Articles - Page 39

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

msalvatierra

The concept of a "<a href="https://www.akana.com/blog/composable-architecture">composable enterprise</a>" is becoming more popular as digital transformation enters its next wave. And it makes sense: leading up to Covid, digital stacks were already becoming decoupled and less monolithic, all driven by the rise of the <a href="https://www.openapis.org/">open API</a>. 
Add a global pandemic, and the hyper-accelerated pace of transformation resulted in more systems "talking" to each other – and integration driving innovation. 
In the simplest terms, composable enterprises are building digital solutions that leverage the <a href="https://www.mulesoft.com/resources/api/what-is-an-api-economy#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20API%20Economy,created%20by%20differing%20software%20platforms.">API economy</a>. This means businesses are assembling their offerings together in a highly modular way – breaking down components into smaller <a href="https://microservices.io/">microservices</a> or packaged business capabilities (PBCs).
I know, I know... more acronyms. But this is a good one because PCBs are becoming a bigger deal. <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3976170/innovation-insight-for-packaged-business-capabilities-an">According to Gartner</a>, they encapsulate the concept of composable commerce and how fixed applications are becoming a thing of the past.
And that leads us to the latest news from <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">Acquia</a>, a leading Drupal-based digital experience platform. They just announced major updates to their Acquia <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/digital-experience-platform" target="_blank">Open Digital Experience Platform</a> (DXP), which is powered by their Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud ecosystems. By embracing a new set of component features, Acquia is advancing the composable enterprise by enabling marketers, developers, and IT operators to assemble and deploy digital experiences for every point along the customer journey.
<h2>A tale of two clouds</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/acquia-dxp.png" alt="Acquia Drupal and Marketing Cloud Diagram" />
As part of an <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">ambitious growth plan</a>, Acquia is hanging its DXP hat on a bifurcated strategy with their Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud. While the former focuses on building and enhancing digital experiences, the latter provides a sandbox for personalizing and orchestrating campaigns and assets with cross-channel capabilities. 
In an age of composable enterprises, this approach is allowing businesses to focus resources while connecting data. Acquia's new version features enhancements to both of their cloud layers – each with its own composable attributes.
Acquia also announced a new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/newsroom/press-releases/acquia-launches-china-managed-services">China managed services offering</a> with in-region security and support as part of their update package. 
<h2>Drupal Cloud updates focus on scalability</h2>
Acquia's improvements to Drupal Cloud are focused on helping companies build and scale their experiences in a number of key areas. This includes enhancements to the HR and employee experience, container-based hosting, advanced search functionality, and developer support. 
"With the accelerated demand for digital experiences, businesses need to continue to scale at greater capacities and speeds," said, Kevin Cochrane, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at Acquia. "They need to be confident that their digital infrastructure and teams are able to perform without fail no matter when or where they're needed." 
The updates to Drupal Cloud include:
<ul>
<li>Employee Experience Platform: Acquia's new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/powering-digital-workplace-employee-experience-platform" target="_blank">Employee Experience Platform</a> (EXP) is an HR-centric modern intranet powered by Drupal. It combines employee systems in applications via the API framework of Acquia's Open DXP. Acquia's EXP integrates HR applications with dynamic site-building and hosting capabilities – creating a one-stop-shop for benefits and payroll, information access, discovery, cross-team collaboration, and more.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Acquia Cloud Next: Acquia made significant updates to their <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/cloud-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud Platform</a> services to create <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/introducing-acquia-cloud-next-kubernetes-native-drupal-hosting-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud Next</a> – an enterprise-grade, Kubernetes-native Drupal hosting platform backed by Acquia's collaboration with AWS. With Acquia Cloud Next, customers benefit from the improved application and site performance along with nearly limitless storage volume, enhanced security and resiliency, and optimized resource utilization. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Fully Managed Search: Enhanced Apache <a href="https://solr.apache.org/guide/7_0/">Solr 7</a> search capabilities are now integrated into the Acquia Cloud Platform and fully managed by Acquia. Searches are faster across multiple servers and provide better results to keep site visitors engaged with content.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Acquia Cloud IDE and Developer Support: <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/cloud-ide" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud IDE</a> improves developer productivity with a new cloud-based, fully integrated workflow between development, staging, and production environments. It provides a full stack of optimized development tools – including PHP, Composer, and Drush – readily installed and configured for a fast and simple onboarding process. As a browser-based source code editor and Drupal development stack based entirely in the cloud, Acquia Cloud IDE will help developers accelerate writing and deploying code without adding maintenance or security issues. Best-in-class support enhancements include a new <a href="https://docs.lando.dev/">Lando</a> plugin and support for both <a href="https://www.php.net/releases/8.0/en.php">PHP 8</a> and the latest version of Drupal.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Marketing Cloud gets new Unified User Interface</h2>
Enhancements to Acquia's Marketing Cloud will provide a simpler, more intuitive way for marketers to understand their business. New features are designed to help users build personalized experiences for customers and scale both operational efficiencies and smarter workflows across their organizations. 
The <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/acquia-marketing-cloud-introduces-new-ui-enhancements-unified-marketer-friendly-experience" target="_blank">new Unified User Interface (UI)</a> for Acquia Marketing Cloud makes it easier to leverage the combined capabilities of <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/customer-data-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Customer Data Platform</a> (CDP), <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/personalization" target="_blank">Acquia Personalization</a>, <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/campaign-studio" target="_blank">Acquia Campaign Studio</a>, and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/campaign-factory" target="_blank">Acquia Campaign Factory</a>. The main navigation provides a single view over all Marketing Cloud solutions, supporting a streamlined workflow across teams and regions. This will allow marketers to elevate their control and visibility – and run more effective, data-driven campaigns. 
Some of the other updates to Marketing Cloud include: 
<ul>
<li>Golden Template in Campaign Factory: To help marketing teams effectively govern their campaigns across hundreds or even thousands of brands, websites, and business units, Acquia Campaign Factory is introducing a "Golden Template." This feature will enable users to change all downstream child instances across email, segments, complete campaigns, and more – saving time and accelerating updates.</li>
<li>Machine Learning Center ("ML Center" ): Acquia's new Machine Learning Center gives marketers and business leaders a dashboard that unifies all ML-driven intelligence into one view and allows marketers and business users to understand the impact of their campaigns (both online and offline). The new Metrics Launchpad dashboard provides easy-to-understand visualizations and is enabled for all Acquia CDP customers who use machine learning as part of the platform. </li>
</ul>
To learn more about Acquia's Digital Experience Platform, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">click </a><a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">here</a>.
<h2>About Acquia</h2>
<a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">Acquia</a> is the open digital experience platform that enables organizations to build, host, analyze and communicate with their customers at scale through websites and digital applications. As the trusted open source leader, Acquia uses adaptive intelligence to produce better business outcomes for CX leaders.

Acquia Introduces Composable Enterprise Features in Latest Version of DXP

paris-tuzun

Top Free Headless CMS Platforms

cms-critic-staff

Image of man without head, hat floating above empty area would head would be. Text reads "Top Free Headless CMS"

As the U.S. heads into the Fourth of July holiday weekend, we've got some fireworks on display across the digital experience stack. 
Let's light things up with some of the biggest news we've been following this month.
 
