Articles - Page 38

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

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The month of May is a wrap, and it was in full bloom with events – both live and virtual. In the last 30 days, we saw a bevy of industry meetings, product user groups, and lively sessions that seemed to coordinate around the same four-week period.
Talk about spring conference fever. 
In the mele, there were two that really stood out for our staff. The first was <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/netlify-to-host-headless-commerce-summit-for-talks-on-building-world-class-e-commerce-experiences/">Netlify's Headless Commerce Summit</a>, where e-Commerce on the Jamstack was front and center.
We also took in a few sessions from Sanity's new <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sanity-to-host-structured-content-2022-conference-in-u-s-europe-and-online/">Structured Content 2022 Conference</a>, where a few thousand content fans assembled across the globe to discuss... well, content. Structured Content was particularly interesting as it positioned itself as a "movement" within the industry, intently focused on educating and inspiring the cross-disciplinary community of people who work on digital experiences. 
Elsewhere, we tracked a story from <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/amplitude-announces-new-testing-and-analytics-tools-for-making-smarter-product-decisions-at-scale/">Amplitude</a> as they announced new testing and analytics tools for making smarter product decisions at scale. Spoiler alert: we have some additional news from Amplitude in this recap, as they seem to be on a roll. 
We also tracked a big <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/civicplus-enters-into-agreement-to-acquire-optimere/">announcement from CivicPlus</a> – an integrated tech platform that powers websites for local governments. In a stunning move, the company announced an agreement to buy Optimere, the parent company of Monsido (among others). The purchase will expand CivicPlus' capabilities by adding Monsido's accessibility scanning resources to its ecosystem. The added suite of features should provide public sector organizations with a one-stop solution for managing ADA-compliant web experiences. 
Before you turn your spring fever into summer blues, check out a few other stories we noted from across the digital experience landscape.
<h2>Contentstack launches its no-code Automation Hub, making composable content experiences easier to build</h2>
<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Contentstack</a>, a leader in the new headless CMS Content Experience Platform (CXP) category, unveiled its industry-first Automation Hub. Aimed at simplifying the deployment of composable architectures at any scale, Automation Hub allows marketing and IT to overcome the technical and operational hurdles of adopting a composable architecture. 
Contentstack launched the new capability on stage at its inaugural customer conference, <a href="https://info.contentstack.com/online-registration-contentcon-2022.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ContentCon</a>, which featured presentations from Levi’s, Dawn Foods, Golfbreaks, and other leading brands. Automation Hub is available now as part of Contentstack’s Platform Beta Program, with General Availability scheduled for late Summer 2022.
Composable architectures (or stacks) are emerging as the next evolutionary step for enterprises, allowing companies to create digital experiences faster while responding to rapidly-changing market demands and business threats. In a <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3994550" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent report by Gartner,</a> the analyst firm predicted that by 2023, organizations that adopt an intelligent, composable approach will outpace competitors by 80 percent when it comes to new feature implementation. 
Moving away from legacy monolithic systems often introduces technical complexity and operational challenges. Contentstack’s Automation Hub addresses both of these issues head-on by infusing simple, no-code business logic into the front-end of a composable stack.
“Using best-in-breed technologies is the only way to stay competitive, but enterprises often end up bogged down in integration hell," said Conor Egan, VP of product and engineering at Contentstack. "Implementing business logic today involves writing code that is often slow, brittle, and requires constant maintenance. Our Automation Hub solves this by allowing teams to build complex, cross-vendor connections visually without code. It is a true game-changer.” 
Contentstack is also championing the mantra of  "Connect without Compromise." This has become the centerpiece of a new program that combines Automation Hub with Contentstack’s Blueprints – a library of best practices and expert guides for composable experiences – and its recently launched <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/contentstack-launches-new-marketplace-to-accelerate-composable-digital-experience-innovation-from-weeks-to-minutes-301492844.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marketplace</a>. Now, businesses of all sizes can fully embrace composable architectures at any scale with confidence, choosing either a ready-made composable solution based on industry best practices or leveraging the foundation to easily customize to their unique business needs. 
Contentstack's "Connect without Compromise" program is also a complement to its "<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/contentstack-expands-customer-support-launch-industry-first-cross-vendor-service-commitment-program/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Care Without Compromise</a>" program – a multi-vendor ecosystem designed to ensure cross-vendor support in composable environments. Through "Care without Compromise," Contentstack and its Catalyst partners cooperate, communicate, and cross-train support staff to ensure seamless delivery of joint solutions to customers globally. Now with both programs, businesses of all sizes can move to composable architectures at scale and with ease.
"At Contentstack, we are committed to organizations who choose to challenge the status quo and adopt a modern, composable approach to power their digital experiences," said Neha Sampat, founder and CEO of Contentstack. "Combining 'Connect without Compromise' and 'Care without Compromise' embodies this commitment. We take on the burden of making it easy to work across multiple vendors – from both a support and integration perspective – so you don't have to."
<h2>Amplitude announces new customer data platform, industry’s first "insights-driven CDP"</h2>
<a href="https://amplitude.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amplitude</a>, Inc., a leader in digital optimization, announced the launch of Amplitude CDP, the first insights-driven customer data platform (CDP). Unlike other CDPs that require connecting to third-party analytics solutions, Amplitude CDP both collects and analyzes event data with its natively integrated industry-leading product analytics solution. 
With Amplitude CDP, product and marketing teams can proactively improve data quality, analyze and discover new audiences, and sync data across their marketing and data stack. Amplitude’s CDP – coupled with analytics – helps customers become more operationally efficient and enables better, faster decision-making to increase customer engagement.
The goal of a CDP is to collect data that lead to insights – and ultimately enable data-driven decision-making that improves customer experiences. After working with thousands of companies and analyzing over 1 trillion customer data points per month, Amplitude discovered critical unsolved challenges in the CDP market, which is currently estimated to reach $20.5 billion by 2027. 
Data that is not proactively managed reduces the quality of insights. The various teams that collect, analyze, and take action on customer data struggle to collaborate across multiple solutions – and maintaining both a CDP and Product Analytics solution leads to duplicative costs and implementations. With Amplitude CDP, customers now have an integrated suite to turn high-quality data into actionable insights.
Key benefits of Amplitude’s insights-driven CDP include:
<ul>
<li>Improved data quality: Data planning and governance are built-in to help data and engineering teams proactively maintain trust and quality.</li>
<li>Better audience discovery: Many CDPs move right from data collection to activation, offering segmentation but assuming companies know what audiences to target. Now, deep segmentation combined with analytics helps teams discover audiences based on insights, putting audience discovery before audience activation for maximum engagement.</li>
<li>Reduced costs and redundancies: With analytics natively integrated within Amplitude CDP, Amplitude eliminates duplicative costs for customers by providing a single platform that serves as the foundation for data, the engine for insights, and the driver for action.</li>
<li>Accelerated time-to-insights: Built-in analytics unites product, growth, and marketing around shared data to unlock insights and actions anywhere in the stack.</li>
</ul>
“Customer data platforms entered the market with the promise of making personalization a reality, but aggregating data is only step one," said Spenser Skates, CEO, and co-founder of Amplitude. "As companies look to provide tailored product experiences, they need trusted data that provides insights about their existing audiences and helps them identify new ones, all without unnecessary costs for their business. At Amplitude, we have spent the last few years helping customers solve the problems that existing CDPs in the market were unable to. With the launch of Amplitude CDP, we are now providing customers with the ability to provide meaningful, personalized experiences all from a single platform.”
For years, Amplitude has been introducing capabilities that help teams collect, manage, and activate customer data. More than 50% of Amplitude customers currently send data from Amplitude to other tools in their stack and Amplitude’s integration ecosystem has grown to more than 65 out-of-the-box connectors. Today, customers like Kahoot!, Hex, InvoiceSimple, Marco Polo, and Thrive Market are already using Amplitude CDP and have access to expanded capabilities to drive accurate, actionable insights.
Key innovations include:
<ul>
<li>Unified user interface (UI): Create a single taxonomy for all digital analytics use cases to collect and capture consistent data in one UI.</li>
<li>Event streaming: Federate data to martech, ad, and attribution vendors as well as data pipelines like Amazon Kinesis and Google Pub/Sub through a no-code configurable UI in the Data Connections catalog.</li>
<li>Real-time audience syncing: Match the cadence of marketing campaigns and use customer behavior to drive in-the-moment engagement with real-time syncs that refresh audience lists every minute.</li>
<li>Developer toolkit: Proactively collaborate with developers to define tracking plans with a best-in-class developer toolkit that saves engineers time and helps automate data validation with tracking libraries – no more typos, forgotten properties, or inconsistent naming conventions.</li>
</ul>
A <a href="https://www.cdpinstitute.org/learning-center/what-is-a-realcdp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RealCDP-certified</a> solution, Amplitude CDP is available to Amplitude customers in the early access program today and will be generally available later this year. Amplitude CDP will be free of charge for customers streaming fewer than 10 million events per month, an offer more than 10 times better than some of the leading CDPs in the market. 
<h2>Agility CMS expands composability through its marketplace</h2>
<a href="https://agilitycms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Agility CMS</a>, a headless content management platform for creating powerful Enterprise ready digital experiences, has announced the expansion of its composability offerings – specifically through the launch of its new marketplace and the redevelopment of its app framework to support its marketplace applications.
By introducing these changes, the headless platform aims to simplify how users integrate with third-party APIs and how developers build new applications. Agility has also enhanced the user interface and editor experience of its CMS and added several new integrations, APIs, and pre-built models – all designed to help enterprises get up and running faster than ever.
More than ever, organizations are moving their products and services online. However, each company has its own unique requirements. To meet these needs, Agility CMS embraces the best-of-breed concepts of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">MACH architecture and composability,</a> providing customers with a future-proof design that allows them to iterate and swap components as the customer journey evolves.
“High-growth companies rely on multiple cloud-based tools to help them solve problems quickly," said Agility CMS CTO Joel Varty. "As these businesses evolve, Agility CMS’ microservices architecture enables them to swap out the tools for what can better serve them at each new stage. We don’t want our customers to feel like they need to change how they do things. Instead, our composable approach enhances your business, helping to increase profits in the long term."
“We’ve noticed that customers are looking at their previous monolithic systems and recognizing that it can’t do everything they want it to, and it’s slow to roll out,” said Jon Voigt, CEO of Agility CMS. “We’ve always believed that customers should be able to tie together best-of-breed solutions as they see fit, and we’re happy that the industry and businesses today are recognizing the value of this approach,” he added.
Agility CMS’ long-standing position as a hybrid headless CMS with an intuitive content authoring experience has enticed forward-thinking brands from various industries, resulting in doubled sales in 2021.

