting point. Following the instructions, I went ahead and downloaded the insurance theme thinking it was a decent starting point. To my chagrin, after uploading it and selecting it, I can't seem to get past the theme screen. Clicking done appears to do nothing and the system just sits there on the theme selection page.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-5-620x375.png" />Also, oddly, it doesn't appear to show a preview of the theme either which I found rather odd.  Given that I was unable to move past the screen, I clicked the X in the top right of the window above and was greeted with a framework of the theme but not the actual theme itself:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-6-620x382.png" />While it serves as a structurally usable template, it defeats the purpose of having a theme preset with sample data and colors. While I am able to enter content into any of these boxes without issue and can certainly make due, we're dealing with issue after issue so far and it's not making the process easy or giving me much confidence in how the experience will be for the end user.Obviously, the installation process needs a bit of work but the bulk of the business SEO Samba does is with hosted installations which eliminates the need for an installation routine so we'll cut them a bit of slack for the issues I've encountered today.Once installed, however, it's time to get to the meat of the system which is the adding and management of content. SEO Toaster uses inline content editing and to get started, you simply click in an editable area (defined by the small colored icon in the screenshot above) and the editor launches.Here's how the editor looks:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-10-620x381.png" />Obviously, it can handle the majority of typical formatting that you'd come to expect from a standard WYSIWYG editor but it also can be used to insert other content and widgets. To add an RSS widget to a content area for example, you simple fill out the widget details and click apply.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-11-620x382.png" />Once you've got the widget details entered, click Save Content and you'll see the end result:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/seotoaster-review-12.png" />A cool thing about this RSS feed widget is that it cycles the content with a slider motion so that the most recent 5 items from the RSS feed are each displayed. It's hard to show via a screenshot but just trust me that it looks cool, ok? ?Headers are defined by an H icon and clicking on those gives you a simple text entry box that you can type your header into:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-38-48.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />Once you click save, it's instantly updated. Pretty simple isn't it?The bulk of the work you'll do with SEO Toaster is via the inline content editor or the collapsible menu that floats to the right of the screen when logged in. It looks like this:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-41-06.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />From this menu, you can create pages, edit page properties, organize them and much more. When editing the page properties, you'll get the following options:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-42-21-620x373.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />Adding media and images is quick and easy. I particularly enjoyed the naming of the menu items under the media menu:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-44-02.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />To add images, simply click on the aptly named “Upload things” menu item and you'll be presented with the following image upload window:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-46-07.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />From here, you would either select a destination folder for your images, or create a new one and choose the files to upload. The whole process is quite quick and took a few seconds. Now, to add any of the images you've just uploaded to a content area, simply click and launch the inline content editor, select your folder, the size of image you want to insert and the image itself from the preview thumbnail and you are done.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-53-30-620x382.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />As you can see, adding content and widgets to come up with a unique design is very simple and straight forward and definitely where SEO Toaster shines. Working with the system, I encountered no issues or speed concerns and everything was snappy and worked well.In the SEO section of the menu you are able to do a number of things including editing your robots.txt file, adding 301 redirects, creating deeplinks and sculpting.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_11-57-04.png" />You can learn more about the various SEO options available and how they work from here: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.seotoaster.com/seo-website-design.html">http://www.seotoaster.com/seo-website-design.html</a>. They are a bit advanced for me to go through in this review but I will say that there are plenty of great options that can be integrated with SEO Toaster and they are well implemented.If you are a developer or a coder, you'll be happy to know that SEO Toaster provides full editing functionality for your templates and CSS including line numbering. To edit, simply click on the layout section and choose either edit template or edit CSS.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_12-01-42-620x374.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />Under the “Other” menu item, you can change basic configuration settings including the default media sizes, email settings and more.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_12-04-24.png" />Perhaps one of the best features that potential users will be interested in hearing about are the plugins that SEO Toaster has available. Under the plugins menu, you'll be presented with a good number of great plugins that help extend the functionality of the system such as:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/home-google-chrome_2012-09-24_12-06-55-620x374.png" alt="SEO Toaster Review" />You'll note that on this page, the system does actually warn you about the IonCube Loader not being installed. For most people, you'll want to either ensure it's installed or use their hosted service. For this review, installing the loader wasn't something that could be done quickly and easily so I chose to skip it. As you can see, there are some pretty amazing plugins available including a variety of payment modules for eCommerce use. This is great news for those looking to use the system to create a store or sales page. There is also an eCommerce version of SEO Toaster coming soon which will likely implement things much better but for the interim, there are definitely some options.Not all of these plugins are free, some are available on a month to month payment basis or for a onetime fee but hey, a company has to make money somewhere and it's good to see there are a number of options to choose from, including how to pay.Overall, SEO Toaster is a pretty simply and straight forward CMS. I'd almost prefer to call it a website builder but since you can download it and host it locally, it's kind of a blend between the two. Installation process aside, it's easy to use, has a slick and simple interface that even the most inexperienced user could get used to within a few minutes and offers plenty of ways to extend the functionality of your site.If you are in the market for a simple to use CMS that makes getting a page online quick and easy, SEO Toaster just might be something to consider. You can learn more at their website: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.seotoaster.com/">SEO Toaster</a>