<h2>Constant Contact to acquire SharpSpring</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/constant-contact-sharpspring-1.jpg" alt="Constant Contact and SharpSping logos " />
<a href="https://www.constantcontact.com/" target="_blank">Constant Contact</a>, the e-commerce focused marketing platform, announced it has signed a <a href="https://news.constantcontact.com/2021-06-22-Clearlake-Capital-and-Siris-Backed-Constant-Contact-Agrees-to-Acquire-SharpSpring" target="_blank">definitive agreement to acquire</a> SharpSpring. Backed by Clearlake Capital Group and Siris Capital, the all-cash transaction is valued at approximately $240 million.
<a href="https://sharpspring.com/" target="_blank">SharpSpring</a> is a cloud-based marketing automation platform that improves the effectiveness of marketing strategies for small businesses (SMBs). A preferred toolkit for digital agencies, SharpSpring helps generate leads, improve conversions to sales, and drive higher returns on marketing investments. 
Nearly a household name across the digital marketing community, Constant Contact is a legacy platform that provides a full suite of marketing tools catering mainly to small businesses, freelancers, and nonprofits. Constant Contact continues to be one of the most recognized services for managing email marketing campaigns but has more recently added <a href="https://www.constantcontact.com/website" target="_blank">website building features</a> and social media marketing capabilities. 
With the integration of SharpSpring, Constant Contact's users will be able to easily engage customers throughout their journey and deliver better marketing-driven results. SharpSpring also brings a layer of CRM capabilities to the mix, allowing Constant Contact to elevate and evolve the customer experience.
"Constant Contact and SharpSpring share a mission to help small businesses succeed, and this acquisition represents a powerful opportunity to combine our best-in-class email and e-commerce offerings with SharpSpring's strong suite of revenue growth and marketing automation tools," said Frank Vella, CEO at Constant Contact. "Today's Constant Contact retains the customer-first culture that defined our heritage, and I am excited to expand upon that with a commitment to innovation that will accelerate our growth and build upon the passion and agility that has made our brand a leader in digital marketing for so many years."
<h2>WP Engine launches Premier, its new enterprise WordPress platform</h2>
<img style="max-width:899px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/wpengine-premier.png" alt="WPEngine Premier" />
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/wp-engine-releases-worlds-first-study-of-the-wordpress-economy-cites-awe-inspiring-numbers/" target="_blank">WPEngine</a>, a digital experience platform for WordPress, has <a href="https://wpengine.com/blog/wp-engine-launches-premier-enterprise-wordpress-platform/" target="_blank">announced</a> the launch of Premier – a new enterprise platform that delivers improved security, performance, and scalability. 
An established <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/wp-engine-releases-worlds-first-study-of-the-wordpress-economy-cites-awe-inspiring-numbers/" target="_blank">leader in managed WordPress hosting and services</a>, WP Engine powers the top 200,000 websites by traffic, making it one of the most trusted brands on the market. Now, with the addition of Premier, the DXP will offer enterprise-grade security for WordPress – a sought-after requirement for many organizations concerned about the risks posed by WordPress. 
As part of their enterprise strategy, WP Engine completed a <a href="https://www.imperva.com/learn/data-security/soc-2-compliance/" target="_blank">SOC 2 Type II</a> examination to ensure that Premier met the highest standards of security and availability. It also features protection from unauthenticated file system access, managed web application firewall (WAF), DDoS mitigation, and encrypted global network routing.
For WP Engine customers, Premier is an island of stability in a sea of open source. The new platform boasts a 99.99% uptime SLA, a global network of data centers, managed CDN, <a href="https://wpengine.com/evercache/" target="_blank">WP Engine Evercache</a> (proprietary front-end caching), and automatic PHP and WordPress updates. This mix could have a dramatic influence on organizations as they consider modernizing and re-platforming on WordPress for enterprise applications. 
"Enterprises need more time focusing on their customers and growing their business, rather than worrying about the security and scale of the technology they use," said Lisa Box, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise for WP Engine.
To learn more about WP Engine's Premier Enterprise WordPress platform, visit the <a href="https://wpengine.com/enterprise/" target="_blank">Premier web page.</a>
<h2>Salesforce and AWS expand partnership with key integrations</h2>
<img style="max-width:770px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/aws-salesforce.jpg" alt="AWS Salesforce logos" />
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/reviews/salesforce-cms-review-evolving-a-crm-powerhouse-into-a-dxp-challenger/" target="_blank">Salesforce</a>, the world's leading CRM platform – and <a href="https://www.aws.com" target="_blank">AWS</a>, the industry's undisputed champion of the cloud – <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2021/06/23/salesforce-aws-partnership-expansion/" target="_blank">announced</a> a significant expansion to their global partnership. 
While the two tech giants have had an existing relationship for some time, they are now offering an enhanced set of capabilities that will make it easier for developers to build and launch custom applications in Salesforce that natively leverage AWS services. This tighter integration will also connect data and workflows securely across both ecosystems.
Custom coding has long been a requirement for integrating AWS and Salesforce, but this expanded offering will enable customers to use both platforms seamlessly through a set of unified capabilities. The companies have also collaborated on new low-code tools to help customers build innovative applications that connect data in real-time between Salesforce applications and AWS services. 
"For more than five years, our customers have benefitted from a tight relationship between AWS and Salesforce. Now, we are taking the partnership to the next level by integrating our offerings so developers using both AWS and Salesforce can build unified applications much faster and simpler than ever before," said <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/andy-jassy-amazons-new-ceo-signals-bold-future-for-loud-and-digital-experiences/" target="_blank">Andy Jassy</a>, CEO of Amazon Web Services. "With this partnership, we are significantly simplifying developers' lives and empowering them to develop applications however they want, from wherever they want globally, at any scale."
You can read all the details of the new capabilities in the <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2021/06/23/salesforce-aws-partnership-expansion/" target="_blank">Salesforce press release</a>.
<h2>Joomla 4 RC 1 and Joomla 3.10 Alpha 8 are here</h2>
<img style="max-width:870px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/joomla4-400-rc1.jpg" alt="Joomla 4" />
The Joomla! Project <a href="https://www.joomla.org/announcements/release-news/5839-joomla-4-rc-3-and-joomla-3-10-alpha-8-are-here.html" target="_blank">announced</a> the availability of the first <a href="https://joom.la/4rc3" target="_blank">Joomla! CMS 4.0 Release Candidate 3</a> and <a href="https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/releases/tag/3.10.0-alpha8" target="_blank">Joomla 3.10 Alpha 8</a>. These releases are aimed at extension and template developers so they can prepare their products for the stable release of Joomla! CMS 4.0. 
Here are a few of the standout features:
Joomla4Accessibility: Accessibility is a must with every modern digital experience, and Joomla! 4 delivers some marked improvements from the ground up. The platform aims for <a href="https://www.w3.org/" target="_blank">W3C Accessibility Guidelines</a> (WCAG) 2.0 with AA compliance – and the layout, contrast, and infrastructure all have accessibility built-in at a foundational level.
Joomla4Speed: Whether a website is focused on e-commerce or static content, speed is one of the top factors impacting conversions. With Joomla! 4, users can benefit from increased load time and performance, which can improve the overall customer experience. 
Joomla4Workflows: Combined with a number of improvements in the media manager, Joomla!'s new workflow and media manager are designed to streamline processes and help users work more efficiently with their content operations. 
Joomla4Emails: From a marketing automation perspective, Joomla! now lets you craft and deliver customized emails with its new templating system, allowing for greater control over branding and formatting.
Joomla4Search: With advanced filtering and indexing, Joomla! 4 boasts a boost to search with its enhanced capabilities.
<h2>OpenText and Hyland named "Leaders" in Content Platforms by Forrester</h2>
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/forrester-wave-content-platforms-2021.gif" alt="Forrester Wave Content Platforms 2021" />
It's hard to believe that it's already Q2 of 2021. Like clockwork, Forrester has issued its quarterly Wave Report for Content Platforms, and both <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/opentext-adds-new-content-services-to-power-modern-work-in-the-cloud/" target="_blank">OpenText</a> and <a href="https://www.hyland.com/" target="_blank">Hyland</a> are battling out the pole position with <a href="https://www.microsoft.com" target="_blank">Microsoft</a>. 
OpenText <a href="https://www.opentext.com/about/press-releases?id=D5A0D9EE2F914B948C0C0722E5F2B23B" target="_blank">announced</a> that its Extended ECM has been named a "Leader" in the <a href="https://www.opentext.com/info/ecm/forrester-wave" target="_blank">Q2 2021 Wave Report,</a> receiving the highest possible scores in the criteria of support for team or project workspaces, packaged applications, integration and interoperability, and lifecycle management.
OpenText's product strategy and focus on enterprise applications have been amplified by its multi-year cloud investment. In April, OpenText also launched its cloud-native SaaS offering, <a href="https://blogs.opentext.com/introducing-opentext-core-content/" target="_blank">Core Content</a>, built on its OT2 platform. All of this is shifting the dynamics in its favor, and Forrester is clearly taking notice – as they are only trailing Microsoft. 
Likewise, Hyland has also been <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/learn/it-programs/forrester-wave-content-services-Q2-2021" target="_blank">named a "Leader"</a> in the report, buoyed by its cloud and innovation strategy and its vertical focus. If you recall, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-enters-agreement-to-acquire-nuxeo/" target="_blank">Hyland purchased Nuxeo</a> in March of this year, giving the platform some extra juice with both enterprise content management (ECM) and digital asset management (DAM) capabilities. 
Hyland is clearly driving digital transformation with a modern and forward-thinking approach, leveraging a cloud-first vision and a variety of scalable cloud offerings – including the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/" target="_blank">Alfresco Digital Business Platform.</a> Additionally, Hyland is gaining ground with its wide array of options, including open platform development, low-code toolkits, and repeatable, specialized industry and departmental solutions. 
<h2>Firecrackers, anyone?</h2>
We prefer bottle rockets, but that's just us. From the entire staff at CMS Critic, we wish you a safe and happy Independence Day.

