Articles - Page 72

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

matt-garrepy

Notre-DAM is an open-source Digital Asset Management platform targeted to the mid-market segment (digital libraries, micro-stock agencies, editorial teams, etc.).
The key features of Notre-DAM are:
<ul>
<li>multi-user, web-based application accessible from the most popular browsers</li>
<li>can manage images, video, audio and text</li>
<li>provides a customizable catalogue based on taxonomies and collections</li>
<li>full metadata support (EXIF, IPTC, XMP, Creative Commons, PLUS)</li>
<li>geo referencing and search, directly on a map</li>
<li>fully scalable, relies on a cluster of PCs for resource storage, processing, and delivery</li>
<li>provides a REST API for integration with other applications (e.g. CMSs)</li>
<li>distributed under the GPL v.3 licenseScreenshot: 
<img style="max-width:580px" title="notre-dam" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/notre-dam-580x306_zhohfp.png" /></li>
</ul>
More information (and an on-line demo) is available on the project's web site <a href="http://www.notre-dam.org">Notre-DAM.org</a>. A short <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMehvlhOPFY">video presentation is available too</a>.

Notre-DAM Beta released - an open source Digital Asset Management Platform

mike-johnston

More and more ecommerce stores are springing up online. One of the main reasons for this is that more people are buying products online. <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mark-hillary/customers-now-prefer-shop_b_10752822.html">67% of millennials</a> and 56% of generation x prefer to shop online.
Another important reason for the rise in online stores is that it is so easy to launch one. There are tools like Shopify with which you can launch a new store <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laura-inamedinova/2016/05/16/how-to-launch-your-ecommerce-store-in-a-day/#7726778c3916">in a day</a>.
On top of that, there are solutions like drop shipping which make running a store much easier.
Dropshipping is when you don’t handle most of the time-consuming aspects of running an ecommerce store. These include making the products, storing them in a warehouse, packing and shipping them. These are handled by a separate manufacturer. All you do here is add the products to the store and promote them.
It’s a low-risk, and lucrative method, and lots of people are having success with it. For example, Ray Bridges dropshipped phone cases and made <a href="https://www.oberlo.com/blog/how-i-made-4500-in-9-weeks-selling-phone-cases">$4,558.03 in 9 weeks</a>.
And the best part is that you can add the products to your store in minutes as there are several apps in the Shopify app store that can help you do this.
Filtering out which of these is the best can take you a while. Therefore, I have gone through the trouble and reviewed two popular Shopify dropshipping apps, Oberlo and Dropified side by side here. Read my review and pick the one that suits you best…
2022 Update: Oberlo app was shut down on June 30, 2022. The Oberlo app is completely removed from the Shopify store. Dropified is still around though. 
If you're interested in learning about print-on-demand dropshipping, check out <a href="https://www.printful.com/blog/what-is-dropshipping/" target="_blank">this comprehensive article</a> on dropshipping and selling without inventory.
Using Oberlo for Dropshipping
Oberlo was launched in 2015. Since then it has become one of the most popular dropshipping apps on Shopify. It currently sits at the number one spot in the <a href="https://apps.shopify.com/browse/finding-and-adding-products-dropshipping">Dropshipping</a> and <a href="https://apps.shopify.com/browse/finding-and-adding-products">Finding and Adding Products</a> app categories on Shopify.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/top-shopify-dropshipping-apps_ixjb8h.png" />
Oberlo has got a stellar rating of 4.8 out of 5 from 2,198 reviews. They are definitely doing something right.
It is a very easy to use app. To install it all you have to do is go to the Oberlo app page on Shopify and click on the ‘Add app’ button and then add it to the ecommerce store you would like to sell dropshipped products on.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/oberlo-products-catalogue_fw1pln.png" />
As soon as you do this the app will be installed, and a catalogue of products will appear right in your Shopify dashboard. There will be hundreds of them.