SEOToaster V2 Review

Looking for our <a href="/socialengine-review/">SocialEngine Cloud Review</a>?In my view, there’s a notable lack of capable social network builders out there. They exist, sure, but if you compare it with the eCommerce industry, there’s a serious shortage of vendors.SocialEngine though is one platform that has been around for a number of years (since 2006, actually). It was also voted in as the <a href="/announcing-the-2015-winner-for-best-social-network-software/">Best Social Network Software of 2015</a> here on CMS Critic.It comes in two flavours; SocialEngine Cloud and Social Engine PHP.As for SocialEngine Cloud, it’s a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution that lets you launch a community from SocialEngine’s servers. You can read our <a href="/socialengine-review">SocialEngine Cloud Review</a> for more information.SocialEngine PHP on the other hand is a downloadable and self-hosted version of the platform which I’ll be focusing on throughout this review. Let’s get started!<h2>Getting Started</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-get-started.png" />You can download a free trial of SocialEngine which lasts for 30 days, or you can try it out via their online demo.In either case, what you’ll find is a functional admin panel that lacks decoration.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-app.png" />It serves up recent SocialEngine news, site stats, and some quick links to help you find vital areas of the dashboard. It does it’s job, but it’s not as beautiful as the SocialEngine Cloud dashboard – which I find odd.The rest of the dashboard is equally bare in terms of design, but it is quick and easy to navigate.<h2>Core Features</h2>SocialEngine really is feature-rich – there’s no denying that. Here's an overview:<ul><li>Mobile Web App</li><li>Chat and IM</li><li>Private messaging</li><li>Social feeds</li><li>Photo galleries</li><li>Groups and sub-groups</li><li>Events</li><li>Forums</li><li>Blogs</li><li>Polls</li></ul>You can also use drag-and-drop software to visually arrange content, customize widgets, create whole new pages, and position banner advertisements.This is all after you piece together your social network using themes, addons, and social frameworks. Here’s a breakdown of those features, and more.<h3>Plugins &amp; Themes</h3>SocialEngine boasts a plethora of addons in the form of plugins at themes, many of which are third-party contributions.The quality of the addons vary, and although themes have started to look a lot more modern, I wouldn’t put them on par with the average WordPress theme – if I were to use them as a benchmark.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-plugins-and-themes.png" />All SocialEngine addons can be found via the SocialEngine marketplace.<h3>Full Content Ownership</h3>Your community’s content is yours to own. Unlike most hosted services, SocialEngine PHP never prevents you from moving your community or serving your own advertisements.SocialEngine PHP gives you a simple, unbranded network that you can customize in any way. You’ll have the freedom to maintain fine-grained control over all aspects of your site and content.<h3>Site Stats</h3>SocialEngine offers a relatively stellar site stats solution, and I’m a fan of native analytics systems within content management systems, even if they aren’t that detailed.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-site-stats.png" />SocialEngine’s analytics system is fairly well detailed, though. They offer site-wide stats, referral stats, as well as stats within your community. That includes metrics on things like:<ul><li>Private messages</li><li>Friendships</li><li>Comments</li><li>Abuse reports</li><li>Sign ins</li></ul><h3>Multiple Social Frameworks</h3>SocialEngine lets you choose from two-way friendships (like Facebook), one-way followers (like Twitter), verified/unverified friendships, and more.This lets you build a community around common frameworks that your members will be familiar with.You can also add sub-networks to segment members by factors such as age, workplace, location, gender, or anything else you deem necessary.<h3>Moderators &amp; Membership Levels</h3>Create multiple levels of membership in your community to give some members access to special content or extra privileges. You can also assign moderators to help you maintain your community and remove unwanted content for you.<h3>White Labelling</h3>Thanks to SocialEngine have been generous by not including their branding on licensed versions of their product. That means you can go ahead and white label it – so it looks like the software is your own invention.This goes a long way in convincing potential community members of your website’s autehticity and prestige.<h2>Pricing</h2>Unlike SocialEngine Cloud – which requires you to pay a monthly fee – SocialEngine PHP is available at for a one-time fee.There are three deals currently on offer, as seen in the image below.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-pricing.png" />Starting from $299, you can’t say that SocialEngine is pricing anybody out, but it’s not exactly cheap either. You could say it’s pretty well priced, actually.However, it must be said that, despite being well priced, the $299 version doesn’t give you access to SocialEngine’s best features.As for the higher plans, they afford you extras like mobile apps, instant messaging for members, forums, blogs, polls, marketplaces, and so forth. Those deals come in at $499 and $699. Which is kind of pricey.<h2>Getting Help</h2>With every purchase of SocialEngine PHP, you get 30 days worth of ticket-based support. Which isn’t a lot.Further help can be found via the <a target="_blank" href="http://community.onsocialengine.com/">global SocialEngine community</a>, as well as through detailed documentation. But to be quite honest, for a product that costs at least $299, I expect ongoing support from the SocialEngine team that lasts longer than 30 days.You can get extended ticket-support access, but that comes at an extra cost.<h2>Verdict</h2>SocialEngine PHP is indeed a platform with plenty of history, and a strong community. It ships with a wide range of features, and it has the potential to power a seriously epic social networking website.But I must say, it is still a platform that’s rough around the edges.Regardless, if you’re in the market for a social network builder, SocialEngine PHP is certainly worth a try.<h3>Pros</h3><ul><li>Awesome amount of features out of the box</li><li>Different social frameworks to choose from</li><li>A solid community to help you grow and provide you with addons</li><li>No SocialEngine branding</li><li>An industry veteran</li></ul><h3>Cons</h3><ul><li>Templates and plugins lack quality for the most part</li><li>Support options are very limited unless you pay extra</li><li>The $299 deal gets you a very bare-bones version of SocialEngine PHP, while more feature-rich plans are far from cheap.</li></ul><h2>Final Remarks</h2>SocialEngine is a solid social networking solution, with an excellent range of features. Themes, plugins, and the admin panel aren't of the highest quality though, and you will have to pay a high price to make use all of features,<a target="_blank" href="https://community.socialengine.com/signup">Click here to sign up for a free trial with SocialEngine</a>.

