Articles - Page 49

Bland Brands Beware: Optimizely’s New Identity Brings Human Creativity to its Agentic AI and AEO Ambitions

matt-garrepy

Adobe has announced the arrival of <a href="https://spark.adobe.com" target="_blank">Adobe Spark</a>, a web-integrated mobile solution for creating social graphics, web stories and animated videos.
The web and mobile app hybrid let users whip up images and videos for use on social media, or within their marketing campaigns. As for the web stories, these are essentially one-page-style websites that can be built in a matter of minutes.
Adobe claims that the app is ideal for small businesses, bloggers, marketers, and students.
<h2>Adobe App Unification</h2>
Adobe Spark is basically the end result of a unification process. To make Adobe Spark, Adobe has combined and re-released; Adobe Post, Adobe Slate, and Adobe Voice.
Here's a video put together by Adobe, introducing their latest project:
<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ZWEVOghjkaw" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Here's a further break down of what <a href="https://youtu.be/ZWEVOghjkaw" target="_blank">Adobe Spark</a> consists of:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://spark.adobe.com/">Adobe Spark web app</a>: a browser-based web experience for creating social posts and graphics, web stories and animated videos.</li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-spark-post-create-stunning/id1051937863?mt=8">Spark Post</a>: an iOS mobile app that enables anyone to create stunning social posts and graphics in seconds. (previously Adobe Post)</li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/id/app/adobe-spark-page-create-stunning/id968433730?mt=8&amp;ign-mpt=uo%3D4">Spark Page</a>: an iOS mobile app that helps users create beautiful web stories. (previously Adobe Slate)</li>
<li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-spark-video-easily-create/id852555131?mt=8">Spark Video</a>: an iOS mobile app that enables users to create compelling animated videos in minutes. (previously Adobe Voice)</li>
</ul>
<h2>Hands-on With Adobe Spark</h2>
I took Adobe Spark's web app for a short spin, and I liked what I saw. With the app, users can add captions to images, create videos, and tell a story about their brand's journey.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-4.png" alt="Adobe Spark Dashboard" />
I decided to create a social graphic. Adobe spark prompted me to choose a caption, and then an image size. Image sizes were pre-optimized for Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and other social networks.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-2.png" alt="Adobe Spark interface" />
I ended up making a simple yet motivational image that's perfect for Instagram. And it took me a matter of seconds.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-3.png" alt="Adobe Spark interface" />
The user interface was smooth and speedy, while the customization options were vast. Adobe has packed Spark full of pre-designed fonts and themes that your message just slots into. The hard work has already been done.
For now, Adobe is only catering to iOS users – but I'm sure they will expand to Android before long.
My verdict? For a free app that's accessible on iOS and through my browser – it's fantastic.
I have no doubt that Adobe Spark will help boost the creativity of brands that rely heavily on image-based social networks like Instagram and Pinterest.
To find out more about Adobe Spark, <a href="https://spark.adobe.com/" target="_blank">visit the app's dedicated website</a>.
You can also explore more of Adobe's solutions through our directory hubs for; Adobe Business Catalyst, Adobe Analytics, and Adobe Experience Manager.