You can browse through these, add your selling price and easily display them on your ecommerce store with a few clicks. Oberlo will calculate how much profit you will make with each sale and even automatically add the description, title, and images.
You don’t have to conduct any due diligence for these products and their suppliers as Oberlo have already done that for you. The suppliers’ warehouses, working conditions, documentations and many more details have been verified by Oberlo.
If you want to go beyond this catalogue and add products from other sites, you can take advantage of Oberlo’s chrome extension for <a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/">AliExpress</a>. After you install the extension, an Oberlo icon will appear on the product pages on the AliExpress website. You can click on this and quickly import products into your store.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/add-aliexpress-products-to-oberlo_hnbwvg.png" />
These products haven’t yet been verified by Oberlo. So, you will need to conduct your own research to make sure they are up to the mark. You can do this by reading product and supplier reviews.
The best part about using Oberlo is that they run a freemium model. You can install them on your Shopify store for free. With the free plan you can add up to 500 product to your store and fulfil up to 50 orders.
If you want to fulfill more than 50 you can upgrade to the basic plan which costs $29.90/month. This increases the limit to 500 orders. They also have a Pro plan at $79.90/month that has no order limit (unlimited).
Using Dropified for Dropshipping
Dropified is another dropshipping app. It is slightly younger than Oberlo. It isn’t as popular as Oberlo as it sits at the number six position in the dropshipping apps chart on Shopify. It has a decent rating of 4.2 from 9 reviews.
Just like Oberlo, it is easy to install. You go to the <a href="https://apps.shopify.com/shopified-app">Dropified app</a> page and click on the ‘Add app’ button. Then you select the store you would like to add it to and follow through the steps it guides you through.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/dropified-dashboard_mefbah.png" />
But adding products isn’t straightforward. They do not instantly appear in your dashboard like with the Oberlo app. To add products you must first install the dropified extension on your browser. Then visit sites like AliExpress and use the extension to edit the title and price and add the products.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shopified-for-shopify_s3yw92.png" />
This way you can add products from other sites like Amazon, Costco, Walmart, and more. But you need to conduct your own due diligence on each of these products and their suppliers as Dropified hasn’t done it for you.
Dropified has no free plan, but they do offer a 14-day trial. You can only access this trial if you sign up for one of their paid plans though. The smaller plan costs $47/month and lets you add 15,000 products and fulfill 1,000 orders a month. While the bigger plan costs $97/month and lets you fulfill 20,000 orders a month.
Which should you use: Oberlo or Dropified?
As you can see from the detailed review above, both of them are great apps that can be installed with a few clicks. Both also make it easy to add products to your Shopify stores.
But if you are looking for the most convenient option, Oberlo beats Dropified easily as you don’t have to go through the process of browsing a third-party site (although Oberlo also has this feature) and spending a lot of time finding reputable suppliers and products. Oberlo instantly provides access to hundreds of products from verified suppliers right in their dashboard. And you can add them with a few clicks right away.
Oberlo also works out cheaper as they have a free plan. Also, their paid plans cost a lot less than Dropified’s paid plans. Dropified’s paid plans cost $47/month and $97/month and Oberlo’s cost $29.90/month and $79.90/month only.
The only place where Dropified beats Oberlo is that it lets you import products from sites other than AliExpress like Amazon and Walmart. But for most people Oberlo’s catalogue and the millions of products listed in AliExpress should be sufficient.
<a name="_GoBack"></a> You only need Dropified if you have a favourite product listed exclusively on another ecommerce site that you badly want to dropship.
Do you run an ecommerce store? Which app do you use for dropshipping? Please leave your comments below.