CMS Monthly Recap: Contenstack Launches No-Code Hub for Composable Content Experiences, Agility CMS Expands Composability, and More

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Image of a spring field of dandelionsand hill under a large oak tree, with a bright sun peeking through. A small town can be seen in the distance. The CMS Critic Monthly Recap text and logo floats over the image at the center.

CivicPlus, the integrated tech platform for local governments, has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Optimere, a leading provider of digital compliance, accessibility, and records management solutions. Upon closing, Optimere's ArchiveSocial, Monsido, and NextRequest solutions will be integrated with CivicPlus' comprehensive platform to create a better experience for residents and agencies that serve them.
CivicPlus provides integrated tech solutions that help local governments optimize digital interactions for residents and staff. According to the <a href="https://analytics.usa.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statistics</a>, government websites get an average of 2 billion visits each month. Unfortunately, government websites are known for being slow, outdated, and generally a pain in the rear to use and navigate around. In the <a href="https://itif.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's</a> (ITIF's) <a href="http://www2.itif.org/2017-benchmarking-government-websites.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> of almost 300 of the most popular federal websites, approximately 92 percent failed to perform well in at least one of key areas: security, page-load time, mobile-friendly design, and accessibility.
Last year, <a href="https://archivesocial.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ArchiveSocial</a>, a social media archiving software for record retention, <a href="https://monsido.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Monsido</a>, the website accessibility and UX software, and <a href="https://www.nextrequest.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NextRequest</a>, a FOIA request management software, had <a href="https://optimere.com/archivesocial-monsido-nextrequest-create-optimere/?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=press-room&amp;utm_content=press-release&amp;utm_campaign=optimere-launch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">come together to form Optimere</a>, forming the most comprehensive platform for public-sector and regulated communicators to address their ever-increasing compliance requirements. Records retention, accessibility, and data privacy standards, including the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the American Disability Act (ADA), are in place to optimize communications. However, complying with these increasing regulations often leads to expensive litigation versus better communications. Optimere was formed to provide a solution to these complex issues so that organizations can reduce these risks and engage effectively across social channels and websites, building trust. 
According to Brian Rempe, CivicPlus's Chief Executive Officer, the acquisition represents an opportunity for CivicPlus to strengthen its support of its public sector customers' transparency, compliance, and accessibility needs.
"CivicPlus is committed to empowering our customers with technology solutions and services that enable them to govern, serve, and operate in ways that foster resident trust and appreciation," said Rempe. "Transparency and compliance are foundational components to interactions that strengthen relationships between public administrations and the people they serve. By adding Optimere's products to our integrated platform, we will help our customers in their goal to make every resident interaction positive, personalized, and frictionless."
Rempe added that, upon closing, the combined company's leaders will develop a roadmap for aligning Optimere's solutions within its Civic Experience Platform.
Ray Carey, Optimere Chief Executive Officer, noted that he is excited about the transaction and the prospect of working and growing with the CivicPlus team. “This is a great next step for our passionate and innovative team members at Optimere,” said Carey. “Being able to collaborate with CivicPlus’s people and products will lead to tremendous shared learnings and strengthen our ability to be a valuable partner to those entities looking to embrace digital transformation in ways that foster transparency and positive digital interactions.”
This announcement follows CivicPlus' acquisition of Municode, the largest codifier of legal documents for local governments in the United States and a nationally recognized provider of agenda and meeting management and municipal website design solutions and furthers CivicPlus' mission to become a scaled partner for local government.
<h2>About CivicPlus</h2>
CivicPlus® delivers technology solutions that enable local governments to optimize the experience they deliver when interacting with residents. Over 7,500 local governments use their solutions when serving their 340 million residents. CivicPlus delivers the industry’s first and only Civic Experience Platform. It enables local governments to drive more revenue, operate more efficiently, and generate positive recognition for the many services they provide every day. For more information, visit <a href="https://www.civicplus.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">civicplus.com</a>.
<h2>About Optimere</h2>
Optimere is the leading provider of digital compliance, accessibility, and records management solutions that illuminate the path to trusted communications. Optimere has over 6,000 customers globally and is the maker of brands including ArchiveSocial, Monsido, and NextRequest. For more information, visit <a href="https://optimere.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Optimere.com</a>.

CivicPlus Enters into Agreement to Acquire Optimere

paris-tuzun

<a href="https://amplitude.com/" target="_blank">Amplitude</a>, a digital optimization platform trusted by leading brands like Ford and Walmart, today announced the launch of two new tools: Experiment Results, a new feature of <a href="https://amplitude.com/amplitude-experiment" target="_blank">Amplitude Experiment</a>, and new innovations within the <a href="https://amplitude.com/?utm_source=adwordsb&amp;utm_medium=ppc&amp;utm_campaign=Search_AMER_US_EN_Brand&amp;utm_content=branded_split_home0522&amp;utm_term=amplitude%20analytics&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwp7eUBhBeEiwAZbHwkRQ_RMbM6I-uLvu9QVZPRkzRvt7RV7IQ45IXedOoauMiA92YUdF36xoCZ_kQAvD_BwE" target="_blank">Amplitude Analytics</a> suite – including Campaign Reporting. These new tools will enhance Amplitude's insights around digital optimization and growth performance. 
We've been following Amplitude's rise across market segments for quite some time, and it continues to challenge the staple offerings with its rich mix of analytics features. Companies are finding significant value in Amplitude's behavioral insights, which help organizations to devise new strategies for improving user engagement, retention, and revenue. With the addition of these new tools, Amplitude seems poised to elevate its value for product and marketing teams – and give competitive platforms a run for their money. 
<h2>Accelerating and streamlining A/B testing with Experiment Results</h2>
A/B testing has become a powerful resource for understanding how the market is reacting to products and services. With the right insights into customer behavior and sentiment, organizations can optimize content, pricing, and other dimensions of their offerings to enhance conversions and sales. 
OK... so what's the downside?
The fact is (and we can corroborate this), most testing solutions and processes are incredibly time-consuming. Further, many conventional platforms focus on "vanity metrics" that don't fully reveal whether customers are happy with a product, service, or experience. According to Amplitude, Experiment Results will accelerate and streamline experimentation, empowering companies to make more informed product decisions, accelerate innovation, and drive business outcomes. 
Experiment Results allows teams to plan, track, and analyze experiments to make smarter decisions while using their existing feature flagging system. Product and data science teams can now dramatically scale experimentation with Amplitude's powerful self-service experimentation analysis – all built on the industry's #1 product analytics solution. Amplitude says that Experiment Results will deliver the right data and analytics for teams to set goals, determine if experiments reach a required level of statistical significance, and automatically provide recommended next steps.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/05/pr-54-experiment-results-t-test-results.png" alt="Experiment Results - T-test Results" />Experiment Results - T-Test Results
The top product teams test all new features – often running tens of thousands of experiments to understand the impact of each product change. The biggest barrier to scaling product experimentation is having data and analytics to analyze the results of experiments. Many companies already have infrastructure to deliver new experiments, but rely heavily on data science teams and homegrown infrastructures to formulate the results and provide recommendations on what to do next. 
Experiment Results effectively removes those bottlenecks with self-service experimentation – so more teams can run more experiments quickly and efficiently. Starting today, companies can pair their existing feature flagging infrastructure with Amplitude's sophisticated experimentation analysis capabilities to inform product decisions, accelerate innovation, and drive revenue.  
"Winning product leaders use data-driven insights to determine what product changes to make. With Experiment Results, customers can exponentially increase the number of experiments they run, and get recommended next steps on their experiments," said Justin Bauer, SVP of product at Amplitude. "This means non-technical teams can make smarter decisions faster at scale and ultimately deliver the right features that drive value for their customers and growth for their organizations." 
Key innovations from the company's announcement include:
<ul>
<li>Multi-Metric Causal Analysis: Experiment Results helps teams determine the causal, statistically significant outcomes of experiments – like identifying if users increased their average order spend due to the product change. It reduces the effort to define metrics, analyze data, and present results, supporting both sequential testing and t-test analysis within the Amplitude Experiment product.</li>
<li>Downstream Analysis for Experiments: With predefined metrics and pre-populated charts, Experiment Results moves teams from experimentation to decision-making stages faster. Amplitude's easy-to-understand dashboards enable cross-functional leaders to quickly share experiment results for accessible downstream analysis.</li>
<li>Automated Goals and Recommendations: Experiment Results also guides users to set the right goals, automatically uncovers whether tests are statistically significant, and provides recommended next steps in a quick snapshot.  </li>
</ul>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/05/pr-54-experiment-results-create-metric.png" alt="Experiment Results - Create Metric" />Experiment Results - Create Metric
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/05/pr-54-experiment-results-dashboad-distribution.png" alt="Experiment Results - Dashboad Distribution" />Experiment Results - Dashboard Distribution
<h2>Campaign Reporting, Metrics, and Data Tables in Amplitude Analytics </h2>
With <a href="https://amplitude.com/amplitude-analytics" target="_blank">Amplitude Analytics</a> — Amplitude’s #1 ranked product analytics solution — marketing and product teams can measure campaign and channel performance alongside downstream product metrics like user engagement and retention. Now, with the addition of Campaign Reporting, those same teams will have unprecedented visibility into metrics across the entire funnel, all in a single system. 
Additional new features in Amplitude Analytics include outcome-focused Metrics and Data Tables. These enhancements will empower teams to discover how their marketing programs and product usage meaningfully affect key business outcomes such as sales and revenue. Together, these tools enable cross-functional teams to quickly close the insights-to-action loop and make better business decisions.
Traditionally, there’s been a disconnect between product and campaign data. Organizations leverage product analytics for visibility into customer behaviors and product changes, but struggle to connect marketing performance metrics like attributing user growth to specific channels. For the first time, Amplitude is bringing both marketing and product teams together in a single system to understand how their investments drive growth.
Key innovations in Amplitude Analytics include:
<ul>
<li>Campaign Reporting: With Amplitude’s new Campaign Reporting capabilities, businesses can see which acquisition channels users are coming from across organic and paid sources, understand how marketing programs impact product KPIs using built-in attribution modeling, and understand cross-channel return on ad investments with brand new integrations into their advertising data platforms. </li>
<li>Metrics: With new outcome-based Metrics from Amplitude, product and marketing teams can quickly create a standard set of metrics that make it easy to connect behaviors with outcomes such as sales or revenue. Teams can now align around common definitions for the metrics that matter most to their business and make faster decisions with trusted insights. </li>
<li>Tables: With new Data Tables, customers can measure multiple KPIs in a single view in order to compare and make decisions about their business. Data tables allow for more flexible reporting so marketing and product can have a side-by-side analysis of metrics across the entire customer journey.</li>
</ul>
“Traditionally, marketing, product, and analytics teams have all relied on separate tools to do their jobs, but today, this siloed approach is no longer effective as organizations seek to understand how every decision and action impacts their most important metrics,” said Justin Bauer, Chief Product Officer at Amplitude. “With these customer needs in mind, we’re doubling down on digital analytics and investing in new tools that will provide holistic product insights faster. The introduction of campaign reporting, outcome metrics, and data tables make it easier for teams to consolidate their analytics solutions while expanding the types of metrics they can track across the end-to-end customer journey.”
You can learn more about Amplitude Analytics <a href="https://amplitude.com/blog/new-digital-analytics" target="_blank">here</a> or watch a <a href="https://info.amplitude.com/watch-amplitude-demo" target="_blank">demo</a>. If you're interested, Amplitude is currently hosting <a href="https://amplitude.com/amplify" target="_blank">Amplify 2022</a>, its product and growth conference, through May 26, 2022. You can <a href="https://web.cvent.com/event/6b55d27c-9646-4126-86af-bd79f33821fe/regProcessStep1:ee30c3a1-0f30-4fee-ba8c-32147f226758?refid=linkedin_organic&amp;rp=f066f728-f047-4d92-a561-ec9cf275401b" target="_blank">live stream</a>, follow on <a href="https://twitter.com/Amplitude_HQ" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, and read the <a href="https://amplitude.com/blog/" target="_blank">Amplitude blog</a> for more updates. 
<h2>About Amplitude</h2>
Amplitude is the pioneer in digital optimization software. More than 1,700 customers, including Atlassian, Instacart, NBCUniversal, Shopify, and Under Armour rely on Amplitude to help them innovate faster and smarter by answering the strategic question: "How do our digital products drive our business?" The Amplitude Digital Optimization System makes critical data accessible and actionable to every team — unifying product, marketing, developers, and executive teams around a new depth of customer understanding and common visibility into what drives business outcomes. Amplitude is the best-in-class product analytics solution, ranked #1 in G2's 2022 Spring Report. Learn how to optimize your digital products and business at <a href="https://amplitude.com/" target="_blank">amplitude.com</a>.