CMS Monthly Recap: WP Engine Launches Enterprise WordPress Platform, Salesforce and AWS Expand Partnership, and More

Monthly Recap with fireworks in background

<h4>In our exclusive Q&amp;A with Sanity founder and CEO Magnus Hillstead, we discuss the current state of the CMS market, the advantages of headless, and what's ahead for the structured content platform. </h4>
<hr />
After a year of hyper-accelerated digital transformation, the content world might feel a little, well… unruly.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, companies feverishly raced to adapt in a contactless, eCommerce-driven economy, experiencing a decade of acceleration in a matter of months – an effect <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/five-fifty-the-quickening">McKinsey</a> christened as "The Quickening."
At the same time, the reliance on content has exploded. Now, with billions of websites and apps floating in the ether, the task of managing dynamic content and digital experiences across a growing multitude of screens and endpoints has become nearly insurmountable.
But the aptly-named <a href="https://www.sanity.io/">Sanity</a> – a San Francisco/Oslo-based SaaS startup – is betting that their innovative platform for structured content will help bring calm to the chaos.
Today, the company announced that it has raised $39 million in Series B funding, becoming the latest venture in the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tag/headless-cms/">headless CMS</a> and DXP ecosystem to acquire significant investment in recent months. In fact, they just completed their Series A in October of 2020 <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/14/sanity-a-platform-to-build-and-manage-content-flows-on-sites-raises-9-3m-from-ev-williams-threshold-and-more/">for $9.3 million</a>, codifying the confidence around their growth potential.
Over the past year, Sanity has tripled its customer base and doubled its revenues while broadening a portfolio of notable brands, including Unilever, National Geographic, Figma, and others. The company has also doubled the size of its team in the same timeframe.
<h2>A compelling stable of investors</h2>
Founded in 2018, Sanity has experienced a meteoric rise with some impressive investment. This latest round, led by <a href="https://iconiqgrowth.com/">ICONIQ Growth</a> – with additional venture capital from <a href="https://leadedge.com/">Lead Edge Capital</a>, <a href="https://threshold.vc/">Threshold Ventures</a>, <a href="https://www.heavybit.com/">Heavybit</a>, and <a href="https://allianceventure.com/">Alliance Venture</a> – brings Sanity’s total funding to a tidy $51.8 million.
It’s worth noting that ICONIQ Growth General Partner <a href="http://www.pepperspectives.com/p/about-doug-pepper.html">Doug Pepper</a> has joined the board, codifying the overall confidence in their growth potential. Pepper was the first investor in <a href="https://business.adobe.com/products/marketo/adobe-marketo.html">Marketo</a> before its acquisition by <a href="https://www.adobe.com/">Adobe</a> for $4.75 billion in 2018 and has a track record of early bets on strong B2B software players like <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/canva-button-gives-cms-users-integrated-graphic-design-tools-for-visual-content/">Canva</a>, <a href="https://www.braze.com/">Braze</a>, <a href="https://www.datadoghq.com/">Datadog</a> and <a href="https://airtable.com/">Airtable</a>.
“Sanity has created the hero product for building innovative product experiences, with an impressive developer-oriented approach to content delivery and a personalized product experience that breaks down silos for content creators, marketing, and developer teams," said Pepper. "We're excited to support the Sanity team as they enter this next phase of growth.”
<h2>Rethinking CMS in a world of siloed data</h2>
One of the biggest challenges facing brands in the digital age is the gap between customer expectations and reality. According to <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/si/en/pages/strategy-operations/articles/changing-consumer-digital-marketing-impact-Covid-19.html">Deloitte</a>, brands face a challenging disconnect as users access multiple touchpoints throughout the purchase experience. While 75% of customers expect consistent experiences, 58% feel like they’re communicating with a number of different divisions – and not one company.
This lack of cohesion is forcing brands to rethink the role of CMS and embrace a new philosophy around content as data. Sanity’s vision to provide structured content comes as businesses look to redefine their digital customer interactions and break the silos that exist across channels.
Sanity positions itself as a “fast-growing alternative to the traditional CMS,” uniquely treating content as data. By storing resources in their <a href="https://www.sanity.io/docs/datastore">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.
Sanity also enables teams to collaborate on content, design, and code in parallel, allowing them to achieve velocity and ship better products faster. Editors are also able to work more efficiently in customized editing environments built on Sanity’s open source <a href="https://www.sanity.io/docs/sanity-studio">Content Studio</a>, which developers can customize and extend with their own React components.
<h2>Q&amp;A with Magnus Hillstead</h2>
CMS Critic had an opportunity to connect with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/magnushillestad/">Magnus Hillstead</a>, the founder and CEO of Sanity. He shares some of his views on the CMS market, the value of being headless, and what his company is excited about.
<hr />
CMS Critic (CC): How would you describe the overall CMS market in 2021? Where are the gaps from your perspective, and how does Sanity address them?
Magnus Hillstead (MH): In 2021, content is moving beyond websites and mobile applications. Content is reshaping into a web of information that is structured, contextual, and reusable. The CMS industry comes from a web perspective and has partly broadened out to support mobile applications. The rise of JavaScript and new web frameworks has driven a trend of improved customer experience for both marketing and eCommerce. However, as customers are increasingly getting their product experience from digital content, the requirements and opportunities for making amazing customer experiences are growing.
This creates a shift in how organizations work with content. As digital channels become integrated parts of the product experience, the CMS needs to transform to be a part of the product stack and support organizations in extending their product experiences.
We believe that the market has just seen the first increments of a much larger motion. Having content available on an API is table stakes in 2021. Mature digital organizations should require more from their content solutions. Content should no longer be stuck in HTML silos at the edge of organizations, but rather structured, shared and reused across the organization. Organizations should be able to integrate product, customer, and transaction data together with content in order to create better product experiences.
This is the gap Sanity closes. By treating content as data, we fully decouple it from design considerations. Content can be used as a single source of truth for driving product and marketing operations. Rich data models allow faithful integrations of content systems and other data sources, allowing the enrichment and decoration of the content for better customer experiences.
This is what Sanity is all about – high-fidelity data models, real-time event-driven system synchronization, and custom user interfaces for optimal content operations for modern content teams.
<hr />
CC: You mention that Sanity is an alternative to CMS. As an API-driven ecosystem, how would you say Sanity differs from headless CMS platforms?
MH: Sanity treats content as data. Content is structured and programmatically approachable for both reading and writing through real-time APIs. This enables content to be seamlessly interoperated with other sources of truth and used to better express content in context for the various applications and situations organizations communicate to their customers.
Our user interface is open source and meant to be customized and extended by the end-users. Developers can thus create the optimal content model and user interface that the organization needs, fast and with great tools for further development and iteration as their business needs develop.
In a decoupled world, all systems need to be headless, i.e. separate the presentation layer from the content platform. But being headless is not enough. Most headless CMSes are semi-monoliths with code extensions that still treat content as a situation-specific asset, integrating content and design. But they fail to treat content as data and provide a platform that centers around structured content and enables organizations to leverage a programmatic approach to content.
Sanity, therefore, stretches far beyond web content management. We provide a platform for structured content, that enables organizations to treat content as a single source of truth in any application, device, or channel.
By properly separating content from design, you avoid the typical CMS migration every time you want to iterate on your digital surface. Our content platform is meant to be iterated on as your content workflows and digital applications change, without having to rework or migrate the content itself.
<hr />
CC: Would you say Sanity is focused more on the developer as opposed to ContentOps roles, such as marketing?
MH: No, not at all. In fact, Sanity enables developers to create a content platform that bends around the organization, instead of a CMS that the organization has to bend around. This provides much better tools for working with content for the various content creators and organizers.
At Sanity, we believe in finding the general high-level description of what content management systems need to do in organizations. We then carefully express this as high-level APIs that developers can use to build optimal collaborative editing experiences.
Our solution has state-of-the-art multiplayer collaboration, social presence, and per-field rollback where you can see that someone on your team mistakenly changed the hotspot of an image last Wednesday and amend it. All made to enable content creators to collaborate seamlessly as they iterate on content and presentations.
<hr />
CC: As a content platform, how does personalization play into your strategy?
MH: Many of our customers use Sanity to personalize content for their various audiences, and most of the others have plans to do so in the near future.
The rich data models offered by the Sanity Content Lake let content strategists add personalization at exactly the level it is needed. Variants are expressed where you need them, from a single field, to sets of fields to entire documents. As such: personalization is just a special case of content variants like localization or A/B testing.
When it comes to delivering personalization to web users we see a variety of solutions that integrate well with Sanity, from Uniform to Optimizely. Sanity delivers the content and the metadata and seamlessly integrates with such solutions.
<hr />
CC: How are you leveraging AI and automation across your horizon? For example, your asset pipeline and editorial workflows appear to provide some dynamic features. Is AI playing a role here (or elsewhere)?
MH: Sanity is an ideal use case enabled by various forms of AI. As all data is structured and programmatically available, Sanity can handle content and contextual metadata that is key for enabling machine learning.
We do not develop machine learning models for our users out-of-the-box. There is a range of third-party solutions that our users can integrate into their Sanity platform and enable machine learning algorithms on text and images stored in Sanity.
We think that we are only seeing the start of these kinds of solutions and that our key value proposition is to seamlessly integrate with your solution of choice, creating a state-of-the-art platform that enables the best AI for your content.
<hr />
CC: Any innovation on the horizon that you can hint at? What are you most excited about?
MH: We’re excited about a lot of things. We’re excited about how our customers are picking up the idea of content as data and using it to break out of the CMS mode, remove internal silos, and create wider, more holistic digital experiences for their customers. They’re extending their products with digital experiences that drive customer adoption and engagement.
We believe that the world will significantly change its view on what content is and how it should be used in the organization going forward. Content should increasingly be served from a single source of truth and reused across the organization.
We also believe that the future content platform not only powers classic digital presentation layers like web and mobile, but that we will see an increasing use of our content platform as a backend to any application that needs a dynamic, versatile and scalable solution instead of having to build their own in-house.
<h2>About Sanity</h2>
Sanity treats content as data so teams can create transformative digital experiences. Developers use Sanity’s APIs to build optimal editing workflows and share content between systems to increase digital velocity. Our mission is to be the platform for all content - a single place to interconnect, store, author, collaborate, and distribute. Dual-headquartered in San Francisco and Oslo, Norway, Sanity is used by thousands of companies including Unilever, Puma, National Geographic, and Condé Nast. Sanity is backed by ICONIQ Growth, Threshold Ventures, Lead Edge Capital, Heavybit, Alliance Venture, Monochrome Capital, and prominent angel investors like Twitter and Medium co-founder Ev Williams, Netlify co-founder Matthias Biilmann, ex-CEO of Heroku Adam Gross and Vercel founder Guillermo Rauch. Learn more at <a href="http://www.sanity.io">www.sanity.io</a>.