How To Choose Between Oberlo and Dropified Apps

The new WordPress 3.1 release is here. CMS Critic has been updated to this new release and one of the newest features is the introduction of a handy new admin bar.
WordPress 3.1 Admin bar in action:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2012-01-21-at-1_27_19-pm1-450x132_sly80x.png" alt="WordPress 3.1 Admin Bar" />
The admin bar has a number of benefits such as quickly creating a shortlink, editing the post (opens the post editor within the dashboard) and much more.
So far, we see no issue with the upgrade (at least on our site). Let us know your experiences within the comments!
From the announcement:
<blockquote>
The long-awaited fourteenth release of WordPress is now available. WordPress 3.1 “Reinhardt” is named in honor of the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Version 3.1 is available for download, or you can update from within your dashboard.
This release features a lightning fast redesigned linking workflow which makes it easy to link to your existing posts and pages, an admin bar so you’re never more than a click away from your most-used dashboard pages, a streamlined writing interface that hides many of the seldom-used panels by default to create a simpler and less intimidating writing experience for new bloggers (visit Screen Options in the top right to get old panels back), and a refreshed blue admin scheme available for selection under your personal options.
There’s a bucket of candy for developers as well, including our new Post Formats support which makes it easy for themes to create portable tumblelogs with different styling for different types of posts, new CMS capabilities like archive pages for custom content types, a new Network Admin, an overhaul of the import and export system, and the ability to perform advanced taxonomy and custom fields queries.
With the 3.1 release, WordPress is more of a CMS than ever before. The only limit to what you can build is your imagination.
</blockquote>
You can <a href="http://www.wordpress.org">download this latest release</a> or update from within your dashboard.

WordPress 3.1 is now available and brings with it a number of new features

Choosing a content management system for your project is paramount to the success of your venture. The primary reason CMS Critic exists is to help our readership stay informed about which CMS are to be trusted and used.
However, choosing a content management system is only half the battle to getting a project up and running. The other half is all about selecting the best web host.
As a result of this realization, CMS Critic has selected <a href="https://www.bluehost.com/" target="_blank"> Bluehost</a> as their web host of choice – and we recommend them to all our readers.
<h2>Why Bluehost?</h2>
There are countless web hosting solutions on the market, but we believe Bluehost is the best all-around solution for startups, seasoned web property developers, and everybody in between.
Founded in 1996, Bluehost is an award-winning web host that powers over 2 million websites across the globe. Bluehost offers shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and reseller hosting.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bluehost700x0.png" alt="Bluehost " /> 
Bluehost's price plans are second to none when the quality of the control panel and support system are both taken into account. They offer a one-click install for WordPress, automated backups, unlimited domains, unlimited storage space, a free domain name, and 24/7 support – all of which is included in their shared hosting plan, starting from just $4.95 per month.
Their VPS and dedicated hosting plans are equally impressive and offer great value for money. So impressive in fact, that preparations are now being made for CMS Critic to migrate to the Bluehost.
<h2>4th July Discount</h2>
Bluehost is about to roll out a 4th July special discount, coming down on their already impressive monthly price of $4.95 per month. Details of the offer are as follows:
<ul>
<li>Special 3.95/mo Promotional Pricing</li>
<li>Starts Friday, July 4, 2014 @ 12:01 a.m. MDT</li>
<li>Ends Monday, July 7, 2014, @ 9 a.m. MDT</li>
</ul>
So, be sure to grab your Bluehost discount this Friday, 4th July 2014.

Bluehost: CMS Critic's Web Host of Choice (Plus a Special 4th July Bluehost Discount)