Amplitude Announces New Testing and Analytics Tools for Making Smarter Product Decisions at Scale

Summer is (almost) here in the Northern Hemisphere, and headless is heating up. 
Right on the heels of Netlify's <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/netlify-to-host-headless-commerce-summit-for-talks-on-building-world-class-e-commerce-experiences/" target="_blank">Headless Commerce Summit</a>, Sanity – a unified content platform for powering digital experiences – is hosting a unique conference that's focused on structured content. It should come as no surprise that the company's inaugural shindig has been aptly named "Structured Content," and will offer a global experience to content professionals at multiple levels across the industry. 
The event will provide live access at three locations in the U.S. and Europe: San Francisco from May 24 - 25,  and London and Oslo from May 25 - 26. If a live event isn't in the cards, you can also <a href="https://hopin.com/events/structured-content-2022" target="_blank">watch the conference online for free</a> during the San Francisco sessions. 
While this might be Sanity's first foray with a conference of this kind, the company managed to attract some heavy hitters to sponsor its dance card, including <a href="https://www.netlify.com/" target="_blank">Netlify</a>, <a href="https://vercel.com/" target="_blank">Vercel</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/" target="_blank">Shopify</a>, and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/gatsby-unveils-v3-0-cloud-hosting-and-more-at-gatsbyconf-2021/">Gatsby</a>. According to <a href="https://www.sanity.io/" target="_blank">Sanity</a>, the three-day conference is expected to have more than 2,000 content strategists, engineers, marketers, and designers in attendance. Not too shabby for a first outing – and a testament to the platform's growing presence in the content space. 
To be clear, Structured Content is not a Sanity-focused event. This distinction is summed up quite elegantly by <a href="https://structuredcontent.live/speakers/carrie-hane" target="_blank">Carrie Hane</a>, Sanity's Head of Content Strategy Relations: "Structured Content 2022 is not a Sanity user conference. It’s not about our product. This is what we hope is the beginning of a movement. We created this event to educate and inspire the entire cross-disciplinary community of people who work on digital experiences."
<div>
<h2>What to expect at Structured Content 2022</h2>
</div>
According to the event's website, the program schedule includes a variety of workshops about structured content design, presentations about the future of digital experience, workshops on how organizations can harness structured content, and so much more. Some of the most noteworthy include: 
<ul>
<li>“The Future of Digital Experience Will Be Powered by Structured Content”</li>
<li>“Bridging Disciplines with Structured Content”</li>
<li>“How Publishing Organizations Harness Structured Content to Power Editorial Experiences”</li>
<li>“Design and Structured Content: Where We Are, Where We Could Go”</li>
<li>“Reflections on the Future of the Web”</li>
<li>“Content Makes Commerce Human”</li>
</ul>
"We’ve put together <a href="https://structuredcontent.live/program" target="_self">14 wide-ranging sessions</a> about the benefits of structured content, fresh approaches to solving problems, and thoughts on what the future holds for us as both consumers and creators of digital experiences.," said Hane. "You’ll discover new ways of thinking about the potential of content and what it can accomplish."
And that's just scratching the surface. Check out the whole program at<a href="https://structuredcontent.live/program" target="_blank"> https://structuredcontent.live/program</a>. 
<h2>So what exactly is "structured content," anyway?</h2>
While we have you here, let's get this whole "structured content" thing straight.  
One of the best analogies we've seen for explaining structured content is Legos. Just like the toy that everyone loves to tinker with, structured content is broken down into independent, reusable components, accessed from a single source of truth – and planned in a technologically-agnostic way. Structured content can be used across channels and delivered through APIs, and it's easier to prototype and iterate with – making development faster and easier.
As a platform, Sanity is uniquely designed for structured content. In addition to being open-source, API-based, and headless, the company has pioneered an entirely new approach to building websites with structured content as the mechanism for building pages. 
Sanity positions itself as a "fast-growing alternative to the traditional CMS." What makes Sanity different is that it treats content as data. By storing resources in its <a href="https://www.sanity.io/docs/datastore" target="_blank">Sanity Content Lake</a>, organizations can effectively "de-silo" their content – making it available for both collaboration and global distribution. By leveraging APIs, users can manage their text, images, and other media in a unified platform and build engaging digital experiences in real-time.
At CMS Critic, we talk about <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tag/headless/">headless</a> and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/">headless CMSes</a> quite a bit. What's interesting about Sanity is that it combines the power of a headless CMS with structured content, so its offerings go beyond the typical headless CMS. In fact, the company wrote a <a href="https://www.sanity.io/blog/web-developers-headless-cms-structured-content" target="_blank">spicy post</a> about the need to focus on structured content more the headless CMS itself, much to the chagrin of its industry peers. 
<img style="max-width:1000px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/05/traditional-headless-structured-content.webp" alt="Traidional CMS vs Headless CMS vs Structured Content Platform" />
<div> </div>
<div>Structured Content 2022 is next week, and looks to be a solid event. We'll do some follow-up on the other side. In the meantime, <a href="https://structuredcontent.live/" target="_blank">register to attend live or online. </a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>You should also check out<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sanity-raises-39-million-focuses-growth-on-content-as-data-for-transformative-digital-experiences/" target="_blank"> our interview with the Sanity founder and CEO, Magnus Hillstead</a>, where he shared some of his views on the CMS market and the value of being headless.</div>
<div> </div>
<h2>About Sanity</h2>
<a href="https://www.sanity.io/" target="_blank">Sanity</a> is the platform for structured content that en0ables teams to build exceptional digital experiences. By treating content as data, modern organizations use Sanity’s APIs to build optimal editing workflows and share content between systems to increase digital velocity.
Sanity’s unique model for orchestrating content is used by more than 100,000 developers at major brands like Conde Nast, Nike, Unilever, and Cloudflare. They use Sanity to shape and mold content to build multimedia-rich experiences both for their public-facing brand and the way customers experience their products and services firsthand. Our mission is to be the most versatile system for creating and distributing digital content to any device, application, or channel.