Hands-on With Adobe Spark: Social Graphics, Web Stories & Animated Videos

mike-johnston

<a href="https://www.cubecart.com/" target="_blank">CubeCart</a> has announced that all previous, current and future versions of its software will be under GPL 3.0 licence. Put simply, CubeCart is now open source.
Plus, the popular eCommerce platform has released its first beta for CubeCart version 6, along with a brand new <a href="https://www.cubecart.com/extensions" target="_blank">Extensions Marketplace</a>. It's fair to say that the CubeCart team has been hard at work over the last few weeks and months. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/1634_1634_37_37_cubecart_logo210.jpg" />
<h2>Going Open Source</h2>
Now that CubeCart is fully open source, developers can start to really get their hands dirty with some CubeCart coding, building extensions and designig templates. The move should guarantee a much brighter future for CubeCart as far as flexibility and extendability is concerned.
Developers wishing to sell or distribute their CubeCart extensions and templates can do so via the <a href="https://www.cubecart.com/extensions/seller/login" target="_blank">Sellers log in page</a> for the Extensions Marketplace. 
CubeCart's open source future does come with a price though, for technical support anyway. Enterprise Support is what's being offered, and it starts from £21 per month, which is roughly  $32.
<h2>CubeCart 6: The Details</h2>
CubeCart have called version 6 of their product, “a whole new philosophy for online commerce.”
Of course, CubeCart 6 is still in its early stages, but let's take a look at what's on offer anyway.
<ul>
<li>Strictly no bloatware. CubeCart v6 ships with no extensions with the aim to make it as lightweight and as optimized as possible. Extensions can be easily installed, upgraded or downgraded by copying and pasting a “token” generated from the extensions marketplace.</li>
<li>Extensions such as payment gateways, shipping rate calculators, skins etc now have individual version releases which means updates can get to you faster than having to wait and upgrade your store entirely.</li>
<li>CubeCart v6 ships with one (intentionally basic looking) responsive theme powered by the brilliant <a href="http://foundation.zurb.com/">Foundation Framework</a>. Users are encouraged to customise it themselves or to grab an off the shelf skin from the marketplace.</li>
<li>Performance enhancements like improved caching is enabled by default and the homepage should have just three lightweight MySQL queries after the cache is built.</li>
<li>Tweaks have been made to existing features such as dynamic product options on the manual order builder and improvements to the product import tool.</li>
<li>All templates &amp; extensions for v5 are forward compatible with CubeCart version 6.</li>
</ul>
To find out more about CubeCart's recent announcements, <a href="http://forums.cubecart.com/topic/49092-cubecart-v6-beta-launched-all-versions-now-open-source/" target="_blank">check out theri official announcement, made via their community forum</a>.

CubeCart Goes Open Source, Launches V6 Beta & Extensions Marketplace

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/episerver_partner_portal_2-01.png" alt="Episerver_partner_portal_2-01" />
According to <a href="http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/">channelpartersonline.com</a>, 80% of partner portals don’t live up to channel partners’ expectations, as employees don’t regard them as effective everyday tools to sell their vendors’ products.
Usually, partner portals fail because they:
<ul>
<li>Are not user-friendly, i.e. navigation or search is so complicated that a vendor management might seek help from support to find the needed page.</li>
<li>Don’t engage partners through communication and help, e.g. do not encourage them to ask questions on business-related issues or share insights on the community board.</li>
<li>Don’t offer useful tools that can help salespeople to support sales, e.g. generate a customized proposal or calculate ROI.</li>
</ul>
In my <a href="https://www.scnsoft.com/blog/how-to-engage-channel-partners-with-a-portal">recent blog post</a>, I outlined several tips on how to reverse these flaws and start engaging partners for better sales.
Now, let’s get to the technical aspect of creating an actionable partner portal, which first of all boils down to choosing a capable CMS.
Serving established enterprises that seek to increase sales through partnerships, we at <a href="https://www.scnsoft.com/">ScienceSoft</a> prefer the commercial <a href="https://www.scnsoft.com/episerver">Episerver</a> platform, and here’s why.
<h2>Engage Multiple Employees in One Company</h2>
To encourage the existing partners to sell more through your partner portal, you should engage not only their vendor managers but also other employees who can influence an end customer’s purchase decision, i.e. sales reps, marketing specialists and tech people.
Episerver allows adding to a company account multiple employees as users with predefined roles, including an administrator who will be able to manage members (create, edit or delete).
<h2>Tailor Content to Every Employee</h2>
With Episerver, you can personalize virtually any type of content – from on-page information such as a text, image or block to a set of pages or sections to be shown to a visitor depending on their role.
This way, you will make sure that a sales rep and a tech specialist will find their shortest ways to the required information without wading through tons of generic content.
<h2>Improve Your Portal on the Go</h2>
Episerver offers an open and layered architecture so that you won’t need to go through a full-blown portal redesign while changing or expanding your information structure, be it introducing a community board or building advanced search-based navigation.
<h2>Offer Handy Interactive Tools</h2>
Working with multiple partner portals, employees will naturally stick to the most convenient ones. The Episerver CMS will help you to stand out from your competitors by implementing useful tools such as:
<ul>
<li>Marketing material customizer to change logos, prices and contacts</li>
<li>Configurators and calculators for products with options</li>
<li>Reports on sales, and others</li>
</ul>
<h2>Winding It Up</h2>
A convenient partner portal that serves relevant content to all of your partners’ employees engaged in sales becomes an everyday helper and eventually boosts sales.
The question is, can your CMS ensure the necessary level of personalization and usability? If you are only thinking about creating a partner portal or willing to redesign the existing solution, we recommend to consider Episerver as a proven option.