Sanity Raises $39 Million, Focuses Growth on Content as Data for Transformative Digital Experiences

Sanity logo with image of CEO Magnus Hillstead

It's almost officially summer in the Northern Hemisphere. And while some outdoorsy types are packing their Airstreams to do a bit of camping, WordPressians made the virtual hike to <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2021/" target="_blank">WordCamp Europe 2021</a> last week. 
As one of the largest community events in the WordPress ecosystem, WordCamp Europe attracted nearly <a href="https://torquemag.io/2020/06/wordcamp-europe-2020-report/">10,000 registrees from over 140 countries</a> to their first online forum in 2020 (2021 figures are not yet published, but we're anticipating even bigger numbers). Now that we're emerging from Covid, it will be interesting to see how WordCampers migrate to these meetings worldwide in 2022. 
Our staff had a chance to peruse a number of the sessions, and there were some definite standouts. One of the most interesting talks we caught was called <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2021/speaker/robert-jacobi/">"Invisible CMS" by Robert Jacobi</a> (of Joomla fame). There was also a great interview with <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2021/session/conversation-with-marieke-van-de-rakt-of-yoast/">Marieke van de Rakt of Yoast</a> that was timely and relevant. You can catch a lot of the content on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaYQGYDpXpU4A17kxN-AgJQ">WordCamp Europe YouTube channel</a>.
During a packed schedule of fireside chats and presentations, attendees were treated to an update on WordPress 5.8, which is currently in Beta. As of right now, the current target for the final release is July 20, 2021. 
WordPress 5.8 is expected to deliver a host of new features, including more powerful blocks, enhanced editing capabilities, and other <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2021/01/21/big-picture-goals-2021/" target="_blank">big picture goals</a> like Full Site Editing – which was a focus area at WordCamp. We've covered some of the features we're expecting to see below. 
<h3>What is Full Site Editing?</h3>
OK, so <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/handbook/focuses/full-site-editing/">Full Site Editing</a> (FSE) may not be a game-changing new addition to WordPress, but it's another clear signal that WordPress is moving on from editing PHP templates to building websites entirely out of blocks. Full Site Editing is more akin to a "collection" of features that allows you to edit (quite literally) everything on your site. The collection isn't 100% complete, but it's a work in progress for the second phase of Gutenberg. 
FSE involves three main components: Template Editing, Block Themes, and Global Styles.
<h3>Template Editing</h3>
Page Templates are the building blocks of a WordPress site, and they’re composed using PHP. Every theme has its own custom templates such as “Single Page,” “404”, or “Header,” “Footer,” and so on. If you know some HTML and PHP, you can also edit these templates.
WordPress 5.8 is making a bold move by giving users the ability to create their own custom Page Templates by editing their theme template directly. Imagine creating templates entirely out of blocks without having to deal with PHP code. 
Don't imagine it: watch it here in this <a href="https://youtu.be/IdLGO-PzNJ0?t=8896" target="_blank">WordCamp Europe online video</a>. 
<h3>Block Themes</h3>
WordPress 5.8 features new blocks for Page Lists, Site Title, Logo, and Tagline. A powerful Query Loop block offers multiple ways to display posts and comes with new block patterns that take advantage of its flexibility and creative options.
Among the new block features, there is one notable one: the Lists View. This is a panel that can be easily toggled, allowing you see all the blocks in a list form and navigate complex blocks and patterns:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/06/block-list-view.png" alt="Gutenberg Block List View" />
<h3>Global Styles</h3>
Global Styles extend the efforts of Full Site Editing by bringing a higher level of customization to Gutenberg and WordPress. Together, these features enable users to have improved control over aesthetics and layouts beyond the context of single Pages and Posts. Global styles also bring consistency across your website without having to edit individual blocks or pages.
For example, you can select a body background color or change the line-height of all their headings from one place. Styles added to individual blocks will still override the global styles.
The first version of Global Styles has been ported to WordPress core and will be part of the WordPress 5.8 release. Any relevant update will be posted in <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/20331#issuecomment-848685044" target="_blank">this GitHub issue</a> on demand.
<img style="max-width:327px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/06/global-styles-sidebar.png" alt="Global Styles" />
<h3>Additional Highlights in WordPress 5.8</h3>
Here are some other cool features we're expecting from 5.8: 
<ul>
<li>An all-new Widgets screen and updated Customizer, which lets you use any block in your theme’s widget areas</li>
<li>A new template editor that allows you to create custom page templates using blocks</li>
<li>Themes that can control and configure styling with a .json file, including layout configuration, block supports, color palettes, and more</li>
<li>New design tools and enhancements to existing blocks, including more color, typography, and spacing options</li>
<li>Drag and drop features for Cover backgrounds</li>
<li>Additions to block transformation options</li>
<li>The ability to embed PDFs within the File block</li>
<li>Improvements to how the editor is rendered to resemble the frontend more accurately</li>
</ul>
The new Duotone filter is a noteworthy addition to 5.8. It allows you to change the color of an image and add various effects. If you love to use filters on your photos, you’ll get a lot of use out of this:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/06/duotone.gif" alt="Duotone Filter" />
You can read the complete list of new features on the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/06/wordpress-5-8-beta-2/" target="_blank">WordPress news release</a>.
<h2>What’s new in Gutenberg 10.8?</h2>
Gutenberg 10.8 focuses on stability and performance while also introducing enhancements to the Template Editor that enables more design tools for blocks.
<h3>More Typography Options</h3>
Gutenberg 10.8 comes with more typography editing functions, including <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/27510" target="_blank">font-weight for the heading block</a> and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/27510" target="_blank">custom fonts for the List block</a>. As with other design tools, you can configure them in your theme.json file.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/06/font-weights-edited-1.png" alt="Font weight options" />
<h3>Template Editor Enhancements</h3>
Gutenberg 10.8 also introduces a few enhancements to the Template Editor, improving the overall user experience. Now, the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/32037" target="_blank">title area in the Template Editor corresponds to the current post title</a>. Also, the appearance of the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/32042" target="_blank">template details popover</a> has been enhanced with more detailed information and an improved layout. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/06/template-editor-enhnancements.png" alt="Template Editor enhancements" />
You can see the complete list of new Gutenberg 10.8 features and bug fixes over <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/06/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-10-8-9-june/" target="_blank">here</a>.
<h3>Internet Explorer 11</h3>
Ah yes. Our update wouldn't be complete without discussing Internet Explorer. It is, as they say, the end of an era. 
Or <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/05/22/999343673/internet-explorer-the-love-to-hate-it-web-browser-will-die-next-year#:~:text=Microsoft%20is%20officially%20pulling%20the%20plug%20on%20Internet%20Explorer%20in%20June%202022.,-Alexander%20Hassenstein%2FGetty&amp;text=Internet%20Explorer%20is%20nearing%20the,%2C%20buggy%20net%2Dsurfing%20option.">as NPR so elegantly noted</a>, it's "nearing the end of a long and slow death." 
As Microsoft continues its planned retirement of this storied browser – a journey that began 25 years ago – support for IE11 is slowly waning. While the final sunset is planned for <a href="https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2021/05/19/the-future-of-internet-explorer-on-windows-10-is-in-microsoft-edge/" target="_blank">June 15, 2022</a>, WordPress is deprecating its support for IE this year. So if you haven't already, say your goodbyes. 
<h3>More to come for WordPress in 2021</h3>
The WordCamp world is still abuzz from days of drinking the open source kool-aid, particularly in anticipation of the official 5.8 launch. 
In the meantime, if you’d like to test the new 5.8 Beta, you can install the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/" target="_blank">WordPress Beta Tester plugin</a> and activate it. You can find the full set of instructions on how to use the latest Beta version <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/testing/beta-testing/" target="_blank">here</a>. 
Like everything in the world of WP, it bears repeating that the new features like Full Site Editing are still a work in progress. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day – and for a CMS that powers over 40 percent of the web, changes need to be carefully tested for mobile performance, security, accessibility, and so on. 
What's clear is that the various page-building plugin options for WordPress – such as <a href="https://elementor.com/">Elementor</a>, <a href="https://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/divi/">Divi</a>, and <a href="https://www.wpbeaverbuilder.com/">Beaver Builder</a> – have ramped up the innovation and certainly inspired WordPress to improve its own block editor. It's important to remember that when Gutenberg first arrived, it was <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/gutenberg-2-years-later-is-wordpress-better-off/" target="_blank">very green</a> and met with an abundance of criticism. WordPress is definitely listening, and working to make content editing even easier for the non-coding folk who don’t want to rely on a developer. While the editor still has a steep learning curve and is clunky in some areas, it seems that Gutenberg is heading in the right direction.
Now, forget the code and fire up your Coleman grill. It's summertime!