Sanity to Host Structured Content 2022 Conference in U.S., Europe, and Online

Image of Structured Content logo against yellow background

<a href="https://www.netlify.com/" target="_blank">Netlify</a>, a modern hosting and development platform for web applications and static websites, <a href="https://www.netlify.com/blog/announcing-headless-commerce-summit-2022" target="_blank">announced</a> its third annual Headless Commerce Summit in London on May 23-24, 2022. The big news: this year's event will be live and in-person. But even if you can't make it in the realverse, you can also <a href="https://headlesscommercesummit.com/" target="_blank">register for free</a> and attend virtually. 
The Headless Commerce Summit will take a deep dive into the fast-growing <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/#:~:text=Headless%20Content%20Management%20Systems%20(CMS,and%20services%20in%20digital%20storefronts.">headless commerce</a> ecosystem. Featured speakers – including digital leaders, web development experts, and top agencies – will share real-world case studies of how the headless commerce model has transformed their organizations. They will also provide tactical advice about building world-class e-commerce sites using a headless architecture.
Netlify was an early advocate of separating frontend design from backend business processes. By unifying the elements of the modern decoupled web, Netlify enables a 10X faster path to more secure and scalable websites and apps. 
As further evidence of the company's drive towards a composable, API-first future, Netlify <a href="https://machalliance.org/newsroom/mach-alliance-announces-mongodb-and-netlify-as-first-members-of-new-enabler-category" target="_blank">joined the MACH Alliance</a> as one of the first members of the organization's new "Enabler" category.
<h2>Headless Commerce: e-commerce on the Jamstack</h2>
So, what exactly is this headless commerce thing? We'll cover it at a high level below, but <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/">we've got a great article</a> that goes deeper – and includes some of the top platforms on the market. 
Headless commerce is an architectural approach where, much like <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-free-headless-cms-platforms/" target="_blank">headless CMS platforms</a>, the frontend "head" is separated from the backend "body." Content in a headless platform is delivered through APIs, displaying it across different devices and endpoints. A headless architecture enables teams to build and deploy faster, increase conversions, and differentiate their brand by decoupling backend services such as product information from the frontend experience.
<img style="max-width:555px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/10/headless-commerce-platform-digital-experience-platform.png" alt="headless commerce platform-digital experience platform diagram" />
 
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021/">Jamstack</a> is a modern web architecture pioneered specifically as a companion to headless backend systems. It focuses on three core components: Javascript, APIs, and Markup (the "Jam" in Jamstack). For commerce companies, the benefits of a Jamstack architecture can include improved personalization and customer experience, better site performance, and the ability to iterate faster.
Originally coined in 2015 by Mathias Biilmann, CEO of Netlify, Jamstack has changed the trajectory of the web. Jamstack technologies provide nearly limitless choices to developers for designing rich customer experiences in web applications. Netlify unites different services to deliver MACH solutions, making it an ideal fit as an Enabler within the organization's ranks – delivering the workflow, expertise, and choice of tools for building solutions that reflect the MACH principles. 
<h2>Speaker lineup</h2>
At the upcoming event, speakers will discuss risks, concerns, and opportunities that commerce teams face today and use real-world case studies and stats to share best practices for shifting to and operating a headless commerce site using the latest technology. Sessions will explore modern headless journeys of famous brands, including <a href="https://www.prettylitter.com/" target="_blank">PrettyLitter</a>, <a href="https://en-us.sennheiser.com/" target="_blank">Sennheiser</a>, and others – including a noteworthy session given by  <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/" target="_blank">BigCommerce</a>, <a href="https://www.akqa.com/" target="_blank">AKQA</a>, and Netlify on "The Business Case for Headless Commerce."
Here are a few of the speakers on the agenda:
<ul>
<li>Chris Bach – co-founder, Chief Strategy and Creative Officer, Netlify: "The Rise of Composable Commerce"</li>
<li>Debbie Ellison – Chief Digital Officer, VMLY&amp;R Commerce: "The Future of Brands"</li>
<li>Steve Jenkins – Tech Lead, Tile: "How Tile's Migration to Headless with Netlify Enabled them to Customise the Customer Experience"</li>
<li>Nicolas Le Pallec – Executive Technology Director, Europe, AKQA: "Sennheiser's Large-Scale Migration to Headless Commerce"</li>
<li>Massimo Pegoraro – Technical Director, Atoms Studio: "How Salvatori Internationalised Their E-Commerce Store with Headless Commerce”</li>
</ul>
The Headless Commerce Summit is designed for anyone interested in building or learning about the future of e-commerce. Netlify will be joined by a number of industry-leading sponsors including Algolia, BetterCommerce, Builder.io, Commerce Layer, commercetools, Crystallize, Kin+Carta, Last Rev, Magnolia, Shogun, Storyblok, Swell, and Uniform.
You can register for the event at <a href="https://headlesscommercesummit.com/?utm_source=press-release&amp;utm_medium=press&amp;utm_campaign=hcs" target="_blank">headlesscommercesummit.com</a>. Also, if you're curious about what to expect from this year's shindig, you can check out a summary of <a href="https://www.netlify.com/blog/2021/06/16/e-commerce-jamstack-stories-from-headless-commerce-summit-2021/" target="_blank">the 2021 Summit.</a>
<h2>About Netlify</h2>
Netlify is the platform for building highly-performant and dynamic websites, e-Commerce stores, and applications. By uniting an extensive ecosystem of technologies, services, and APIs into one workflow, Netlify unlocks new team productivity levels while saving time and money while improving sustainability. 
As pioneers of the Jamstack movement, Netlify brings together all modern web frameworks, serverless functions, and edge computing into one platform to deliver unmatched user experiences. Millions of developers and businesses build with Netlify, from Fortune 500 companies like Unilever and Verizon to companies changing our digital experiences like Peloton and Twilio.

Netlify to Host Headless Commerce Summit for Talks on Building World-Class E-Commerce Experiences

Netlify Headless Commerce Summit featured image

April 2022 is already behind us. And when it rains... it pours. 
As bad news befalls the globe – from a persistent conflict in Ukraine to stumbling stock markets – CMS and DXP vendors continue to slug it out. How will tech fare in the coming months with the specter of recession on the horizon? Tough to say, but we'll be watching.  
By most measures, last month was relatively quiet. We saw announcements from <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-releases-new-content-services-and-intelligent-automation-product-enhancements/">Hyland</a>, updates from <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-announces-updates-to-product-suite-enhances-composable-features-and-innovation-from-acquisitions/">Sitecore</a> around its composable features, and a new partnership between <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/woocommerce-and-pinterest-announce-partnership-offer-new-integration-for-connecting-with-shoppers/">WooCommerce and Pinterest</a>. We followed a few additional stories in April and wrapped them up (as we always do). 
Enjoy the scoop. And you might want to keep an umbrella handy. You never know if the forecast might change. 
<h2>WordPress.com changes pricing and rattles users </h2>
Speaking of rain, WordPress.com has been gathering a few storm clouds by adding some significant <a href="https://wordpress.com/pricing/">price changes to its plans</a>. To add salt to the wound, the changes were apparently <a href="https://rootprivileges.net/2022/04/03/what-are-you-doing-wordpress-com/">unannounced,</a> and many people have been expressing their disappointment. The biggest sly: replacing all its paid options with a single Pro plan. The platform also slashed the storage on its free tier from 3GB to 500MB. Ouch.
Dave Martin, the CEO of WordPress.com, took to <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30896807">Hacker News</a> to address the concerns. As he noted: "You're right to call us out. I did a poor job of sharing context around why we are making change, so I can see how they could come as a shock. I'm sorry! That's on me."
Martin went on to say that more changes were in the works and that this was the first of several phases. He also clarified that no legacy sites or blogs have been affected by these new price changes – so if your site is on an older plan, there should have been no changes to your billing. He mentioned that many of the existing plans were haphazardly added to WordPress.com with no real strategy, making it hard for customers to see at-a-glance why they should choose one plan over another.
That said, it's a classic lesson in the need for transparency. 
<h2>WordPress releases version 6.0, Gutenberg 13.0</h2>
When <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/updates-on-wordcamp-2021-wordpress-5-8-beta-details-and-gutenberg-enhancements/" target="_blank">WordPress 5.8</a> was released in July 2021, it introduced some major features that would pave the way to <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/handbook/focuses/full-site-editing/" target="_blank">Full Site Editing (FSE)</a>. <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/5-9/" target="_blank">WordPress 5.9 Josephine</a> took that to the next level, putting users in control of the whole experience of the FSE’s visual editing capabilities. 
Now, WordPress 6.0 is almost here, making it the second<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/about/release-cycle/releasing-major-versions/" target="_blank"> major release</a> of 2022. While the 6.0 beta version arrived in mid-April, it is expected to be<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-0/" target="_blank"> released on May 24, 2022</a>.
While we’re waiting for the release of WordPress 6.0, WordPress released another update to Gutenberg on April 14.
<img style="max-width:900px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/05/featured-image-in-cover.png" alt="Featured Image in Cover" />
The major updates include text selection across blocks, cover blocks with feature images, new responsive layouts for the Groups, Rows, and Stacks, and customizable borders to make your blocks stand out. 
There are also many other<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/04/14/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-0-14-april/" target="_blank"> notable improvements</a> that are worth checking out. 
<h2>WP Engine accelerates headless WordPress innovation with launch of new plans and Atlas Blueprints</h2>
<img style="max-width:900px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/05/wp-engine-atlas-blueprint.webp" alt="WP-Engine-Atlas-blueprint" />
WordPress has always been a traditional monolithic CMS. While it still maintains its crown as the most popular CMS in the world, it's been playing catch up in the move to headless.
But that's starting to change as <a href="https://wpengine.com/" target="_blank">WP Engine</a>, the world’s most trusted WordPress technology company, as they announced the launch of Atlas – its award-winning headless WordPress solution. It's now available to businesses of all sizes with four new headless WordPress plans, ranging from $49 to $499, allowing developers to learn, build and grow their sites on Atlas. 
WP Engine also announced the launch of Atlas Blueprints, which are free, professionally-designed templates allowing anyone to get started fast with headless WordPress. Developers can also try out Atlas by signing up for a free Atlas Sandbox account, which allows developers to learn more about developing with headless WordPress and create prototype projects.
<h2>Postman API platform surpasses 20 million users, driven by vision for API-First world</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/05/20-million-postman-users.jpg" alt="20-million-postman-users" />
<a href="https://www.postman.com/" target="_blank">Postman</a>, the world's leading API platform, <a href="https://blog.postman.com/celebrating-20-million-postman-users/">announced</a> that more than 20 million developers and builders have adopted its platform to build and use APIs, strengthening the company's reputation for simplifying the API lifecycle and streamlining collaboration. Postman's public API hub is the world's largest, with workspaces from Microsoft, Stripe, Meta, Notion, Intel, Oracle, and more.
In <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/postman-releases-2021-state-of-the-api-report-shows-global-trend-towards-api-first-digital-era/">Postman's 2021 State of the API Report</a>, 67% of survey respondents ranked themselves a five or higher in terms of embracing an API-first philosophy – a five-point increase from 2020. Furthermore, the "API-first leaders" who ranked themselves highest produced APIs more quickly, deployed more frequently, had fewer failures, and recovered more swiftly when failures occurred.
<h2>Hyland expands infrastructure to deploy new OnBase and Brainware customers on AWS</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/09/e0030_thumb_big_media.png" alt="Hyland OnBase" />
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-releases-new-content-services-and-intelligent-automation-product-enhancements/">Hyland</a>, recognized as a leading content services provider with more than 1,700 cloud customers, has expanded its work with <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/">Amazon Web Services (AWS)</a> to support its customer base and their increased cloud deployment and migration needs. 
Working with AWS, Hyland will expand its <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/innovation/hyland-cloud" target="_blank">Hyland Cloud</a> infrastructure to deploy new <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/onbase" target="_blank">OnBase</a> and <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/platform/product-suite/brainware" target="_blank">Brainware</a> cloud customers and cloud migration environments in North America on the appropriate AWS Region – fully supported and managed by Hyland's technical experts.
The strengthened relationship with AWS delivers an expansive infrastructure footprint for the Hyland Cloud, allowing Hyland to meet customer requirements with agility and scale while providing a more flexible architecture that supports customers' evolving information technology (IT) and business challenges. Backed by innovative technologies, security-driven policies, and dedicated support from knowledgeable technology experts, customers deploying Hyland's software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings on AWS benefit from its continued focus on cloud innovation and support for next-generation cloud solutions.
"Our work with AWS gives customers and prospects greater confidence and agility when deploying their cloud content services solutions, which are optimized for their unique needs and requirements," said Will Milewski, Senior Vice President, Cloud Infrastructure and Operations at Hyland. "With organizations continuing to evolve their business strategies to support remote work, cloud-based solutions are becoming the default and our relationship with AWS will ensure we're exceeding our customers' requirements from their content services platform."
Gartner has recognized Hyland as a content services industry leader for 12 consecutive years, and the winner of our own <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/introducing-the-winners-of-the-2021-cms-critics-choice-awards/" target="_blank">Critic's Choice Awards</a> for ECM in 2021. 
<h2>Concrete CMS 9.1.0RC1 is now available</h2>
Solid as a rock.
That was the news from the <a href="https://www.concretecms.com/" target="_blank">Concrete CMS</a> team as the company announced the availability of its first release candidate for Concrete CMS 9.1.0 – featuring a multitude of improvements, new features, and bug fixes, including:
<ul>
<li>Enhanced compatibility with PHP 8 and PHP 8.1.</li>
<li>Improved appearance and functionality when editing block, area, layout, and container styles inline in the page.</li>
<li>Express improvements like the ability to mark attributes as unique, handle re-use across objects, and much more.</li>
<li>Much improved version comparison features that can compare the HTML of two-page versions and highlight the differences.</li>
<li>Improvements to Dashboard listing screens and the file details screen.</li>
</ul>
Additionally, there are many behavioral and performance improvements included. The boulder-sized list is far too large for this blog post. <a href="https://documentation.concretecms.org/developers/introduction/version-history/910-release-notes" target="_blank">Click here</a> to read more of the details.
Concrete CMS was also recognized as a 2022 Leader in Content Management Systems by <a href="https://sourceforge.net/">SourceForge</a>.