A Look at Episerver as a Partner Portal Platform

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wordpress-intranet-theme638x0-is.jpg" />
We’ve all used it in some way, shape, or form. In fact, up to <a href="https://managewp.com/statistics-about-wordpress-usage">26% of websites</a> worldwide are powered by WordPress, making it one of the most popular content management systems globally. For many uses, WordPress is a fantastic choice. It’s aesthetically pleasing, easily customizable, and up and running in no time. However, it’s also easy to fall into the trap of thinking that WordPress is the best system for all your online needs—when in fact, this is not always the case. Here we to look at some of the downsides of using a WordPress intranet theme as an intranet solution and suggest a better alternative.
<h2>Lots Of Options, Lots Of Headaches</h2>
One of the big attractions to WordPress is the vast array of plugins and different themes that it offers users. It seems as though there is a plugin to serve every purpose under the sun—over 40,000 of them! When creating a blog (WordPress’s core purpose), these can be great. However, many users find that the sheer range and complexity of plugins are a real headache.
For example, imagine that you’re looking to have a document sharing center and a staff calendar as part of your WordPress intranet. These would both require plugins, which would seem like a straightforward task. The issue is, WordPress plugins are supplied by thousands of different developers, meaning that you’re likely to end up with two different plugins, run by different suppliers. What does this mean for you? Most likely different support policies, varying schedules for updates, differing mobile compatibility, and a completely different look and feel. Overall? Messy.
Having such a range of plugins to choose from may seem like an intranet heaven, but it’s far from it. They clutter and complicate your intranet, adding unnecessary third parties and creating a disjointed experience. If you’re looking for a great intranet design to engage your staff, WordPress may be the intuitive choice, but it’s not the logical one.
<h2>Using A Blogging Site… For Intranet</h2>
If you choose to use WordPress to create your intranet, what you’re doing is using a blogging website, for an intranet. As much as WordPress tries to appeal to broader purposes than its initial target market of bloggers, at the end of the day, it’s still a blogging tool.
With this in mind, WordPress has not been designed in the same way that an intranet solution will have been. Some of the typical features you may wish for your intranet to have, such as different levels of access to different pages, may actually be rather difficult to create in practice. Inevitably, the answer for everything on WordPress is plugins—but as we already know, these come with their own set of issues. Often we find that an intranet with all the necessary features takes a painfully long time to load on WordPress, purely because of the quantity of plugins that must be loaded with every new page. Contrast this to an intranet hosted on software specifically designed for intranet, and the difference is remarkable.
<h2>Support Responsiveness, What’s That?</h2>
An intranet is all about engagement. It’s designed to enhance engagement, and its success pivots around staff engagement. That’s why one of the most important features of an intranet provider is their service—their ability to dive in and fix problems immediately before staff get apathetic and begin disengaging with the platform.
Unfortunately, this level of responsiveness is simply not present in WordPress intranets. For starters, issues are more likely to occur, given the number of plugins needed to run the necessary features of an intranet. Importantly though, there’s no one provider with a service agreement. As we’ve touched on, different plugins are run by different suppliers, often individuals. If your document sharing center crashes, your staff may have reverted back to paper-based systems before Gary from Albuquerque has responded to your calls.
<h2>To Build, Or To Buy?</h2>
One of the questions that always comes up early on in a discussion about intranet implementation is “Should we build our own? Or buy one off the shelf?” It can be tempting, particularly for large companies with well-resourced IT teams and servers, to build an intranet solution to meet the bespoke needs of their company. This can come with a few pitfalls, however:
<ul>
<li>Creating your own bespoke intranet can be deceptively time and labor intensive</li>
<li>Housing a server requires a physical space</li>
<li>Ongoing management, maintenance and security the server and intranet become your sole responsibility</li>
</ul>
So, why not buy an off-the-shelf WordPress intranet solution? It’s cost effective, quick to set up and easy to manage, but beyond this, it’s not all plain sailing. Firstly, you’ll have to host the solution yourself unless you are going pay to host it in the cloud. The cost for hosting with the performance level needed for a stable intranet alone will be the same as paying for a cloud intranet that's ready to go. Secondly, you’ll have a restricted level of functionality, depending on the provider’s development schedule. Thirdly, you’ll likely find that after a couple of years, a new solution is required, if you choose a cloud intranet solution, then it will stay up to date with current trends.
To truly make the most of a <a href="http://www.myhubintranet.com/wordpress-intranet">WordPress intranet</a>, you’ll need someone on your team who has a thorough knowledge of WordPress. Technical expertise in CSS is necessary too, which is often not available in small to medium-sized organizations. Even if it is, it comes at a cost—and is building an intranet, on a blogging website, really the best use of that resource?
<h2>Security Alert!</h2>
WordPress websites are notorious for security concerns. Given the overwhelming popularity of WordPress globally for its core offerings, it’s naturally vulnerable to SQL injections, hacking, and other unwanted attention. No doubt WordPress is working hard to address these concerns in their updates, however, at the end of the day responsibility for security lies with you. That means if you want cutting-edge security features, such as SSL, you’ll need to set those up yourself.
<h2>WordPress Intranet Theme? </h2>
We love WordPress, just not for an intranet.
So, what’s the alternative? We believe it’s a cloud intranet solution. Some cloud intranets have several advantages over WordPress, such as:
<ul>
<li>No requirement for specific technical knowledge</li>
<li>Easily customizable, pre-tested templates and features</li>
<li>Easy to set up, guided site builder process</li>
<li>Mobile responsiveness</li>
<li>Secure external hosting using industry-leading online security features</li>
<li>Straightforward ongoing management for users and content</li>
<li>High availability and uptime (approx. 99.99%)</li>
<li>Fully integrated platform, and no need for plugins</li>
<li>Responsibility for updates and backups remains with the provider</li>
</ul>
Ultimately, if your business wants an intranet that doesn’t compromise on functionality or service, that your staff can be engaging with within hours, then consider a cloud intranet. Doesn’t it make sense to choose a solution that has been specifically designed for the purpose in mind, rather than a cobbled together set of plugins on a platform originally designed for an entirely different use?
Get in touch with us at MyHub if you’d like to know more about cloud intranets. MyHub is the premier cloud intranet choice for hundreds of businesses of different sizes and in different markets across the globe. Contact us today for a <a href="https://www.myhubintranet.com/book-demo/">free intranet demo</a> and to find out why.