SocialEngine PHP Review

Adobe has made a number of big announcements at the U.S held Adobe Summit, the company's annual Digital Marketing conference.
CMS Critic are present at the Summit, and you can follow our live tweets from the event <a href="https://twitter.com/cmscritic" target="_blank">via our Twitter page</a>.
To be frank, Adobe has already revealed so much that it's hard to know where to start. So, here goes nothing.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/adobe-logo-100275038-orig.png" />
<h2>IBM &amp; Vibes Partnerships</h2>
Adobe and IBM have announced a global partnership. IBM Interactive Experience will build specialized enterprise consulting capabilities around AMC.
Furthermore, IBM Websphere will soon be integrated with Adobe Experience Manager. 
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150309006619/en/Adobe-IBM-Interactive-Experience-Announce-Global-Partnership#.VP6FJdLF-8B" target="_blank">Read more about the Adobe and IBM partnership</a>.
Adobe has also got a new partnership with Vibes, a mobile marketing giant. The deal means that marketers using Adobe Marketing Cloud can now seamlessly integrate Mobile Wallet, SMS and Push Messaging into their existing marketing campaigns.
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150309006580/en/Vibes-Partners-Adobe-Power-Mobile-Marketing-Campaigns#.VP8sQfmsWSo" target="_blank">Read more about the Adobe and Vibes partnership</a>.
<h2>Internet-of-Things and Wearable Devices</h2>
Adobe has introduced AEM Screens and new functionalities in Target, Analytics and Mobile Core Services that enable brands to bring highly personalized experiences to physical spaces like retail stores, hotel rooms, vending machines and Internet-of-Things.
Furthermore, a new Internet-of-Things SDK lets brands measure and analyze consumer engagement across any of those touch points, while new Intelligent Location capabilities in AMC will allow companies to use GPS and iBeacon data to optimize their physical brand presence.
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150309006586/en" target="_blank">Read more about Adobe's movement on the werable device front</a>.
<h2>Mobile Marketing &amp; More</h2>
Adobe has also unveiled a significant enhancements to Adobe Mobile Services, a Core Service across Adobe Marketing Cloud, that include a fully integrated mobile app framework.
The new mobile app framework delivers the complete, integrated solution in the industry for developing and managing apps, and is the first to eliminate marketers’ dependence on an array of disjointed point solutions.
Adobe has also added six top app tech providers (Fiksu, Vibes, Kochava, Ionic, Crittercism, appFigures) to its partner ecosystem, who are integrating their tools into the mobile app framework.
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150309006582/en" target="_blank">Read more about Adobe's mobile marketing and app development progress</a>.
And finally, Adobe has announced a new algorithmic engine and advances in Audience Core Services to bring together the worlds of data-driven marketing. Its new Audience Core Services enable brands to connect massive audience and behavioral data. 
A new set of algorithms lets them reach those audiences with paid media in AMO. A new Audience Marketplace lets brands buy and sell anonymous first and third party data
By integrating programmatic buying natively, Adobe brings the marketplace to the marketer and enables consistent experiences across channels
<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150309006581/en" target="_blank">Read more about the enhancements to Adobe Marketing Cloud</a>.
I told you there was a lot of news! And yet the Adobe Summit still isn't over, so be sure to <a href="https://twitter.com/cmscritic" target="_blank">follow us on Twitter</a> to stay on top of our live tweets direct from the event.