CMS Monthly Recap: WP Engine Launches Headless Plans, Postman API Platform Surpasses 20 Million Users, and More

Featured image of April monthly recap of an umbrella with raindrops

When compared to mammoth rivals like Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok, <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a> can feel... well, less interesting. 
OK, so maybe it's not as visible as its social brethren, and the stats codify this. According to a recent <a href="https://blog.hootsuite.com/pinterest-statistics-for-business/" target="_blank">article</a>, the image-sharing app – popular for posting recipes, home decor, and more – ranks fourteenth on a list of the world's most used social media platforms. 
Fourteenth. That seems like quite a few rungs down the social ladder. But shockingly, Pinterest's <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/463353/pinterest-global-mau/#:~:text=How%20many%20users%20does%20Pinterest,million%20international%20monthly%20active%20users." target="_blank">431 million active global users</a> still puts it ahead of Twitter.
Take that, Elon Musk.
Along with posting "pins" of paint chips and curtain fabrics, shopping is one of the top activities for Pinterest users, and the platform's expansive community has emerged as a channel for e-Commerce. Given the number of users browsing boards and perusing products and services, it makes sense that sellers might be interested in connecting their storefronts to Pinterest to peddle their wares. 
Now, <a href="https://business.pinterest.com/en/blog/introducing-pinterest-for-woocommerce/" target="_blank">WooCommerce</a> is giving its merchants a way to turn their product catalogs into shoppable "pins" on Pinterest, making it easier to build audiences and drive more sales. Whatever a seller might be offering – from fashion to apparel to appliances – this new feature will allow each product listing to become a shoppable pin on the platform, just like this:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/04/pinterest-product-tags-975x1024.webp" alt="Pinterest product tags" />
The companies recently <a href="https://business.pinterest.com/en/blog/introducing-pinterest-for-woocommerce/" target="_blank">announced</a> a strategic partnership that's designed to simplify the connection via a new integration, which will be available to WooCommerce merchants in the <a href="https://woocommerce.com/products/pinterest-for-woocommerce/" target="_blank">Products section</a> of the company's website. 
"By partnering together, we provide the best integrated Pinterest shopping experience possible for WooCommerce merchants to be on the cutting edge of social commerce," said Aleksandra Bettin, VP of Business Development at WooCommerce. "WooCommerce is highly invested in our merchants' success. Merchants need the right options to reach the right audiences – this integration with Pinterest helps them do that."
<h2>Using Pinterest to drive more traffic to WooCommerce stores</h2>
The category of <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-commerce.asp#:~:text=What%20Is%20Social%20Commerce%3F,retweets%2C%20likes%2C%20and%20shares." target="_blank">social commerce</a> is booming, and brands are looking for new ways to reach their audiences. While all social media platforms can help amplify traffic (both paid and organic), Pinterest has introduced some innovative features to help augment SEO. This includes a new visual search tool that makes finding customers on the platform even easier. Likewise, using pins, boards, and collections on Pinterest can drive organic traffic to a WooCommerce site. This combination gives merchants more power when it comes to expanding their reach. 
According to Pinterest's statistics, a whopping <a href="https://business.pinterest.com/audience/" target="_blank">97% of the top searches on Pinterest are unbranded</a>. That means Pinterest shoppers haven't made up their minds about specific products or brands – and they're open to learning and exploring. This is an opportunity that both WooCommerce and Pinterest have keyed in on, and are now simplifying the connection points to convert a shopper's interest into a real brand purchase. 
<h2>How to use the WooCommerce Pinterest extension </h2>
Adding the Pinterest integration to a WooCommerce store is very simple. It starts by installing the <a href="https://woocommerce.com/products/pinterest-for-woocommerce/" target="_blank">Pinterest for WooCommerce extension</a>, which will upload an entire WooCommerce product catalog to Pinterest. From there, shoppable pins will appear in people's feeds as they search and browse. The extension also logs when customers interact with products on Pinterest so users can track their best-selling or most saved items. 
While some WooCommerce merchants might have already manually uploaded their catalogs to Pinterest, the company recommends switching to the new extension instead. It's the easiest and most efficient way to keep your products current on Pinterest since it automatically updates details like pricing and product availability. 
The Pinterest for WooCommerce integration is currently available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Japan will gain access later this year. 
<h2>About WooCommerce</h2>
<a href="https://woocommerce.com/" target="_blank">WooCommerce</a> is the leading open-source e-commerce platform, powering 28% of the top million online stores (BuiltWith). Built on <a href="https://wordpress.com/" target="_blank">WordPress</a>, it empowers anyone, anywhere, to sell anything with truly unlimited extensibility, flexibility, and control over how they build and evolve their business. Founded in 2011 and acquired by Automattic in 2015, WooCommerce is a fully distributed company with employees based around the world.
<h2>About Pinterest</h2>
People around the world come to Pinterest for inspiration. It's a visual inspiration platform where people find inspiring creators, shop new products, and seek out ideas to take offline. People have saved more than 330 billion Pins across a range of interests, from creating a home office, cooking a new recipe to finding your next vacation spot. Headquartered in San Francisco, Pinterest launched in 2010 and has more than 400 million monthly active users. Available on iOS and Android and at pinterest.com.