WordPress Intranet Theme vs Cloud Intranet Provider?

<a href="https://automattic.com/">Automattic</a>, the parent company of WordPress, has announced that .blog domains will be available for everybody sometime during 2016.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pr_sharable.jpg" alt="pr_sharable" />
According to <a href="https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/coming-soon-new-blog-domains-for-websites/">Automattic's announcement</a>, they have recently secured the rights to oversee and operate the sale and registration of .blog domains, a new and never-before available top-level domain.
<h2>.blog For All</h2>
Webmasters will be able to purchase .blog domains at <a href="https://wordpress.com/">WordPress.com</a> as well as through Automattic's partner domain name registrars (somehow <a href="/123-reg-deletes-customer-websites/">I doubt that 123-reg will be on the list</a>).
This means that .blog isn't dependent on WordPress. Even if you're running a Joomla website, a .blog domain could soon be yours to use as you wish, just like a .com.
Automattic themselves made a bolder comparison to .com domains, stating that the .blog domain extension will give people an alternative:
<blockquote>
For years, .com was the dominant choice for website names, but it’s become increasingly difficult to find a name. With a top-level domain like .blog, you can get a name that truly matches your identity. Plus, you’ll get all the same benefits with Google search results.
</blockquote>
<h2>What Does This Mean for Blogging?</h2>
There's no doubting the influence that Automattic has on the blogosphere. It has become a cliche statistic, but through WordPress, Automattic powers almost a quarter of the Internet's websites (the CMS' of which we have knowledge of).
But will this change the face of blogging? Probably not.
Will we see people using .blogs for anything other than small and personal websites? Will it rival .com domains and become as widely used? I don't even think Automattic believes that.
But still, it's exciting, tempting – and about damn time, too.
After all, with tacky domain extensions like .guru and .cash flying around, I'm surprised it's taken until 2016 to see .blog make an entrance.
Will you be picking up a .blog domain? Let me know in the comments section below.