Updates on WordCamp 2021, WordPress 5.8 Beta Details, and Gutenberg Enhancements

Ready to drop your jaw?
<a href="https://wpengine.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WP Engine</a>, a leading <a href="https://wordpress.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WordPress</a> digital experience platform for websites and apps, <a href="https://wpengine.com/wordpress-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">just released a comprehensive study</a> of the “WordPress Economy.”
Simply put: the numbers are staggering.
The research – which was carried out in the US, UK, and Australia – suggests that 41% of the internet is currently built on WordPress, representing over 82 million websites. It also reveals that WordPress powers 35% of the top 10,000 sites by traffic, making it the open source force behind some of the top-performing websites on the planet.
Perhaps the most mind-boggling metrics were from the financial side of the study. According to WP Engine, the economic value of WordPress is estimated to be around $597 billion. As if that wasn’t enough, the research forecasts a 6.5% increase in 2021 – bringing the total value to $636 billion.
That’s over half a trillion dollars.
WP Engine also provided some interesting context in their report. For example: if the WordPress Economy were the market cap of a company, it would rank 10th – making it one of the largest companies in the world, and in the same league as Amazon and Walmart.
And if that example wasn’t shocking enough, try this one on for size: if the WordPress economy were a country, it would rank 39th in the world based on the IMF’s GDP rankings.
<h2>Accelerating digital transformation in the digital economy</h2>
When your head stops spinning, you might ask why and how these numbers escalated to epic proportions. According to the study, the answer can (almost) be summed up in a single word: pandemic. 
According to <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-covid-19-has-pushed-companies-over-the-technology-tipping-point-and-transformed-business-forever" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a study by McKinsey &amp; Company</a>, 36% of all global customer interactions in 2019 happened online – and by 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, that number had ballooned to 58%. In the U.S. alone, digital interactions climbed from 41% to 65% in the same time period.
While the pandemic appears to be waning, its impact will be felt for many years to come – and a new urgency to compete on the digital playing field has become the status quo.
As noted in the WP Engine study, the businesses that pivoted to digital early in the pandemic have emerged successful, and in some cases even thrived. Thanks to flexible, open source software like WordPress, large segments of the economy – from small brick-and-mortar stores to large global brands – have adapted to meet customers’ digital behaviors and demands.
While the "gig economy" was already a well-documented phenomenon, the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated a sweeping shift to remote work. This may have contributed to the overall impact on individual incomes, which were likely elevated by higher demand for digital services. In fact, nearly half of all respondents in the study said that 25% to 100% of their personal income is represented by WordPress – and that users who work with the platform more than 15 hours a week derive 48% of their income from WordPress.
This groundswell of increased WordPress use is tied to an average income increase of 0.1% across all markets, which represents an estimated $610 million impact on the overall economy.
<h2>Understanding the scope of the WordPress study</h2>
Given the explosive growth of WordPress, WP Engine commissioned this study to better understand the breadth, reach, and potential of the ecosystem.
In partnership with research firm <a href="https://www.vansonbourne.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vanson Bourne</a> and the <a href="https://www.gold.ac.uk/institute-management-studies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Institute of Management Studies (IMS) at Goldsmiths University of London</a>, the research was focused on the economic value and social impact of WordPress. The respective firms conducted reviews of academic and industry literature, as well as survey-based valuations of 103 research group members, 400 businesses, and 400 WordPress end users.
The study also included a diverse group of over 100 collaborators and co-marketers representing a cross-section of the WordPress ecosystem that derive revenue from the open source platform.
Based on the results of the study, WP Engine suggests that flexibility, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), and a growing open source community are the key factors that have made WordPress the most popular choice for a wide range of users.
The broader WordPress ecosystem is also a force multiplier. With over 500 hosting providers, 11,000 themes, and 60,000 plugins, WordPress has far surpassed the scope of any other website building platform. And with a CMS market share of nearly 65%, WordPress is nearly unreachable in terms of scale; in fact, the next most-used CMS, Shopify, has only a 5.5% market share.
<h2>A Legacy of WordPress innovation</h2>
Since its launch in 2003, WordPress has grown from a humble blogging engine to the worldwide de facto standard for building and managing websites.
Along the way, WP Engine emerged as a laser-focused WordPress hosting provider, working to make the open source framework more secure, scalable, and trusted – so it can meet the challenges of the digital economy head-on.
With more than 90,000 customers, WP Engine delivers a range of features that help fortify WordPress in key gap areas, providing DDoS mitigation, dev tools, SSL/CDN, backups, and even 24/7 dedicated support.
<h2>What does this study mean for the future of WordPress?</h2>
The power and reach of WordPress is undeniable. In less than two decades, it has shaped the internet in profound ways, and this research codifies its sweeping impact.
What’s abundantly clear is how WordPress has democratized the internet for builders at every level of the market. Once the niche domain of PHP developers and independent bloggers, the platform is now trusted by leading media brands like the <a href="https://wordpress.com/notable-users/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times</a> and public sector entities like <a href="https://wordpress.org/showcase/the-white-house/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The White House</a>.
While open source is undoubtedly one of the biggest advantages to WordPress, it remains one of its most persistent challenges. As companies wrestle with increased security requirements and heightened compliance around data privacy, WordPress struggles with risks from outdated plugins, themes, and other exploitable vulnerabilities.
When it comes to the eCommerce horizon, WordPress also faces growing headwinds from players like <a href="https://www.shopify.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shopify</a> and other services that offer complete solutions. Additionally, the wave of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headless_content_management_system" target="_blank" rel="noopener">headless CMS</a> options continues to grow, providing developers with secure and scalable choices that are more purpose-built for API and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JAMstack</a> applications.
But this is where WP Engine continues to prove its value as an industry-leading platform. Their solution provides an answer to many of the challenges that exist with WordPress, powering more than 1.5 million digital experiences with trusted, managed solutions. While competition continues to increase up and down the CMS and DXP stack, WordPress on WP Engine looks to have a very promising future ahead.
We highly recommend reading this study. But put down your drink first. These numbers are… well… intimidating.
<h2>About WP Engine</h2>
WP Engine, the WordPress technology company, provides the most relied upon and trusted brands and developer-centric WordPress products for companies and agencies of all sizes, including managed WordPress hosting, enterprise WordPress, headless WordPress, Flywheel, Local and Genesis. WP Engine’s tech innovation and award-winning WordPress experts help to power more than 1.5 million sites across 150 countries.

WP Engine Releases World’s First Study of the WordPress Economy, Cites Awe-Inspiring Numbers

Composite illustration of WordPress logo and growth chart with man pointing upwards.