WooCommerce and Pinterest Announce Partnership, Offer New Integration for Connecting with Shoppers

Woocommerce and Pinterest logos together on a dark background

Hotjar - Spot what confuses

Spot what confuses your users with Hotjar & AI

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These days, if you're not beating the DXP drum of "composable" and "scalable," you might seem out of step with the direction of the market. That's been a challenge for traditionally monolithic platforms that have invested in a vision of completeness for enterprise customers, but still want to be perceived as flexible amidst a growing stack of services. 
In an effort to MACHify (more on that in a minute), <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/" target="_blank">Sitecore</a> is evolving its own monolithic legacy position by adapting its fully-integrated platform of solutions. At last week's <a href="https://symposium.sitecore.com/en/world-tour/London" target="_blank">Sitecore Symposium World Tour</a> in London, the company outlined a composable product portfolio, showcasing customers delivering digital experiences at scale with its own composable offerings. 
<h2>Driving DXP growth through strategic acquisitions</h2>
In case you missed the barrage of stories we covered, Sitecore has been making headlines since announcing its <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-embarks-on-1-2b-investment-plan-to-accelerate-growth/" target="_blank">$1.2 billion capital investment</a> last year – which, at the time, was unprecedented in the industry. 
As part of its growth plan, the company went on an acquisition spree. In just one year, it purchased four technologies that addressed key gaps in its DXP strategy: <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-ai-powered-search-platform-reflektion/" target="_blank">Reflektion</a>, an AI-powered digital search solution; <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-moosend-adds-ai-powered-email-marketing-automation/" target="_blank">Moosend</a>, an e-mail marketing automation, and campaign management platform; <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51/" target="_blank">Boxever</a>, a SaaS-based Customer Data Platform (CDP); and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51/" target="_blank">Four51</a>, a digital commerce platform for e-Commerce B2B marketplace solutions. 
According to the company, these platforms are now fully integrated into Sitecore, achieving a significant milestone in delivering a complete, SaaS-based DXP.
<h2>MACH vs. monolith... or can we all just get along?</h2>
We've talked a lot about <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">MACH</a>-based composable architectures and how they're being adopted at a wild pace, particularly as brands look to scale faster and faster. Following the seismic shift in digital transformation following the Covid-19 pandemic, many CMS and DXP companies doubled down on a composable market posture – and Sitecore was among the enterprise crop that announced its intentions to invest in a more composable DXP position.
Sitecore's product updates have been fundamental to expanding its advanced, SaaS-enabled capabilities, which do align with several principles of MACH architectures (which stands for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless). Sitecore says that its suite of capabilities will enable brands to provide real-time, personalized digital experiences across every touchpoint, from content to commerce – powered by the cloud. 
One of the key challenges for vendors in the MACH space is the ability to prove their "MACH centricity" under the tenants established by the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">MACH Alliance</a>. The industry organization has become a bellwether for all things MACH and established strict requirements for members that reinforce the underlying fundamentals of the movement – all in an effort to help companies invest in the most composable solutions on the market.  For platforms like Sitecore, this has become an opportunity to tout the benefits of its broader market offerings while future-proofing products like <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/blog/headless/what-is-mach-architecture" target="_blank">Sitecore OrderCloud as "MACH Certified."</a> 
"For brands to truly meet the moment, it has never been more crucial than it is now to adopt technology that offers choice, flexibility, and speed," said Dave O'Flanagan, Chief Product Officer at Sitecore. "Sitecore is committed to delivering a composable DXP that meets the continuously changing needs of brands – unifying content, experience, and commerce, enabling them to offer exceptional customer experiences while continuing to innovate for whatever demands are around the corner. Ambitious brands have outgrown the one-size-fits-all vendors, and they will not settle for piecemeal point solutions – they need a stack of best-in-class features that work in harmony together – and this is what Sitecore delivers."
Here are more details on the updates to Sitecore's product offerings, which all build on innovation via their acquisitions:
<h2>Sitecore OrderCloud</h2>
<a href="https://ordercloud.io/" target="_blank">Sitecore OrderCloud</a> is an API-first, headless cloud platform for B2B, B2C, and B2X. This capability comes from the Four51 acquisition, which originally designed the platform. The new updates expand OrderCloud's marketplace support capabilities with the release of new order routing flexibility, supplier empowerment, and pricing flexibility. And as mentioned, OrderCloud is powered by a MACH architecture, giving it greater flexibility within the Sitecore stack.  
In addition, OrderCloud released a new Inventory Records feature to provide management flexibility that enables manufacturers, distributors, and retailers with seamless operational and commerce capabilities.
"With Sitecore OrderCloud, we are excited about the possibilities of connecting our customers with products they need and want to play sports and have fun," said Jason McConnell, Director of Product at NBC Sports Next. "We picked Sitecore OrderCloud because we're impressed with its composable developer-first functionality, which should give us all the flexibility needed to seamlessly weave commerce into our existing technology platforms." 
<h3>Sitecore Send</h3>
<a href="https://www.sitecore.com/products/send" target="_blank">Sitecore Send</a> is an e-mail marketing automation tool that evolved from the Moosend acquisition. Sitecore's updates include six additional languages: Spanish, French, German, Greek, Japanese, and Portuguese. Sitecore also announced a new pricing plan with a 30-day free trial for the full range of Send's enterprise-level features.
<h3>Sitecore Discover</h3>
<a href="https://www.sitecore.com/products/discover" target="_blank">Sitecore Discover</a> is an AI-powered product search and merchandising solution that came with the acquisition of Reflektion. It helps understand and predict an individual shopper's purchase intent based on patterns, context, and needs – all of which help convert browsers into buyers.
The updates provide Sitecore Discover's Commerce Engagement Console (CEC) with a revamped appearance library and editor, providing a better user experience and more control over merchandising. It also improves its widgets with type filters and rule exports, adding more convenience for users.
<h3>Sitecore Personalize</h3>
<a href="https://www.sitecore.com/products/sitecore-personalize" target="_blank">Sitecore Personalize</a> is an AI-driven, cloud-native solution for delivering tailored experiences to every customer. The product stems from the acquisition of Boxever, a SaaS-based Customer Data Platform (CDP) that provides decisioning and experimentation capabilities.
As part of the update package, Sitecore Personalize has completed its integration with Sitecore Experience Manager, offering channel diagnostic testing and real-time personalization that complements Sitecore's market-leading CMS – and is all delivered in the cloud.
<h3>Expanded integrations for Salesforce and more</h3>
Sitecore also published several new connectors on its Sitecore Marketplace for several product integrations, including Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Responsys, and Klaviyo. The company also added new AI-powered product discovery capabilities to support a broad range of commerce-related use cases, including intelligent search, product listing pages, and product recommendations.
<h2>Ramping up the competition</h2>
Sitecore has been a consistent Leader on <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/webinars/4005210/the-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms" target="_blank">Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>. However, in the most recent 2022 assessment, the platform has fallen slightly behind its chief competitors, Acquia and Optimizely, while Adobe continues to maintain its dominance.  
<img style="max-width:800px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/gartner-dxp-mq-2022-graphic.webp" alt="Gartner Magic Quadrant for DXPs graphic 2022" />
According to Gartner, the <a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-keynote-the-future-of-business-is-composable" target="_blank">future of business is composable</a>, and Sitecore's journey towards composability and the cloud illustrates its commitment to the market. The analyst firm noted that Sitecore's efforts to convert its core applications into SaaS – and acquiring SaaS vendors with complementary capabilities in AI, CDP, and search, among others – is a strength. 
While the company may have slipped against its competitors, it certainly appears ready to do battle in the Composable Revolution. 
<h2>About Sitecore</h2>
Sitecore delivers a digital experience platform that empowers the world’s smartest brands to build lifelong relationships with their customers. A highly decorated industry leader, Sitecore is the only company bringing together content, commerce, and data into one connected platform that delivers millions of digital experiences every day. Leading companies including American Express, ASOS, Carnival Cruise Lines, Kimberly-Clark, L’Oréal, and Volvo Cars rely on Sitecore to provide more engaging, personalized experiences for their customers. Learn more at <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/">Sitecore.com</a>.

Sitecore Announces Updates to Product Suite, Enhances Composable Features and Innovation from Acquisitions

<a href="http://www.hyland.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland</a> isn't giving up any ground in the battle for content services domination. And they shouldn't – not when the competition includes <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/explore/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-content-services-platforms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microsoft, Box, and OpenText</a>. 
To that end, Hyland just <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-releases-latest-content-services-and-intelligent-automation-product-enhancements/">announced</a> some new and noteworthy product functionality, service enhancements, and industry-focused solutions to support organizations along their digital transformation and technology modernization journeys.
Hyland has been recognized by Gartner as a content services industry leader for 12 consecutive years, and the winner of our own <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/introducing-the-winners-of-the-2021-cms-critics-choice-awards/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Critic's Choice Awards</a> for ECM in 2021. Along with its continued investment in innovation, the company has made several keen acquisitions over the past two years, giving it extra leverage to compete with the aforementioned "big guns." 
A few examples: in 2020, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-acquires-rpa-software-provider-another-monday/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland acquired Another Monday</a>, the robotic process automation (RPA) software, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-completes-acquisition-of-streamline-healths-ecm-business/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Streamline Health ECM,</a> and <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-acquires-blockchain-credentialing-provider-learning-machine/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learning Machine</a> – a company that develops and markets blockchain-secured digital credentialing solutions. Other acquisitions include OneContent, Perceptive (which became one of their flagship products), and <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/company/acquisitions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">many more</a>. 
Then, like several other CMS and DXP platforms, Hyland eliminated one of its closest competitors by acquiring <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alfresco</a>. The company then went on to <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-enters-agreement-to-acquire-nuxeo/">purchase Nuxeo</a>, a content services and digital asset management (DAM) platform, giving Hyland a powerful edge with its completeness of vision. 
But buying your way to the top can only get you so far – and Hyland seems more focused than ever on improving its products and services and enhancing customer experience. 
"Our regular product releases provide immense value to organizations, regardless of where they are in their digital transformation journeys," said John Phelan, executive vice president, and chief product officer at Hyland. "These latest releases support new business demands with simplified cloud administration and storage options, new automation capabilities, seamless and secure integrations with essential business applications, and greater scalability for installations of all sizes. Our ongoing development efforts will continue to provide our customers around the globe with the most flexible, extensible, and configurable cloud content services solutions."
Here are a few highlights of the new product features:
<h2>Upgrades to content services from Alfresco</h2>
Hyland has developed several new tools on the Alfresco platform – an investment that appears to be paying off. New improvements aim to simplify the management of cloud deployments, provide more intuitive user experiences, support more complex business processes, and deliver deeper integrations with line-of-business applications. 
Hyland also extended the Alfresco Enterprise Search capabilities with Elasticsearch, including enhanced query and proximity search support. 
<h2>Improvements to intelligent automation with Hyland RPA</h2>
Hyland has been making strides with its <a href="https://www.cio.com/article/227908/what-is-rpa-robotic-process-automation-explained.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">robotic process automation</a> features. Several updates were made to the <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/platform/product-suite/robotic-process-automation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland RPA</a> to provide organizations with simplified bot deployment, more visibility over automated tasks, secure and convenient integrations, and improved user experience. 
The latest product version allows organizations to coordinate end-to-end automation with the newly developed Web Manager, providing improved security, user management, and updated reporting insights. Finally, the updated Designer allows flexible, secure integration with third-party applications/services and facilitates scaling automation enterprise-wide.
<h2>New Hyland Healthcare capabilities</h2>
<a href="http://www.hyland.com/Healthcare" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland Healthcare's</a> latest solution, the Hyland Clinician Window, unlocks physician access to more than 75% of patient information that does not typically reside in the electronic medical record (EMR). It helps physicians make informed care decisions to improve patient outcomes by delivering access to medical images, EKGs, consult notes, and other unstructured patient data within the EMR workflow. 
<h2>Updates to Hyland Experience Capture</h2>
New functionality within Hyland's cloud-native capture product, <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/platform/product-suite/HxC" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland Experience Capture</a> (HxC), delivers automatic separation by barcode for automated document splitting of 1D and 2D barcodes. This eliminates the need for manual separation, improving employee experience by rededicating workers to higher-value tasks.
<h2 id="about-hyland">About Hyland</h2>
<a href="https://www.hyland.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland</a> is an enterprise content management (ECM) software platform, combining integrated document management, business process management, and records management in a single application. Hyland software allows organizations to manage, control, and share digital content with employees, business partners, customers, and other constituencies. Learn more at <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.hyland.com</a>