Automattic Set to Launch .Blog Domains: A New Blogging Horizon?

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

Piwik Review - An Open Source Web Analytics Tool

<a href="http://www.ibm.com/us-en/">IBM</a> announced the expansion of their product portfolio today, bringing in new “cognitive technologies” to bolster their <a href="http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/category/real-time-personalization">Real-Time Personalization</a> &amp; <a href="https://www.ibm.com/commerce/us-en/campaigns/commerce-insights/">Commerce Insights</a> solutions.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ibm.jpg" alt="IBM" />
The plan is to empower marketers and e-commerce professionals to learn, predict and guide customer engagement throughout custom brand journeys.
<h2>IBM: Impressive Returns</h2>
According to a recent report from Nucleus Research, IBM delivers a $15.82 return on investment (ROI) for every dollar spent on its marketing, sales, merchandising and analytics products. Those offerings are used today by the likes of ING Direct and The Home Shopping Network.
With these announcements, IBM is merging cognitive technologies into existing tools that practitioners already work with to deliver complete end-to-end customer experiences.
“Every customer is unique and has little tolerance for businesses that fail to recognize their specific interests, wants and needs,” said Harriet Green, General Manager, Watson IoT, Commerce and Education, IBM. “Today we continue to invest in building our portfolio which includes new cognitive solutions that will completely transform how companies serve each customer. Businesses will be able to quickly understand, reason and learn from every customer interaction – and put that knowledge to use to uncover new opportunities from insights.”
<h2>IBM Real-Time Personalization</h2>
With IBM Real-Time Personalization, marketers can deliver the right message and offer to customers every time.
Part of the IBM Marketing Cloud, Real-Time Personalization understands that a person’s preferences change over time and addresses this through its Cognitive Rule Adviser, which learns, advises and suggests the offer and message should be shared with each visitor. It then discovers which segments are responding best to each variation (broken down by factors such as age, geography, etc..) and through self-learning algorithms and analytics fine-tunes the experiences over time.
For example, a sporting goods retailer identifies a customer whose site profile indicates they are interested in taking up cycling. Recognizing she’s a novice, the site responds with deals on bikes and everything she needs to get started, all presented with visual images that help her make the right purchase. Through its cognitive technologies, the site later learns that her needs have shifted based on activity focused on nutrition for long-distance rides, automatically adapts and shares content on local races and nutrition recommendations and offers on foods items in the store.
<h2>IBM Commerce Insights</h2>
IBM also announced new cognitive technologies in <a href="https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/cloud/online-merchandising/us/en-us">Commerce Insights</a>, which provides merchandizers with a real-time view of their business, specifically focused on how products and categories are performing.
Now, with new cognitive-powered category sequencing capabilities, the site automatically places products on a web page based current demand and inventory and adapts the sequencing as sales and inventory levels change.
Commerce Insights is also infusing cognitive into its anomaly detection capabilities so teams are automatically alerted to significant spikes and dips in sales and presented contributing factors such as inventory, promotional event, channel activities and soon input from social sentiment and competitive pricing.
For example, a retailer receives two messages from the solution’s Notification Center. First, the team is alerted that inventory on the new 4K TVs are running low.
Through its cognitive category sequencing capabilities, the site automatically re-order products on the page so the items with low inventory levels are dropped down until new shipments are received. A second alert identifies a top video game consoles that’s not selling as projected and automatically discovers that the issue is caused by a shift in competitor pricing.
With this insight, it recommends the retailer lower their offering price and shows what the resulting margin will be so they are prepared for a sudden surge in sales.
To find out more, visit the <a href="http://www.ibm.com/us-en/">IBM website</a>.