Partnerships, IoT & Wearable Devices: Adobe Makes String of Announcements

Despite engaging in some pseudo-journalism within the CMS industry, I don't consider myself to be a journalist in the traditional sense. Although from the outside looking in, you probably can't tell the different. Or, you know, you probably just don't really care.
My point however, is that journalists who report on the movements of large companies and organizations seem to be receiving less material to work with, forcing them to exert more effort. As a result,<a href="http://news.isebox.net/2015-journalist-survey/" target="_blank"> a recent study has found that 68% of journalists are unhappy and overworked</a>.
Here's an infographic with all the details.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/journalist-survey-results-infographic-isebox700x0.png" />
Now, although I wouldn't class my own experiences in the exactly the same ways, I definitely see where that 68% is coming from. For sure, the above infographic doesn't perfectly reflect the reality of journalism within the world of CMS, but it does hold some weight.
However, instead of latching on to this journalism sob-story, I'd prefer to take this conversation in a more relevant direction.
So, with the eyes of CMS vendors across the world being my target, allow me to explain.
<h2>Why CMS Vendors Should Do More To Help Journalists</h2>
My role here at CMS Critic has now spanned a period of almost two years, and the quality of material given to me by some vendors (and I reiterate some, not all) has been consistently lacklustre.
Of course, I'm not talking about the quality of the actual products. I'm talking about the way in which many vendors choose to promote and portray their most recent updates to their customers as well as their go-to journalists. Here is what I humbly suggest that those vendors stop doing.
Stop the boring bullet-point lists with no additional next, stop making key announcements via a casual forum post, and stop sending out boring press releases with obscenely long quotes and “About” sections.
Instead, I would kindly urge vendors to focus more on spreading the news via company blogs, video content (which demonstrate new features), short interviews, and so forth. It's about time such announcements became engaging.
Am I saying this simply to make my own life easier? No.
My role here extends to reviewing products, <a href="/announcing-this-years-judges-for-the-2014-critics-choice-awards/" target="_blank">judging products</a>, and <a href="/cms-critic-on-tour-paris-amsterdam-basel/" target="_blank">covering conferences</a>, while CMS Critic also provides consultancy services. Because of this, I feel it necessary that I do all of that extra research mentioned in the infographic, no matter how dazzling or daunting each news update is. Whatever the case, my personal workload is unaffected.
Rather, it is in the best interests of the vendor to spend more time on the presentation of their news announcements.
It will make journalists more eager to cover the story, and customers far likely to pay attention. Not to mention, the overall brand will benefit from some more stellar marketing and outreach strategies. A win, win, win.
Those are my two cents anyway. If you need me, I'll be crying into my overworked keyboard.

Writer Woes: 68% of Journalists Are Unhappy (And Why CMS Vendors Should Care)

Shopify - The global commerce platform

Build your business with Shopify to sell online, offline, and everywhere in between.

The global commerce platform

<a href="https://lemonstand.com/" target="_blank">LemonStand</a>, a cloud-hosted eCommerce solution, has introduced content blocks as its newest feature.
The platform boasts of being, “tailor-made for online stores that do over six figures per year in sales, or aspire to.” 
<a href="https://lemonstand.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/lemonstand.png" /></a> Even on its lowest monthly plan, LemonStand imposes no transaction fees, nor does it cap the amount of products that users can sell. 
<h2>Content Blocks: Increased Control Over Design</h2>
Danny Halarewich, LemonStand's Co-Founder and CEO, made the announcement in an <a href="http://blog.lemonstand.com/new-lemonstand-feature-content-blocks/" target="_blank">enthusiatic blog post full of news tidbits and examples of content blocks in action</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editor-contentblock-e1426117447815.png" />
In the post, he said:
<blockquote>
“This flexible CMS features allows you to set up content on your website any way you like, then easily edit it whenever you want. You can use it to manage the content on pages like About Us, Contact and more. You could even use it to manage more complex content like lookbooks or a list of product distributers.
We will be adding content blocks to all of our <a href="https://lemonstand.com/themes">eCommerce themes</a> very soon. In addition to that, we’ll be releasing a bunch of new themes that will also use content blocks!”
</blockquote>
<a href="http://blog.lemonstand.com/new-lemonstand-feature-content-blocks/" target="_blank">Visit the LemonStand blog</a> to find out more about content blocks, or <a href="https://lemonstand.com/" target="_blank">check out their website</a> to start your online store.

LemonStand Unveils Content Blocks

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