If you've seen <a href="https://www.disneyplus.com/series/the-mandalorian/3jLIGMDYINqD">"The Mandalorian" on Disney Plus</a>, you're probably familiar with the gunslinging protagonist's mantra: This is the way.
In a swirling galaxy of CMS and DXP platforms, <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/?utm_source=prnewswire&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=2021_06_09_series_b_funding" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Contentstack</a> is proving that headless is the way – and gambling big to expand its empire.
Today, the content experience company announced that it has raised <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/announcements/b-stands-for-believe-and-57-5-million/">$57.5 million in Series B financing</a>, making it the latest enterprise platform to tap major investment dollars. Their ambition is clear: fuel international growth, expand an ecosystem of channel and technology partners and accelerate new technology innovation incubating in its labs.
The oversubscribed round was led by <a href="https://www.insightpartners.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Insight Partners</a>, who also piloted the company’s Series A round. Existing investors <a href="https://illuminate.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Illuminate Ventures</a> and <a href="https://gingerbreadcap.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gingerbread Capital</a> also participated, as did new investor <a href="https://georgian.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Georgian</a>. Together, the investment pool brings Contentstack’s total amount raised to $89 million – a healthy sum for financing their competitive goals in an increasingly dense marketplace.
“Contentstack has risen from being the pioneer of headless CMS to establishing itself as an industry leader in its category and we are excited to support its next phase of growth,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/teddie/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Teddie Wardi</a>, Managing Director at Insight Partners and Contentstack board member. “Given our scale, we have a unique vantage point on global trends; Contentstack is tapping into the tailwinds of one of the biggest market shifts we’ve ever seen. Contentstack is indispensable for companies that want to accelerate their digital journey and maximize the business rewards promised by digital transformation.”
<h2>The impact of Covid-19 on digital transformation</h2>
According to <a href="https://www.twilio.com/press/releases/twilio-study-finds-covid-19-accelerated-companies-digital-communications-strategy-by-six-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a recent study from Twilio,</a> COVID-19 was the "digital accelerant" of the decade for many companies, pushing up their digital communications investments by an average of 6 years. Given that, it is no surprise that <a href="https://www.prweb.com/releases/aragon_predicts_the_content_experience_platforms_market_to_reach_28_8_billion_by_2025/prweb17737402.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Aragon Research forecasts</a> the CXP market will grow to $28.8 billion by 2025 (up from $11 billion in 2019). Additionally, 50% of large enterprises are expected to shift to a CXP by the end of 2022 alone.
It's impossible to ignore the impact of Covid-19 on the digital landscape and igniting unprecedented growth. To that end, Contentstack is positioning itself to capitalize on this opportunity by offering modern, <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MACH-based</a> solutions that outperform traditional product suites and legacy technologies.
<h2>Expanding growth with headless CMS</h2>
Since closing its Series A round, Contentstack's headless CMS has experienced over 150% growth across its customer base – and more than doubled the number of Fortune 1,000 companies that have adopted its platform.
"The company’s outstanding results were fueled by unprecedented market demand for powerful digital experiences due to the pandemic, as businesses were compelled to deliver content-rich digital interactions across the spectrum," said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nehasampat/">Neha Sampat</a>, founder and CEO of Contentstack. "In the last year, we have helped leading companies in industries such as retail, financial services, gaming, and travel to create personalized experiences for their customers in order to drive revenue, improve customer satisfaction and build customer loyalty."
New customers include a number of well-known international brands, including Broadcom, Chico’s FAS, HP, La Perla, Leesa Sleep, McDonald’s, and NBC. Because of this growth, the amount of digital content powered by Contentstack grew a staggering 60X over the same time period. Individual customers now serve petabytes of content to their audiences every month – marking significant growth around delivery.
"This round of financing demonstrates that our strategy is paying off, including our core beliefs around equality, customer care, and product innovation," said Sampat. "During a remarkably challenging year, our team delivered impressive results and we are excited to continue this growth trajectory by delivering the best agile CMS platform for a digital-first world.”
One example of Contentstack's recent success is Harbor Capital Advisors, which was experiencing pressure from their marketing team to revamp their website and CMS, estimating it would take a year or more to make updates to their legacy system. They chose Contentstack because it offered a simple, straightforward user interface that didn’t require reading the documentation to use. After implementation, Harbor experienced a 75% reduction in developer time, expanded their content production, and increased site change frequency to weekly and even daily intervals.
<h2>Enhancing UI and investing in AI/ML</h2>
In February, Contentstack launched an elegant <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/contentstack-reimagines-enterprise-content-management-for-new-user-experience/?utm_source=prnewswire&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=2021_06_09_series_b_funding" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new user interface</a>, raising the bar for UI experiences among CMS products and enhancing the visual sophistication of their product. Additionally, with the backing of Georgian – a significant investor in <a href="https://www.temenos.com/news/2020/10/16/kony-is-now-temenos/">Kony (Temenos)</a>, <a href="https://www.shopify.com/">Shopify</a>, and <a href="https://tealium.com/">Tealium</a> – Contentstack plans to add AI and machine learning capabilities across all aspects of its operations, from delivery to customer success operations.
“We are big believers in Contentstack and the leadership team, especially after our conversations with global brands revealed how important Contentstack is to these organizations and how beloved the product is by both business and technical users,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-walsh-15593a11/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Emily Walsh</a>, Lead Investor at Georgian. “Now with access to our technology platform, Contentstack can not only gain operational efficiencies but also supercharge the innovation, experience and support it offers to customers and partners. We are excited to help Contentstack customers leverage AI to gain business advantages through new insights and automation.”
<h2>Q&amp;A with Neha Sampat, CEO of Contentstack</h2>
In our exclusive Q&amp;A with Neha Sampat, we asked key questions about the current state of Content Management Systems, Contentstack's investment in AI, and the roadmap for the future.
CC (CMS Critic): What is your opinion on headless versus traditional or hybrid platforms? NS (Neha Sampat): Traditional CMS represents the past, a world in which the primary (and only) digital channel was the web – and the tighter things were coupled, the faster you could get results. Today, with the rise of many more digital channels, that tight coupling has become a hindrance. Headless represents a new architecture that allows companies to be more agile and to deliver seamless, and rich content experiences. It allows business needs to influence technology decisions, rather than technology dictating business processes. Hybrid in our opinion is a half-step in the right direction. Just like hybrid-cloud has its place, hybrid CMS will find its takers. But the biggest benefits are to be had for digitally ready organizations that can fully embrace the new architecture, which the market is calling MACH – microservices, APIs, cloud-native SaaS and headless.
CC: In your press release, you say that with the backing of Georgian, you'll be investing more in AI across your platform. Can you give us more details? NS: Georgian (our new investor) actually has an incredible track record of leveraging AI in lots of different ways across its portfolio companies, ranging from streamlining go to market operations, to making financial forecasts more predictable, to accelerating customer onboarding, to delivering personalized customer experiences at scale via conversational channels. Within the Contentstack platform itself, there are countless opportunities for self-optimizing algorithms, automation and AI-driven insights to add value and differentiation. We will be exploring all of these aspects and more as part of our new partnership with Georgian. CC: There's been a big shift in the overall marketplace with recent acquisitions to build more integrated offerings, particularly around data services. The most recent examples are <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizely-acquires-customer-data-platform-zaius/">Optimizely acquiring the customer data platform Zaius</a> and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51/">Sitecore acquiring Boxever</a>, a SaaS-based customer data platform providing decisioning and experimentation. How do you see the competitive field changing with large players doubling-down on CDP purchases and enhancing optimization/personalization capabilities? NS: We’ve seen a lot of larger companies try to infuse new technologies into their legacy offerings. Acquiring appropriate technology companies is only a small part of that journey. Integrating offerings from different eras, offering a smooth migration for existing customers, making sure new customers aren’t confused by a cobbled-together product portfolio – all that takes time and doesn’t come without risk. Outside of acquisition sprees, we’ve also seen vendors from different categories partner together in new ways – for example, via industry alliances like the <a href="https://machalliance.org/">MACH Alliance</a> – streamlining their products and even their go-to-market operations. The value to customers is that instead of being limited to the capabilities of any particular vendor, they can benefit from an easily composable technology stack that brings together best-in-class components from all domains. It’s the best of both worlds – with choice and seamless integration no longer being on opposite sides of the table. CC: Are there any exclusive new features that you might have in the pipeline that are worth teasing the market with? Any market applications, industries, or partner channels where you're creating opportunities? NS: Lots and lots in the pipeline – watch this space 🙂
<h2>What's next for Contentstack</h2>
There's no question that Contentstack is on a roll, and under Sampat's keen leadership, poised for more growth. As headless continues to shift the roles and responsibilities for a CMS within a ContentOps strategy, it will be interesting to see how players like Contentstack innovate around the key challenge for every headless platform: the ability to preview experiences.
As <a href="https://preston.so/writing/digital-experience-orchestration-and-the-problem-of-headless-cms-preview/">Preston So</a> observed in his article about digital orchestration, vendors are grappling with a "channel explosion" that continues to evolve. If Contentstack can continue to innovate around these challenges, they might be telling the rest of the headless market: This is the way.
<h2>Recent accolades</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/wr/forrester-wave-report/?utm_source=prnewswire&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=2021_06_09_series_b_funding" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">"Strong Performer" in The Forrester Wave™: Agile Content Management Systems (CMSes), Q1 2021</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.g2.com/categories/headless-cms?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;selected_view=grid&amp;segment=enterprise#grid" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">G2 Grid® for the top Headless CMS Software</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.inc.com/best-workplaces/2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inc. Magazine's "Best Places to Work," May/June 2021</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.customerzone360.com/topics/customer/articles/448274-recipients-the-2021-customer-products-the-year-award.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Customer Magazine's 2021 Product of the Year Award</a></li>
<li><a href="https://atxwoman.com/womans-way/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Woman's Way Business Awards for 2021 Business to Watch</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/contentstack-wins-four-2020-comparably-best-places-to-work-awards-301099999.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Comparably "Best Places to Work" Awards</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>About Insight Partners</h2>
Insight Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software ScaleUp companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight Partners has invested in more than 400 companies worldwide and has raised through a series of funds more than $30 billion in capital commitments. Insight’s mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on software expertise to foster long-term success. Across its people and its portfolio, Insight encourages a culture around a belief that ScaleUp companies and growth create opportunity for all. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit <a href="http://www.insightpartners.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">www.insightpartners.com</a> or follow us on Twitter @insightpartners.
<h2>About Georgian</h2>
Georgian is a fintech company investing in high-growth software companies that harness the power of data in a trustworthy way. At Georgian, we're building a platform to provide a better experience of growth capital to software company CEOs and their teams. Georgian's platform is designed to identify and accelerate the best growth-stage software companies, taking an intelligent, data-first approach to solving the key challenges CEOs face as they grow their businesses. Based in Toronto, Georgian's team brings together software entrepreneurs, machine learning experts, experienced operators, and investment professionals. For more information, visit <a href="https://georgian.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://georgian.io/</a>.
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<h2>About Contentstack</h2>
Contentstack – the pioneering Agile Content Management System (CMS) – empowers marketers and developers to collaborate around content like never before. Together, they can orchestrate superior customer journeys and deliver dynamic digital experiences across channels, audiences, brands, and regions. Companies such as Chase, Express, Holiday Inn, Icelandair, Mattel, McDonald’s, Mitsubishi, Riot Games, Sephora, and Shell trust Contentstack to power their most critical content experiences. Famous for its Care Without Compromise™, Contentstack has the industry’s highest customer satisfaction. As a founder of the MACH Alliance, Contentstack advocates for open and composable technology that is Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless. Learn more at <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/?utm_source=prnewswire&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=2021_06_09_series_b_funding" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.contentstack.com</a>.
</div>
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Contentstack Raises $57.5 Million in Series B Round: Q&A with CEO Neha Sampat