IBM Unveils Additions to Real-Time Personalization & Commerce Insights

Translation is becoming more and more relevant by the day, with content management systems and the brands they serve having to think about catering to different tongues. After all, the larger your business, the further your reach.
<img style="max-width:220px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sdl_logo-220x220.jpg" alt="SDL_logo" />
<a href="http://www.sdl.com/">SDL's</a> Machine Translation (MT) Engine now translates <a href="http://www.sdl.com/about/news-media/press/2016/sdl-machine-translation-translates-20-billion-words-per-month.html">over 20 billion words every month</a>. They have been developing MT technology for over 20 years, with the latest technology, <a href="http://www.sdl.com/cxc/language/machine-translation/xmt.html">XMT</a>, released in 2015.
<h2>Breaking Down Barriers</h2>
Brands across the globe are now using SDL’s MT for instant communication, translating and sharing user-generated content and analyzing Big Data sets. This powerful engine helps organizations break down the barriers of multilingual communication by providing a scalable infrastructure for the development and rapid deployment of real-time translation capabilities.
To illustrate the growing need for language translation in today's content-centric world, SDL has produced this cool infographic:
<a href="http://www.sdl.com/about/news-media/press/2016/sdl-machine-translation-translates-20-billion-words-per-month.html"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sdl_ig_machine_translation_volume-5-11-16_tcm73-104045.jpg" alt="SDL Translation" /></a>
SDL offers MT engines that are scaled, trained and deployed to meet the unique needs of each individual organization. Key capabilities include:
<ul>
<li>Engine Training – Industry-trained and custom-trained engines produce higher quality MT output to match the terminology and style of the individual organization.</li>
<li>Secure Deployment Options – SDL’s secure cloud offering can be hosted either in a class III data center, where all customer content is destroyed at the completion of the translation, or onsite behind a customer’s firewall.</li>
<li>Post-Editing MT – An increasingly popular translation option is to have human translators Post-Editing Machine Translation (PEMT), doubling their daily production. SDL offers PEMT optimized engines, training and best practices to increase translator output.</li>
<li>Integrations – As organizations look to incorporate their translation activities into their overarching global content strategy, SDL’s MT capabilities integrate directly with other business applications.</li>
<li>Social Media – SDL’s MT engines are particularly adept at translating unstructured, social media content as its algorithms manage metadata, morphology and abbreviations common to social communications.</li>
</ul>
Upon reaching this massive milestone,  SDL's President of Global Language Solutions, Dominic Kinnon, made these comments:
<blockquote>“Machine Translation has become critical to improving language translation workflows as well as enabling global business management.
Our MT technology is used by companies from a wide variety of sectors including finance, life sciences, travel, and government to equip them to solve their language challenges.”</blockquote>
To find out more about SDL's MT Engine, <a href="http://www.sdl.com/about/news-media/press/2016/sdl-machine-translation-translates-20-billion-words-per-month.html">visit their website</a>.
And as always, you can explore more through the SDL Hub on our CMS Directory.

Infographic: SDL Now Translates 20Bn Words Per Month

Hotjar - Spot what confuses

Spot what confuses your users with Hotjar & AI

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B2Evolution has just launched their new revamped skins site for users of the open source blog platform. B2Evolution, for those unaware, is a great alternative to more popular tools like WordPress and Blogger.
With the new Skin repository, users can now browse all available skins for B2Evolution quickly and easily using a ton of handy filters. Skin authors can also submit their skins to the repository for inclusion.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/b2evolution-skins900x0.png" alt="b2evolution-skinsio" />
As of now, there are already a significant number of skins within the repository so if you are looking for a good skin or just want to take a look and see how B2Evolution can look, <a href="http://skins.b2evolution.net/">head on over</a> and browse it.

Looking for B2Evolution Skins? Check out their new Skin site!