Hyland Releases New Content Services and Intelligent Automation Product Enhancements

Featured image of Hyland logo against a blended background

CMS Monthly Recap: Google Sunsets Universal Analytics, WordPress Releases a New Performance Plugin, and More

Featured image of CMS Critic Monthly Recap text against a dark background with a close-up of a basketball

Ask anyone at <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/aws-joins-mach-alliance-as-enabler-member-reflects-growth-of-cloud-native-solutions/">AWS</a> about the importance of security, and they're likely to say it's  "job zero" – and for good reason.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that cybersecurity threats and data breaches are on the rise, reaching epic proportions last year. According to <a href="https://www.sonicwall.com/news/sonicwall-the-year-of-ransomware-continues-with-unprecedented-late-summer-surge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SonicWall,</a> a leading security provider, there were nearly 500 million ransomware attacks through September 2021, with a staggering 1,748 attempted attacks per organization.
That's equivalent to a single business receiving 9.7 ransomware attempts every day. Yikes.
While many software platforms have embraced security standards in an effort to validate their trust, not all content management systems (CMS) have invested in these credentials. However, as more CMS platforms move to SaaS delivery and enterprise self-service, security is becoming a more pressing issue than ever before.
While new benchmarks for security compliance continue to emerge, the International Organization for Standardization – <a href="https://www.iso.org/home.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">also known as ISO</a> – has long been an institution for normalizing critical business practices and product requirements. Along with providing a heightened degree of technical governance around key information security requirements, ISO's 27001 certification might offer a new model for CMS platforms to project a more secure posture across global markets.
To that end, <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Storyblok</a> – an enterprise headless CMS that enables developers and marketers to deliver powerful content experiences on any digital platform – recently announced that it had received <a href="https://www.certipedia.com/quality_marks/9000020037?locale=en&amp;certificate_number=01+153+2100668" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ISO 27001 certification</a> from TÜV Rheinland, an independent third party. This critical certification verifies that all of Storyblok’s products, operations, support processes, and data storage protocols meet the highest international security standards when it comes to managing information security. 
To understand more about how users view their CMS security, Storyblok surveyed 530 professionals who personally use a CMS in the United States, UK, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands. We had a chance to chat with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgierlinger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sebastian Gierlinger</a>, VP of Engineering at Storyblok, about the data they received from the survey – as well as some of his insights on the headless CMS market. You can read our Q&amp;A below. 
<h2>Understanding the perception of security for CMS users</h2>
If you don't already know from personal experience (and we hope you don't), security problems can be very expensive for enterprises – and in some cases, even sink a business. 
In a report called <a href="https://www.forrester.com/report/The-Four-Tenets-Of-SaaS-Application-Security-And-Protection/RES165119" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Four Tenets Of SaaS Application Security And Protection</a>, analyst firm Forrester said: “Losing data in a SaaS application because of insufficient data protection is every CISO’s and compliance officer’s nightmare. Mitigation costs can exceed $3 million to $3.5 million per incident — and that’s a conservative estimate.”
Once again, we'll insert a yikes for dramatic purposes. 
Storyblok conducted its survey to better understand the collective psyche of CMS users as it relates to security. The results were quite revealing and reflect the elevated concern felt across software markets. Here are a few of the most telling data points gleaned from respondents:
<ul>
<li>64.3% worry about the security of their CMS</li>
<li>80% said security is extremely important or very important to them when choosing a CMS</li>
<li>More than half (55.5%) said their CMS has new security issues on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis</li>
<li>46.4% had a CMS security issue affect their content</li>
<li>21.7% conduct security updates 5-9 times per month</li>
</ul>
<h2>The rise of headless and the impact on CMS security</h2>
There's no question that <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-free-headless-cms-platforms/">headless</a> has been powering the energy in the CMS market for the last few years. More businesses are making the move from traditional monolithic platforms to decoupled systems that provide greater agility with API-first architectures. This has been reflected in the rapid rise of composable solutions and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">MACH</a> (Microservices, APIs, Cloud-first SaaS, Headless) architectures – and the proliferation of the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">MACH Alliance</a>. 
There are many advantages to using a headless CMS. While they don't provide the same backend rendering capabilities as a traditional CMS, they do offer more flexibility, scalability, and ease of use. But there's also one key advantage of headless that is often overlooked: security. By maintaining a separated frontend and backend, a headless architecture is much less susceptible to security threats like distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
To learn more about Storyblok’s commitment to the highest standards of security, visit its <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/trust-center" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trust Center.</a>
<h2>Q&amp;A with Sebastian Gierlinger, VP of Engineering at Storyblok</h2>
CMS Critic had an opportunity to connect recently with Sebastian Gierlinger. He shared some of his views on the headless CMS market, particularly around security, as well as the rise of MACH. 
As Gierlinger noted in the company's press release, “Traditional CMSs have a bad reputation for the security headaches they cause, and for a good reason. Getting the ISO 27001 certification was especially important to us because it ensures that any enterprise using Storyblok to share their content with the world is doing so on the most secure, enterprise-grade headless CMS available on the market.”
<hr />
CMS Critic (CC): Where are the top security advantages with a headless CMS versus traditional?
Sebastian Gierlinger (SG): Generally speaking, Headless CMS reduces the exposure of infrastructure that’s front-facing. This reduces the surface of potential attacks. In addition, the hosting infrastructure of a Headless CMS is less complex compared to a traditional CMS.
<hr />
CC: The headless CMS market is growing, but so too are the platform options. How important is the ISO certification to differentiating across an expanding field of competitive players?
SG: Security is a major concern for many enterprises, and the ISO certification of Storyblok recognized that all our products, operations, support processes, and data storage protocols meet the highest standards. Customers do expect best-in-class security, and we believe that Storyblok’s ISO certification provides more proof that we deeply care about the modern enterprise tech stack and making it as secure as possible.
<hr />
CC: How is infrastructure (ie, Cloud) playing into the overall security posture for CMS users – particularly with headless?
SG: A headless CMS is built on top of a best-of-breed approach that sits on cloud infrastructure solutions. While on-premise hosting has been the default situation up until recently (a few years ago), we would argue that cloud infrastructure tends to be more secure as it comes with security resources, 24/7 support, and uptime guarantees. With those things in place, there’s hardly anything that could really go wrong. Sure, cloud infrastructure isn’t 100% safe from security attacks or other issues; however, the likelihood of an AWS outage tends to be much smaller than that of an on-premise infrastructure managed by you and your team.
<hr />
CC: How specifically is the ISO certification reinforcing trust for Storyblok? Are there specific tenants of the ISO standards that were challenging to meet – but now provide heightened security that other platforms aren’t able to meet?
SG: During the ISO certification process, we did not apply for any exemptions in the statement of applicability (SoA) and met all specific requirements right away. 
We are really proud that the ISO certification covers the entire operation, maintenance, and development of Storyblok’s CMS and all related services. In order to fulfill those requirements, we had to make sure that Storyblok establishes secure processes and standards in all departments across the organization.
<hr />
CC: On the same topic: how is the ISO certification supporting Storyblok’s global growth strategy? Do you foresee this as an opportunity to grow your customer base in other markets where the ISO certification is preferred or even required?
SG: We do see existing and potential customers in all regions requesting security standards that are now being met with the ISO 27001 certification. Also, leading analyst firms reassured us that ISO 27001 certification is a top priority amongst many enterprises. Other security certifications can be mapped and fulfilled with ISO 27001.
Overall, ISO 27001 is definitely an important requirement in many European countries; however, we also see US-based companies requesting this certification.
<hr />
CC: As of late, there’s been increased attention around MACH. We see that you are a member of the MACH Alliance – can you talk about the importance of being an open, best-of-breed technology in this ecosystem? Is this proving to be a differentiator?
SG: The MACH principles provide an innovative solution for creating and launching the modern enterprise tech architecture and building new experiences quickly and efficiently. Additionally, as the MACH principles adhere to the best-of-breed approach, organizations can easily add and replace tools as needed, unlike in monolithic structures.
Due to working with structured or atomic content, the way in which content moves within its ecosystem has been radically transformed. 
Content creators are now decoupled from developers due to CMS platforms, giving them the freedom to power on without leaning on developers for minuscule changes or edits. Simply put, the way we work has evolved along with our technology.
Overall, we believe that the MACH principles are becoming the standard way that the modern enterprise stack should look like. And with the MACH Alliance, we've found a group that tells this story on a global scale.
<h2>About Storyblok</h2>
Storyblok is an enterprise headless CMS that enables developers and marketers to deliver powerful content experiences on any digital platform. Developers create flexible components that are independently managed by content teams through a collaborative visual editor and customizable workflow. Published content is delivered through an API, so changes are made once and will appear everywhere: websites, mobile, IoT, the metaverse, and beyond. This approach reduces maintenance and makes content management more efficient. Leading brands such as Adidas, Pizza Hut, and Marc O’Polo use Storyblok to manage and share their content with the world. Storyblok was named the #1 CMS for 2022 by G2.
For more information, visit <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.storyblok.com</a> and follow Storyblok on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/storyblok" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://www.twitter.com/storyblok" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter</a>.