Ecommerce is growing more rapidly by the day. In fact, by 2016, U.S. consumers alone are <a href="http://www.internetretailer.com/2012/02/27/e-retail-spending-increase-45-2016" target="_blank">predicted to spend $327 billion</a> online.
With the e-commerce industry producing such vast figures, more and more e-commerce startups are looking for their first venture – and <a href="https://www.squarespace.com/" target="_blank">Squarespace</a> is a platform primed for the task.
But just how easy is it to start selling on Squarespace? If you’re interested in selling with Squarespace, you’ll need to know if it can handle your business ideas and product types.
So, join me in taking a look at just how functional Squarespace Commerce is.
<h2>Selling on Squarespace: Good Enough for Your Online Store?</h2>
Selling with SquareSpace Commerce enables you to sell physical products, digital products, and even services. The platform does a very solid job of it too.
To get started, you only need to navigate to the “Commerce” section, located on the left-hand sidebar.
Once you get into the Commerce section, Squarespace leads you through the process of setting up your store with a three-step guide.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/selling700x0.png" alt="Squarespace eCommerce" />
To carry out all the steps, you only need to click on them, configure your products and settings, and move on. So, let’s take a look at just how easy those three steps are to take.
<h3>Adding Products</h3>
Adding products naturally makes or breaks an online selling platform, and it’s no surprise that adding products on SquareSpace is a breeze. Although, in order to add a product, you’ll need to navigate back over to the “Content Manager” section.
Once there, you simply have to click “Add Page” and then select “Products”.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/selling2700x0.png" alt="Squarespace eCommerce" />
Next, a window will be presented to you, allowing you to configure your product.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/8-1700x0.png" alt="Squarespace eCommerce" />
Product images can be uploaded via a drag-and-drop system, while titles, descriptions, pricing and additional information can all be quickly added via the product upload window. If your products aren’t in need of any technical specifications, you can have a whole catalog uploaded in a matter of minutes.
<h3>Create a Shipping Option</h3>
The second step requires you to set up a shipping option. All you have to do is navigate over to the “Shipping” tab back over in the “Commerce” section, before clicking “Add Shipping Method”.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shipp700x0.png" alt="Squarespace eCommerce" />
A window will then prompt you to select either flat rate shipping, weight dependent shipping or UPS calculated shipping – which is reserved for Squarespace Business users.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shipp2.png" alt="Squarespace eCommerce" />
Once you have made your selection, you can configure the resulting options, and then hit “Save”. It’s that easy.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/ship_3.png" alt="Squarespace eCommerce" />
<h3>Connect to Stripe</h3>
Squarespace only allows you to use <a href="https://stripe.com/" target="_blank">Stripe</a> as a payment gateway, which is quite disappointing. However, Stripe is a respected payment method, and setting up an account with them is easy.
To configure your Stripe account with Squarespace, you only need to navigate over to the “Store Settings” page within the “Commerce” section, where you will find the option to connect with Stripe.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/stripe700x0.png" alt="Squarespace eCommerce" />
Once you connect your Stripe account, you have effectively flipped the switch, meaning that your Squarespace store is now live.
<h2>Squarespace Selling Extras</h2>
Some handy extra options are also available for selling on Squarespace, including:
<ul>
<li>Coupon Codes</li>
<li>Sales</li>
<li>Shipping Options</li>
<li>Taxing Options</li>
<li>Mailchimp integration</li>
<li>Donations</li>
<li>And More</li>
</ul>
These additional options, along with the straightforward store setup guide, make Squarespace ideal for budding online merchants.
<h2>The Verdict</h2>
To give you an overview of the good and bad which Squarespace Commerce has to offer, check out the pros and cons below.
<h3>Pros</h3>
<ul>
<li>Friendly setup guide makes it easy to build a store.</li>
<li>Product creation is extremely quick and easy.</li>
<li>Much like with page and blog post creation, Squarespace enables you to apply plenty of detail to your products and services if you wish to.</li>
<li>Good range of additional extras including Mailchimp integration and donations.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Cons</h3>
<ul>
<li>Squarespace only allows you to accept payments through Stripe – which is very limiting.</li>
<li>Adding products requires you to navigate away from the Commerce section.</li>
</ul>
Aside from its extensive design features – which is widely known as Squarespace’s forte – I’d say that Commerce is Squarespace’s biggest strength. Setting up the store and adding products takes just minutes, thanks to the user friendly walk-through guide.
Although, there are flaws to be found. I find it strange how adding products requires you to leave the “Commerce” section, as well as the limitation to using Stripe as the only payment gateway. But apart from these two relatively minor issues, everything else related to setting up a store on Squarespace flows quite nicely indeed.
For further detail on Squarespace, check out our full <a href="/squarespace-review-the-long-awaited-commerce-solution/" target="_blank">Squarespace Review</a>.
You can also get started with your Squarespace website today, via the <a href="https://www.squarespace.com/templates">Squarespace 14-day free trial</a>.