CMS Critic is proud to announce their status as a media sponsor for the <a href="https://conference.modmore.com/" target="_blank"> MODX Weekend by Modmore conference</a>.
The event begins on Friday 19th and ends Sunday 21st of September 2014. 
The venue is to be within the Netherlands, in the heart of a privately owned 111 acre forest. Along with all-inclusive hotel rooms, food and drink, attendees can enjoy listening to a range of speakers who will be speaking on all the latest goings on at <a href="http://modx.com/" target="_blank"> MODX</a>. Additionally, the weekend talks will serve to update the MODX community on whatever is coming soon for the platform, as well as the Web industry as a whole. 
 The MODX Weekend conference promises to offer a high quality experience on a number of fronts, so let's take a closer look at what's on offer.
<h2>All-inclusive Treatment at a Stunning Venue</h2>
Attendees of the MODX Weekend by modmore conference can essentially kick back and relax, as the hosts take care of pretty much everything – from start to finish. 
 Luxurious VIP coaches are scheduled to pick up attendees from local airports and train stations, taking them right to the Conference Center Woudschoten, where the event will be held. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/woudschotenbovenaf700x0.jpg" alt="MODX Weekend by Modmore" /> The Conference Center Woudschoten is home to a professional conference center, complete with three star hotel rooms, multiple bars and restaurants, and a breathtaking view. 
Every hotel and conference room has a beautiful view of the natural environment surrounding the buildings, which will certainly enhance the typical conference experience. To explore the forest, attendees are also more than welcome to go for a stroll or even a bike ride. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/woudschotenhotel700x0.jpg" alt="MODX Weekend by Modmore" />
The rooms provided all have a great view of the surrounding grounds, and come with two single beds, a shower, a flatscreen TV, a desk to work on and some friendly amenities. 
A full list of what's on offer throughout the conference can be seen below:
<ul>
<li>3 nights in an on-site three star hotel room (Check-in Friday afternoon/evening, checkout Monday morning)</li>
<li>Breakfast Buffet on Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning</li>
<li>Lunch Buffet on Saturday and Sunday</li>
<li>Dinner on Friday (buffet), Saturday (three-course menu) and Sunday (BBQ)</li>
<li>Unlimited coffee, tea, water and a variety of soft drinks and snacks during the day</li>
<li>Drinks (including a selection of alcoholic beverages) and snacks every evening</li>
<li>Munchies and water in the hotel room</li>
<li>Evening Entertainment, including live music on Friday and Saturday, a Fussball tournament and more</li>
<li>Complimentary maps of the estate for walking or biking</li>
<li>Bikes are available at no charge at a first come-first serve basis</li>
<li>Access to at least 15 sessions on MODX and the Web</li>
<li>Unlimited streaming access to professionally recorded and edited videofootage for the sessions, available within a week or two after the event.</li>
<li>Pick-up on Friday from Schiphol Airport or Utrecht Central Station with a luxury VIP Coach.</li>
<li>Drop-off at the same location on Sunday evening or Monday morning.</li>
<li>Free goodies from modmore and event partners</li>
</ul>
<h2>The MODX Weekend Programme</h2>
MODX's weekend event boasts over 15 individual sessions, all of which will stretch from between Friday 19th to Sunday 21st of September 2014. 
The official programme can be seen below.
<blockquote>
 Friday (Sept 19th): We look forward to welcoming you to the venue on Friday afternoon/evening. There will be a dinner buffet served in the bar at 6pm, with plenty of drinks and opportunity to socialise while the lounge band plays. 
 Saturday (Sept 20th): The conference starts around 9.30. The morning programme is all about the latest and upcoming techniques to use in MODX and the web in general. After lunch we look at performance and workflow in the broadest sense of the words. Attendees are also invited to do a 5 minute lighting talk at the end of the day. After a three-course menu in the restaurant there will be a good ol' fashioned party night in the bar complete with live band, stand-up comedy and more…
 Sunday (Sept 21st): On Sunday there will be two tracks of sessions. In the front-end track we talk about web techniques and front-end integration with MODX. The back-end track will be about developing custom components, plugins and other techniques on the manager or framework level. To end the conference we're firing up the BBQ and enjoying the last evening together.
 Monday (Sept 22nd): After breakfast it's time to check out. We're looking into some activities for the monday morning.
</blockquote>
Early Bird Tickets are available at €699 (including VAT) until February 28th. After that, the price goes up to €799. So, make sure you <a href="https://conference.modmore.com/register/" target="_blank"> take advantage of the massive €100 discount</a> before it's too late! 
 To find out more about the all-inclusive MODX Weekend by modmore, check out the event's <a href="https://conference.modmore.com/" target="_blank"> official website</a>.

All-inclusive "MODX Weekend by Modmore Conference" Set for September 2014

<a href="https://www.ecwid.com/" target="_blank">Ecwid</a>, the popular eCommerce solution, has just made order management a whole lot easier for merchants.
Powering over 500,000 online stores, Ecwid is a shopping cart that seamlessly integrates with existing websites and platforms.
With this update, online merchants using Ecwid can re-visit existing orders and make changes quickly and easily. So, there's no more stressing when a customer wants to amend or add to their order.
<h2>Powerful Order Management</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/edit-orders-cp.jpg" />
Ecwid users can now do the following with ease:
<ul>
<li> Add new items to an order</li>
<li> Remove items</li>
<li> Edit existing items: product name, SKU, options, quantity</li>
<li> Edit customer’s address, name and email</li>
<li> Add or remove a discount</li>
<li> Edit names of payment and shipping methods</li>
<li> Edit order total or shipping fee</li>
</ul>
All you need to do is install the “Order Editor” Ecwid app from this page: <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/ecwid-rolls-out-order-editor-feature/" target="_blank">order-editor.ecwid.com</a>. The Order Editor app is available at no charge for all users on <a href="https://www.ecwid.com/pricing">Business and Unlimited plans</a>.
To find out more about Ecwid's new order editor, <a href="https://www.ecwid.com/blog/improve-customer-service-with-ecwid-new-order-editor-feature.html" target="_blank">check out their blog announcement</a>.