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It would appear that the cows have come home: in a surprising move, Sitecore yesterday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire <a href="https://moosend.com/">Moosend</a>, an e-mail marketing automation and campaign management platform used by a diverse set of customers. This includes leading brands such as Domino’s, Interpublic Group, and Sephora, among others. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of May. 
“Moosend perfectly complements Sitecore’s industry-leading core offering to create a personalization powerhouse for modern enterprises," said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tzikakis/" target="_blank">Steve Tzikakis</a>, the CEO of Sitecore. "Moosend’s state-of-the-art marketing automation and AI-powered customer engagement features will streamline Sitecore’s ability to engage, nurture, and convert customer relationships to deliver personalized experiences across every channel. The combined offering will make it easier for marketers to deploy and measure campaigns and automate workflows across the entire customer journey – a game-changer for <a href="https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/responsible-marketing-with-first-party-data" target="_blank">the majority</a> of brands not yet set up for lifecycle marketing.” 
Acquisitions have become almost commonplace among the leaders in the CMS and DXP categories, particularly with solutions that expand a platform's capabilities around data. According to Sitecore, this move was driven by the ongoing shifts in data-driven personalization – and the risks and challenges posed by privacy. While data is essential to personalization, there are mounting concerns around privacy due to breaches caused by problematic data collection methods. This, along with other factors, have businesses questioning the value of personalization at scale. 
In fact, back in 2019, Gartner <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-12-02-gartner-predicts-80--of-marketers-will-abandon-person" target="_blank">predicted</a> that 80% of marketers would abandon personalization efforts by 2025 due to the increased complexity and a lack of consumer trust. It was a gloomy outlook for both marketers and technology vendors, but clearly on point in a world of scaling data privacy governance. 
Consumers are often unaware of how and when their data is being collected and where it is used. They’re also experiencing overload from increasingly cluttered inboxes and mobile notifications, causing them to ignore even the most carefully customized message. The resulting conundrum has left CMS and DXP platforms struggling with how to serve personalized experiences while meeting the consumer expectation of privacy and trust across multiple dimensions. 
“It’s a paradox of modern times," said Tzikakis. "Consumers expect brands to cater to them as unique individuals, providing a consistent experience everywhere and rewarding loyalty in deeper ways; at the same time, they want privacy first – more control over data, less confusion on how it’s used, and an end to creepy targeting and algorithmically garbled messaging that only a bot would love.” 
Recognizing the depth of the privacy problem, Sitecore aims to facilitate both the modern art and science of earning customer relationships through experiences – to make consenting to data-sharing an afterthought. If they can deliver on this vision, they may have a significant advantage in shaping the future of the industry.
The acquisition of Moosend is just the latest move in Sitecore’s ambitious $1.2 billion growth plan. In a highly publicized purchase less than two months ago, the DXP leader <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51/" target="_blank">acquired</a> two companies on the same day: Boxever, a SaaS-based Customer Data Platform (CDP) providing decisioning and experimentation, and Four51 – a digital commerce pioneer that powers custom, highly scalable e-commerce B2B marketplace solutions. With the addition of Moosend, it appears that Sitecore has amassed everything it needs to deliver a complete, end-to-end SaaS-based digital experience platform – and elevate their competitive posture. 
<h3>About Sitecore</h3>
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 Acquires Moosend, Adds AI-Powered Email Marketing Automation

April brought Spring to many of us. While Covid-19 continues to cast a shadow of uncertainty over the world, it’s safe to say that the digital field is in full bloom.Last month was full of new announcements about upgrades and updates, primarily focused on content teams. Adobe, Contentful, Strapi, and Kentico Kontent all released new features that are designed to break down silos and deliver greater efficiency to users.Here are some of the highlights from the stories we’ve been tracking: <h2>Adobe Introduces Adobe Experience Manager Assets Essentials, Announces New Solutions to Improve E-commerce Experience for Adobe Commerce</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/05/36391-benefits-media-library-essentials2xpngimg_.png" alt="Adobe media library essentials" />Adobe introduced its new <a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-manager/assets/assets-essentials.html">Adobe Experience Manager Assets Essentials</a> – a lightweight edition of <a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-manager/assets/aem-assets.html">Adobe Experience Manager Assets</a>. It offers a simplified user experience for marketing and creative pros to store, discover, and distribute digital assets across their teams. Assets Essentials will serve as the default asset management experience across Experience Cloud apps, starting with the new Adobe Journey Optimizer and later this year with Adobe Workfront.The new Assets Essentials provides a centralized workspace for the asset repository to store, share, and manage images, videos, documents, and other assets. It allows teams to create, assign, track, review, and approve tasks in a collaborative workspace. And of course, being an Adobe product, it supports all file types including full-sized Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, XD, and more.On the same day, Adobe also announced new capabilities for <a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/magento/magento-commerce.html">Adobe Commerce powered by Magento</a> (formerly Magento Commerce) that extend the intelligence of features like Product Recommendations and Live Search. An upcoming integration with <a target="_blank" href="https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/sign.html">Adobe Sign</a> means a more seamless commerce experience for any transactions that require e-signatures as part of the checkout process. <h2>The Digital World Mourns the Passing of Chuck Geschke, Co-found of Adobe and Father of the PDF</h2>There are many icons in the computer and software world, and some of the earliest pioneers have made significant contributions that we take for granted every day. One such notable creation: the ubiquitous Portable Document Format, otherwise known as the PDF.Today, we pay homage to Charles “Chuck” Geschke, the co-founder of Adobe, who died on April 16th at the age of 81. Not only did he help develop the PDF, but he drove innovation across desktop publishing, turning Photoshop into a cultural Webster’s reference – and Adobe into a powerhouse. Chuck radically changed the way people create, view, and share documents and images, and his impact cannot be overstated.Farewell to the Father of the PDF, and one of the great digital innovators of all time. <h2>Contentful Unveils New Features and Partner Apps at Second Annual Blueprints Conference</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/05/contentful-logo-dark.png" alt="Contentful logo - dark" /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/">Contentful</a>, a leading enterprise headless CMS provider, <a target="_blank" href="https://press.contentful.com/197449-contentful-unveils-new-features-and-partner-apps-at-second-annual-blueprints-conference">announced</a> the release of new features and partner-built apps at its second annual <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/blueprints-2021/">Blueprints</a> user conference.The new features include <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/blog/2021/04/08/governance-tagging-metadata/">tags and permissions</a> that provide content teams greater flexibility and control over how they organize, find, and edit content – and manage permissions across the organization.These platform enhancements build on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/blog/2021/03/16/launch-compose-release/">the recent release of Compose + Launch</a> – two new Contentful apps that allow content authors, editors, and planners to adapt and publish content independently without having to rely on developer resources.Contentful also announced the release of several partner-built apps in the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/marketplace/">Contentful Marketplace</a>, including an app built by digital services provider <a target="_blank" href="https://portaltech.reply.com/portaltech/en/">Portaltech Reply</a> that connects Contentful with SAP Commerce Cloud – enabling businesses to adapt quickly to changing market conditions to deliver direct-to-consumer and omnichannel experiences.Other recently released partner-built apps for Contentful extend the platform's capabilities across personalization, e-commerce, translations, and video, including Uniform Optimize, Saleor Commerce, GlobalLink Connect by Translations.com, and Qencode Video Transcoding.Contentful recently earned the highest score possible in the partner ecosystem criterion – along with five other criteria – in the recent <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/resources/forrester-wave-agile-cms-2021-report/">Forrester Wave™ Report for Agile Content Management Systems (CMSes)</a>. <h2>Crownpeak and ilumino Announce Strategic Partnership to Advance Digital Accessibility</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/crownpeak_ilumino.jpg" alt="Crownpeak and ilumino logos in lockup format." /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.crownpeak.com/">Crownpeak</a>, a digital experience platform (DXP), <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/crownpeak-and-ilumino-announce-strategic-partnership-to-advance-digital-accessibility/">has announced</a> a strategic partnership with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ilumino.co/">ilumino</a>, a digital accessibility services and consulting firm. The two companies will offer an integrated solution that helps improve digital experiences for users with disabilities while evolving accessibility strategies for organizations.Together, Crownpeak and ilumino offer a single, integrated approach that evolves the accessibility model. The solution combines Crownpeak’s DQM technology, providing automated and ongoing scanning and auditing against WCAG guidelines, with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ilumino.co/solutions/">ilumino’s expert services</a> – which focuses on nurturing a company’s “culture of accessibility.”Some noteworthy highlights of the Crownpeak + ilumino solution include:<ul><li>Accessibility and compliance dashboard – providing a “single source of truth” for automated and manual accessibility monitoring</li><li>Automated site scanning (enriched by manual testing) – enterprise-grade, multi-site scanning technology</li><li>Manual testing and consulting – performed by certified accessibility experts</li><li>In-house or guided remediation – tailored to each organization’s unique design and development workflows</li><li>Ongoing support – ensuring sustained compliance through a proactive approach</li><li>Accessibility pattern library – simplifying remediation and establishing long-term organizational assets</li><li>Litigation support – with expert review and consulting on any accessibility-related legal actions received</li><li>Accessibility statement – drafted to demonstrate an organization’s commitment to digital inclusion</li><li>Enterprise strategy – assisting with a prioritized roadmap and risk management</li></ul> <h2>Strapi Headless CMS Announces v3.6 with Free Content Internationalization</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/i18n-2.png" alt="content internalization" />Strapi, a leading open-source headless CMS, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/strapi-headless-cms-announces-v3-6-with-free-content-internationalization/">has announced</a> the release of Strapi v3.6, which includes a highly anticipated content internationalization (i18n) feature as part of their Community Edition. Now, Strapi users will have the ability to create and manage content in multiple languages and locales for free and without limitations – and personalize messages delivered to target audiences based on language and geographic data.Leveraging integrations with Strapi’s draft and publish system and role-based access control, users will be able to manage their editing and publishing permissions based on specific locales. With Strapi’s internationalization, content is displayed for each locale based on content types. For example, if a company has an e-commerce website, they can select which product pages are displayed in French, Portuguese, or Mandarin. This level of localization is what enables a global digital strategy to work across borders and languages.In our exclusive discussion with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorcoisne/">Victor Coisne</a>, Strapi’s Vice President of Marketing, it’s clear that internationalization was a big part of the CMS vendor’s roadmap, and of significant importance to their growing base of global users. <h2>Kentico Kontent Gets a Fresh New User Interface, Adds Features to Streamline Enterprise Content Operations</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/kentico-new-ui-1.png" alt="The new Kentico content UI" />Kentico Kontent, a headless CMS, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/kentico-kontents-new-user-interface-streamlines-enterprise-content-operations/">announced</a> the launch of their new user interface, designed to help enterprise content teams execute their content operations faster.The new UI has a fresh, modern design approach that fuses an array of vibrant colors with plenty of contrast to emphasize important elements.Kentico Kontent also unveiled new upgrades in their latest release, including the Collections feature – which lets enterprises manage all their content in a single repository, allowing the content to be shared across teams and channels without losing any control.With the Collections feature, teams can share content items across departments, websites, and experiences to ensure consistency and eliminate error-prone duplication. The goal is to improve efficiency and minimize the frustration that many enterprise content teams experience.