How Effective is Squarespace as an eCommerce Platform?

<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kokenupdate.png" alt="Koken Update" />
<a href="http://koken.me/" target="_blank">Koken</a> is <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-8-website-builders-for-photography-websites/" target="_blank">one of our picks as a top CMS</a> for photographers. Just this week, they made an already good CMS a whole lot better. Koken 0.8, announced on May 9, includes a lineup of great new features and capabilities. We'll touch on the highlights.

<h2>Make SEO-Friendly Links</h2>
Koken's old system built links in the old-fashioned ways — numerical slugs that did zilch for SEO, and even less for users. Now, the links are formatted with real text that humans can read and search engines can index. More SEO love.
<h2>Geotag Your Photos</h2>
If something as basic as Instagram has geotagging, shouldn't a sophisticated CMS like Koken? The answer is yes. Koken integrates GPS data into photos, and provides the familiar GPS locator button in the upper right corner of each featured photo. Clicking the pin brings up a map that locates where the picture was taken.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/library-geo-button-620x254.jpg" alt="Geo Button" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/library-geo-map-620x254.jpg" alt="Geo Map" />
<h2>Create Custom Code</h2>
For the code-savvy creative, adding a bit of Java is easier than ever before. The editor now includes a code button, which allows the user to copy and paste code anywhere in normal editing.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/custom-code-620x254.jpg" alt="Custom Code" />
<h2>Host Better Conversations</h2>
To facilitate comments and interaction, Koken has included the Disqus plugin, which is now supported by all their default themes. Users need only to set up their Disqus account and enable the plugin to let the comments begin.
<h2>Manage Covers Easily</h2>
One of Koken's biggest selling points is the slick creative interior of the CMS. It makes organizing photos, portfolios, and other digital content a snap. Now, cover images appear at the top of columns when selected. The easy drag-and-drop repositioning makes it easy to rearrange files as needed.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/library-cover-drag1-620x254.jpg" alt="Library Cover Drag" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/library-cover-title-620x254.jpg" alt="Library Cover Title" />
<h2>Feature More Social Sharing</h2>
Koken got more social. Each of the Koken themes automatically includes sharing buttons for four popular social media sites — Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google+. In addition to spreading link love, these buttons help to trigger more social signals, that build rep and SEO for a site. Koken is pretty excited about the <a href="https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards">support for Twitter cards</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/koken-social-share-620x254.jpg" alt="Koken Social Share" />
Koken describes themselves as “a free system designed for photographers, designers, and creative DIYs to publish independent websites of their work.” The sleek interface of the design and the cutting edge power make this a CMS worthy of a second look. With this update, Koken delivers more power than ever before.
<a href="http://blog.koken.me/essays/2013/05/big-new-features-fixes-and-enhancements-now-available-in-koken-08/">Read more about Koken 0.8 in their blog article</a>.
<a href="http://help.koken.me/customer/portal/articles/848339-release-notes">View the release notes for Koken 0.8.</a>
(All screenshots, courtesy of Koken.)

Koken Announces New Features in v. 0.8

daniel-threlfall

<img style="max-width:150px" title="Xoops_logo" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/xoops_logo-150x150_cwvjnx.jpg" />The <a href="http://xoops.org/">XOOPS Project</a>, one of world’s leading Open Source CMS (Content Management System), has released recently the newest version of its award winning software – XOOPS 2.4.4, and continues to show its strong presence in the Open Source CMS market, as shown by the number of downloads of this releases.
In the first ten weeks after releasing of 2.4.4, it has been already downloaded more than 20,000 times.
Including versions of 2.4.4 that are released in local languages (e.g. French, German, Russian), the number is even much higher.
There will be soon a release of XOOPS 2.4.5 RC (see the <a href="http://www.xoops.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5229" target="_blank">Beta release here)</a>, and XOOPS 2.5.0 Beta (see the<a href="http://www.xoops.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5249" target="_blank"> Alpha 2 release)</a>.