Ecwid Rolls Out “Order Editor” Feature

Video is engaging. Video is powerful. Video can put your site at the top of search rankings. As a marketer you probably have been thinking about adding the video component to your campaigns. The challenge is that you want to deliver quality video across many devices and be able to manage the flow of this media as efficiently as possible. The technical requirements to deliver this can be daunting. An answer to that challenge comes with the expected release of a Brightcove Video Could Connect for Sitecore.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/brightcove-logo.jpg" alt="brightcove-logo" />
Brightcove is a leading cloud content provider and the promise of a integrated product with Sitecore has some in the industry excited. Dave Walters of XO Group has this to say:
<blockquote>“We are excited by the promise of the Brightcove Video connector for Sitecore … By integrating the two solutions, we will be able to more seamlessly incorporate high-quality video into our content-rich brand websites, providing an even richer user experience for our consumer. The use of one interface, instead of switching back and forth between multiple systems, will allow it to be done faster and more efficiently. This is important for our organization as it will give our brand and editorial teams more time to focus on audience engagement rather than on the technical aspects of video integration.”</blockquote>
Switching between and having to manage separate systems increases the time it takes to go live with any campaign. With the Video Cloud Connector, Sitecore will essentially have a video extension that is as intuitive to manage as the rest of the content. No doubt this will cut training time down which will most likely make implementing this connector with current Sitecore clients rather simple. We like that don't we? Simple is good.
<blockquote>“This is an exciting partnership that makes it easy for marketers to execute impactful video campaigns more efficiently, as well as take advantage of the market-leading online video platform with Sitecore’s Web content management system in a fully integrated way,” 
~Chris Johnston, director of technology partnerships at Brightcove.</blockquote>
To help develop and facilitate this integration is Agency Oasis. Their experience with both Sitecore and Brightcove platforms made them an easy choice for the role. While we eagerly await the official release of Brightcove Video Cloud Connector for Sitecore, you can find out more by visiting <a href="http://www.sitecore.com" target="_blank">www.sitecore.com</a>

Brightcove Video Connector will bring video content to Sitecore

<a href="http://www.kajona.de/" target="_blank">Kajona</a>, the PHP5 based content management framework, has just released version 4.6.
This new Kajona release introduces simplified workflows — particularly for the portal editor. Also, many modules which are vital for building the foundation of Kajona have been modernized and enriched with new functionality.
Here are some highlights of Kajona 4.6.
<h2>Improved Installer &amp; Revamped Editor</h2>
<img style="max-width:399px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/image.jpg" />
Both of Kajona's installer and backend-skin are based on Twitters' Bootstrap, but now their installer is the first component to be fully updated to Bootstrap 3. While updating the installer, they removed some redundant options, making installation a lot smoother and faster than before.
Also, now with Kajona 4.6, an autocomplete-supported input box helps to find and to select the desired page even faster when creating or changing a link using the integrated WYSIWYG editor.
<img style="max-width:399px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/image_1.jpg" />
When working with the portal editor, operations like creating, editing or deleting elements on a page is now integrated more seamlessly. Plus, these changes are reflected immediately, without the need to reload the page. Obviously, this speeds up the maintenance of websites significantly.
Other modules, like news, search, and charts have also received updates. The Kajona system and framework has also been tweaked for better performance.
To find out more about Kajona 4.6, <a href="https://www.kajona.de/en/News/newsdetails.Kajona-V4-6-nimmersatt-available.newsDetail.972e9575491df1a0e9f4.html" target="_blank">check out their blog announcement.</a>

Kajona 4.6 Released

Weglot - The easiest way to translate a website

The easiest way to translate a website

#18164c

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