CMS Monthly Recap: Adobe Experience Manager Assets Essentials, Contentful Unveils New Features, Crownpeak Announces Partnership, and More

<a href="https://www.crownpeak.com/">Crownpeak</a>, a digital experience platform (DXP), has just announced a strategic partnership with <a href="https://www.ilumino.co/">ilumino</a>, a digital accessibility services and consulting firm. The two companies will offer an integrated solution that helps improve digital experiences for users with disabilities while evolving accessibility strategies for organizations.
The “Crownpeak + ilumino” solution combines Crownpeak’s automated accessibility scanning technology with ilumino’s deep subject matter expertise in online accessibility. It also addresses a key gap that exists with many CMS and DXP platforms: access to human-powered testing and remediation.
While the announcement was made today, the joint solution is already in use by several billion-dollar corporations, including a tech-enabled business services firm, a major U.S. insurance company, and a global top 10 consumer packaged goods company that operates in 190 countries and has hundreds of brands.
<h2>The growing demand for digital accessibility</h2>
With more than <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/business-case/">1 billion people</a> worldwide living with some form of disability, it’s more important than ever for organizations to deliver inclusive digital experiences. This need has been elevated during the Covid-19 pandemic as more consumers turned to digital channels to connect and transact. Accessibility is now a key imperative for brands, requiring websites and apps to accommodate for users with vision, hearing, mobility, cognitive, and other disabilities.
Crownpeak’s <a href="https://www.crownpeak.com/products/digital-quality-management/web-accessibility">Digital Quality Management</a> (DQM) technology represents a deeper investment from CMS and DXP platforms around digital equality. With these types of built-in scanning resources, organizations can deliver consistent digital experiences across an expanding array of digital touchpoints, from websites to mobile apps to the Internet of Things (IoT).
But as is often the case, technology is not enough. In fact, many tools require manual human insight to identify false positives and whitelist contextual issues. There are also a myriad of governance and compliance issues that limit the ability of any tool to solve problems on its own.
Crownpeak also says that most organizations take a “disjointed approach” to their accessibility. While content teams might adhere to standards and best practices – including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (<a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/">WCAG</a>) or  – they depend on basic browser plug-ins and third-party testers to generate one-time reports. This reflects a limited focus on remediation versus a long-term strategy around accessibility and content quality.
<h2>The Crownpeak + ilumino Solution</h2>
Together, Crownpeak and ilumino offer a single, integrated approach that evolves the accessibility model. The solution combines Crownpeak’s DQM technology, providing automated and ongoing scanning and auditing against WCAG guidelines, with <a href="https://www.ilumino.co/solutions/">ilumino’s expert services</a> – which focuses on nurturing a company’s “culture of accessibility.” ilumino also brings a seasoned practice around accessibility planning and strategy, so customers can unlock the value of their investment while meeting critical compliance benchmarks.
“All too often, when it comes to accessibility testing, companies receive ‘one-and-done’ reports on violations – with no real consideration of the company’s technical resources or its ability to actually act on the findings,” said Mark Reardon, CEO at ilumino. “So benefits achieved are often just temporary. Crownpeak + ilumino offers a better solution and, importantly, a path toward continual compliance. Our partnership combines the scalability of Crownpeak's software platform with our expert manual consulting services. Together, we offer organizations a global solution for their digital monitoring and compliance needs – all within the unique confines of their established branding and marketing, and all aimed at providing more inclusive digital experiences.”
By combining the speed and power of Crownpeak’s tools with the essential human side of ilumino’s accessibility testing and consulting, the partnership delivers a more complete solution for advancing digital accessibility. Additionally, the pairing brings best-of-breed capabilities to content operations, enabling teams to deliver more accessible user experiences while maintaining cohesive brand guidelines and business practices.
“Making the web more accessible to all is an imperative everyone can agree on – but challenges related to cost, complexity and knowledge gaps often hold companies back,” said Chris Sigala, general manager of Crownpeak’s Digital Quality Management business. “Crownpeak + ilumino resolves these issues. We’re encouraged by the results we’ve seen from the partnership in a relatively short amount of time – as large organizations are realizing immense value and impact by leveraging the strengths of both organizations in powering their digital accessibility programs.”
<h2>Key features</h2>
Some noteworthy highlights of the Crownpeak + ilumino solution include:
<ul>
<li>Accessibility and compliance dashboard – providing a “single-source of truth” for automated and manual accessibility monitoring</li>
<li>Automated site scanning (enriched by manual testing) – enterprise-grade, multi-site scanning technology</li>
<li>Manual testing and consulting – performed by certified accessibility experts</li>
<li>In-house or guided remediation – tailored to each organization’s unique design and development workflows</li>
<li>Ongoing support – ensuring sustained compliance through a proactive approach</li>
<li>Accessibility pattern library – simplifying remediation and establishing long-term organizational assets</li>
<li>Litigation support – with expert review and consulting on any accessibility-related legal actions received</li>
<li>Accessibility statement – drafted to demonstrate an organization’s commitment to digital inclusion</li>
<li>Enterprise strategy – assisting with a prioritized roadmap and risk management</li>
</ul>
<h2>What’s next for accessibility?</h2>
The partnership between Crownpeak and ilumino crystallizes the importance of digital equality for organizations, but it also represents a more evolved approach to accessibility. While meeting WCAG, ADA and AODA can help businesses mitigate risk and avoid lawsuits, we need a deeper understanding of what accessibility means to a diverse audience of consumers. Further, CMS and DXP platforms will require continuous investment in their “accessibility readiness” – and for now, that requires a balance of human support and insight.
That said, the accessibility landscape continues to shift. While the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990, it made no mention of websites or mobile apps. No one could have predicted their future ubiquity or importance, but the omission continues to plague the legal system. Despite having a working draft of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/wcag-3.0/">W3C’s WCAG 3.0 guidelines</a>, the U.S. courts (among others) haven’t adopted clear laws or policies when it comes to digital accessibility.
In fact, this week, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a <a href="https://static.reuters.com/resources/media/editorial/20210408/gil--trialcourt.pdf">2017 trial-court ruling against Winn-Dixie</a> stores by a visually-impaired customer, concluding that their websites were not a “public accommodation” as the ADA defines the term. The ruling succeeds at creating further confusion, which is precisely why expertise from consultants like ilumino is so essential.
If you're interested in learning more, Crownpeak and ilumino will discuss their partnership during a webinar, “<a href="https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7241109117052532235?source=PR">Getting Started on Your Digital Accessibility Journey</a>, on May 19, at 11 a.m. ET, where they will provide practical, actionable steps for creating and executing an effective digital accessibility program.
<h2>About ilumino</h2>
POWERING DIGITAL INCLUSION. ilumino is a digital accessibility company driven by a passion to help create a more inclusive online world through compliant technology that everyone can enjoy. A user-focused approach makes the accessibility of websites, software or mobile applications, documents, and digital platforms straightforward, scalable, and complementary of established branding. Custom solutions and expert services render lasting results by focusing on usability as well as compliance. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.ilumino.co">www.ilumino.co</a>.
<h2>About Crownpeak</h2>
Crownpeak provides the leading digital experience platform. The industry’s only true SaaS-based solution, Crownpeak offers best-in-breed capabilities that empower companies to create, deploy and optimize omnichannel digital experiences – faster and easier than ever, and with zero infrastructure to maintain. Crownpeak also provides built-in solutions for digital governance and digital quality management. Relied on by the world’s top brands, these solutions make it easy for organizations to address WCAG and ADA accessibility compliance across their digital properties – while improving SEO, reducing bounce rates, increasing brand equity, and enhancing user experiences. With Crownpeak, companies can deliver high-impact, trust-building, accessible experiences at scale – improving engagement, loyalty and revenue. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com">www.crownpeak.com</a>.

Crownpeak and ilumino Announce Strategic Partnership to Advance Digital Accessibility

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