Storyblok Earns ISO 27001 Certification for Secure, Enterprise-grade Headless CMS: Q&A with Sebastian Gierlinger

Storyblock featured image of ISO 27001 logo with Storyblok logo icon and headshot of Sebastian Gierlinger

Introducing the Winners of the 2021 CMS Critic's Choice Awards

Featured image of the 2021 CMS Critic Critic's Choice Awards badge with text that reads "2021 WInners"

<div>
It's hard to follow an act like the <a href="https://www.oscars.org/" target="_blank">Academy Awards</a>, especially after Sunday's "<a href="https://pagesix.com/2022/03/27/will-smith-chris-rock-to-work-out-slap-incident-after-oscars-2022/" target="_blank">slap heard 'round the world.</a>"
But hey, we'll give it a shot – and do it with decidedly less controversy and no long-winded speeches:
Today, we're proud to announce the winners of the 2021 CMS Critic People's Choice Awards!
From our entire editorial staff, we'd like to start with a big THANK YOU to our amazing community of CMS vendors and their incredibly passionate users. We had some, shall we say, "colorful" conversations across social media during the nomination period, and we enjoyed every opportunity to engage with our readers.
It was incredible to see the outpouring of love from people around the globe for their products of choice. That kind of brand loyalty seems increasingly rare. It says a lot about the people using these technologies, and the investment that CMS and DXP platforms are making to really listen to users – and bring them together. 
Before we announce the winners, let's do a quick review of the rules so you know how we got here:
<ul>
<li>First, our annual People's Choice Awards celebrate the top platforms that YOU – our readers – select. As they say, we have no dog in this race.</li>
<li>In late December of 2020, we invited everyone to nominate their favorite platforms across a set of categories on our website. </li>
<li>The top three nominees were selected and featured for general voting in each category.</li>
<li>Participants were able to vote only once, and companies that offered incentives of any kind were disqualified (there were no such shenanigans, BTW). </li>
<li>While we don't offer any golden statues, we do feature the winners on our website for posterity. And of course, you always have bragging rights. </li>
</ul>
We had a fantastic response to the People's Choice Awards this year, and participation has been off the charts since we released the final nominee list. It's always great to see this level of community engagement, and because this is a democratized experience, you never know what to expect from voting – so be prepared for some surprises.
Enough rambling, right? Let's draw back the curtain and proudly present the winners of the 2021 CMS Critic People's Choice Awards!
 
</div>
<hr />
 
<img style="max-width:600px;max-height:156px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/contentstack-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Contentstack logo" /> 
 
<h2>Best Enterprise CMS: Contentstack</h2>
This year's "Best Enterprise CMS" award goes to <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/" target="_blank">Contentstack</a>, a leader in headless and agile content management. Contentstack has huge momentum, and it's great to see emphatic support from its community of users. 
 
<hr />
 
<img style="max-width:600px;max-height:156px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/adobe-experience-manager-logo-1.webp" alt="Adobe Experience Manager logo" /> 
 
<h2>Best DXP: Adobe Experience Manager</h2>
Given that <a href="https://www.adobe.com/cy_en/marketing/experience-manager.html" target="_blank">Adobe</a> has been the undisputed leader in <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a> for the fifth year in a row, winning our "Best DXP" honors wasn't a shocker. The Adobe brand is ubiquitous and recognized as a top contender across multiple technology categories. It also has a deep ecosystem of tools and partners. 
 
<hr />
  
<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:90px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/joomla-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Joomla logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Free CMS: Joomla</h2>
Surprised that <a href="https://www.joomla.org/" target="_blank">Joomla</a> carried this category? Don't be. They've cultivated an enthusiastic fan base with a rising fervor for their favorite platform. Joomla continues to have a strong community of open source users, making it one of the top three most popular content management systems in the world - and winner of our "Best Free CMS" category. 
 
<hr />
  
<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/grav-logo-smallsvg.webp" alt="Grav logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Flat File CMS: Grav</h2>
This was a tight race with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-flat-file-cms-platforms-for-building-simple-websites-fast/" target="_blank">Kirby</a>, but in the end, <a href="https://getgrav.org/" target="_blank">Grav</a> took top honors. A consistent winner of our People's Choice Award for "Best Flat File CMS," Grav is also featured in our <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-flat-file-cms-platforms-for-building-simple-websites-fast/">Top Flat File CMS Platforms</a> article.
 
<hr />
 
<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:90px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/joomla-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Joomla logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Open Source CMS: Joomla</h2>
Despite the far-casting shadow of WordPress, <a href="https://www.joomla.org/" target="_blank">Joomla</a> won big with its community – in no small part to its continued investment in innovation. In fact, 2021 saw a host of new features added to the "Best Open Source CMS" platform, including the <a href="https://www.joomla.org/4/" target="_blank">Joomla! 4.0</a> release with notable improvements. We would like to congratulate the Joomla development team on their win in two categories.
 
<hr />
 
<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/alfresco-logo.webp" alt="Alfresco logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best ECM (Enterprise Content Management): Alfresco</h2>
<a href="https://www.alfresco.com/" target="_blank">Alfresco</a> took home the gold for the "Best Enterprise Content Management" solution, proving its continued authority in the ECM space. Alfresco has enjoyed a successful run over the last few years, including <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/">an acquisition by competitor Hyland in 2020</a>. Despite being under the Hyland umbrella, the company still maintains its brand identity. 
 
<hr />
 
<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/hikashop-logo-resized.png" alt="HikaShop logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best E-Commerce Solution: Hikashop</h2>
This was an interesting one, but the people have spoken: <a href="https://www.hikashop.com/" target="_blank">HikaShop</a>, the e-commerce solution for Joomla, was triumphant over two worthy competitors – <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-10-open-source-ecommerce-platforms/">WooCommerce</a> and PrestaShop. While the competition was tight, there were surprisingly more fans from the Joomla community throwing their support in the ring. 
 
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<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:90px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/shopify-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Shopify logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Headless Commerce: Shopify</h2>
<a href="https://www.shopify.com/" target="_blank">Shopify</a> has been giving Amazon a run for its money and earning loyal fans along the way. As the leading platform for building e-Commerce solutions – and doing it headlessly – Shopify has become one of the strongest and most trusted brands on the planet for creating online stores and digital commerce experiences.
 
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<img style="max-width:600px;max-height:156px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/contentstack-logo-white-bg.webp" alt="Contentstack logo" /> 
 
<h2>Best Headless CMS: Contentstack</h2>
We have to hand it to the Contentstack crowd: you really brought the rain! Congratulations on cleaning up in both the "Best Enterprise CMS" and "Best Headless CMS" categories! While most notably a headless platform, Contentstack is also one of the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">founding members of the MACH Alliance</a>. 
 
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<img style="max-width:200px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/yootheme-logo.webp" alt="YOOTheme logo" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Website Builder: YOOtheme</h2>
Always a perennial fan favorite, the "Best Website Builder" category has evolved to include some amazing tools that are getting progressively easier to use. This year, the crown goes to <a href="https://yootheme.com/" target="_blank">YOOtheme</a> - the popular page builder for WordPress and Joomla. While other popular platforms like Webflow and Gantry were in the running, YOOtheme won out with a sizable margin. Congrats to the community of fans that made YOOtheme a winner!
 
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<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/hugo-logo-wide.svg" alt="Hugo logo" /> 
 
<h2>Best Static Site Generator: Hugo</h2>
The battle was hard-fought – and Gatsby has certainly been a fixture in our coverage over the last few years – but <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021/">Hugo</a> brought the votes... so congratulations! As a leading static site generator, Hugo has touted its incredibly fast framework for building websites. It's clear that its community of users is continuing to grow and thrive, and showing the love for their favorite JAMstack frontend generator.  
 
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<img style="max-width:400px;max-height:100px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2022/03/uniform-logo-white-bg.webp" width="auto" height="auto" /> 
 
<h2>Best Composable System: Uniform</h2>
We had a battle royale brewing in the newly minted "Best Composable System" category between <a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank">Uniform</a>, <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/" target="_blank">Sitecore</a>, and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">Acquia</a> – but there can be only one! Congratulations to Uniform for taking the throne and becoming our inaugural winner in this new and exciting segment. With big wind (and big investment dollars) at their back, Uniform is already making bold moves from a hiring and acquisition perspective, and we'll be looking for big things in 2022.  
 
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<h2>And that's a wrap for the 2021 People's Choice Awards! </h2>
<div>See that? Not a single moment of uncomfortable stage antics. That's just another benefit we have over the Oscars. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>While the pandemic threw us all for a loop, it's great to be back to a more normal and predictable cycle with our awards program. We look forward to this event every year because it gives us an opportunity to engage with our readers and learn about what platforms are scoring high in their books. At the end of the day, it's about honoring not just the winners, but our entire CMS community. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>There were some tight races going on in the year's competition, and a few surprises that gave us a moment to pause. But that's what makes the People's Choice Awards so exciting: in any given year, fans can come out of the woodwork and elevate their platform to the top echelon. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Tomorrow, we'll be posting our Editor's Choice Awards. You're bound to see some alignment in certain categories, and you might be in for a few surprises as well. Our editorial staff made their picks based on a wide range of factors, and we're excited to share them with you. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Thanks again to everyone for participating in the 2021 People’s Choice Awards. See you later this year!</div>

Oscar Who? We're Celebrating the Winners of the 2021 CMS Critic People’s Choice Awards 

Image of the 2021 CMS Critic People's Choice Awards logo with the Text "2021 Winners" to the right, all against a background image of fireworks.

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