Over 20,000 downloads of XOOPS 2.4.4

Producing premium content is one thing, but maximizing its performance potential is whole other ball game.
After carefully planning out the <a href="/content-strategy-5-simple-simple-steps-to-success/" target="_blank">content marketing strategy</a> for your company, you’ve likely got your content management system (CMS) up and running. While your CMS has been effective for your business thus far, <a href="/5-ways-integrating-cms-and-marketing-automation-software-can-benefit-your-business/">it could yield even greater benefits when it is integrated with the right Marketing Automation System (MAS)</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/choose-best-mas595x0-is.png" /> 
A marketing automation system is a software designed to streamline, automate, and track your marketing efforts. By more efficiently handling once manual tasks such as contact management, performance measurement, and A/B testing, you can take a more performance-driven approach and maximize the return on your marketing efforts.
Of course, not all marketing automation systems are created equal, and not every MAS will be the perfect fit for your business.
This guide will help you find the best one for your needs in just three easy steps.
<h2>Step 1: Identify Your Needs</h2>
Every business expects something different from their marketing efforts, and as a result, there is no true one-size-fits-all solution. That’s why, before you even think about shopping for an MAS, you should first sit down and decide what you want yours to do.
Are you mainly looking for a way to improve your email marketing, or looking for new ways to simplify lead management and get better leads? Do you need something that easily integrates with your CMS to get your content into the right hands?
Are you looking for new and improved ways to track and measure the performance of your marketing efforts? How important is the level of support and training provided?
By answering questions such as those, you’ll get a better idea as to what MAS features are most important to the marketing efforts of your business. It’s important to have a realistic idea of what you need your MAS to do. While it’s easy to look at everything they can do and say, “Yes, I want all of that,” it’s important to realize that you’ll have to pay for it too – so make sure you’ll really get full value from your potential MAS before you actually commit to it.
<h2>Step 2: Figure Out What Your CMS Can Already Do</h2>
Once you know what you want and need to supercharge your marketing efforts, you should see if you can already get it from your content management system. After all, while a good MAS is usually more refined and versatile than a CMS, you might not need that versatility enough to justify paying extra for it.
There are many capabilities your CMS might have built-in, such as certain types of analytics or basic lead management. Other features can be replicated with plugins or extensions. Many of these are either free or low one-time costs, making them a far cheaper option than an MAS.
However, just because they can replicate some of the features of an MAS doesn’t mean that they can replace them. Depending on the marketing needs of your business, you might get much more bang for your buck by integrating the right MAS, as it allows you to do more (and do it more easily) than your CMS.
For example, there are a lot of lead generation plugins that can allow you to build a squeeze page and capture basic information. However, an MAS can boost your conversion rate by giving you more freedom to nurture those leads. Instead of pushing the same message to every visitor, you can score them based on their demographic information and sort the hot leads from the lukewarm ones – and tailor your message accordingly.
Do you need the added versatility and more advanced functionality of an MAS? Does your current CMS already do enough to meet your identified business needs? It’s up to you to decide whether or not you need an MAS, and if you do need one, then you have to figure out how much you’re willing to pay for it.
<h2>Step 3: Look At The Cost</h2>
The amount that you’ll pay for marketing automation system largely depends on the size of your business. Small and medium businesses (SMBs) simply have different needs than an enterprise-level company, and as a result, different MAS’s exist to cater to different niches.
The primary differences between the <a href="/12-free-or-super-cheap-marketing-automation-systems/">more affordable marketing automation systems</a> and the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/8-enterprise-marketing-automation-softwares-to-complement-your-cms/">more-expensive, enterprise-level marketing automation systems</a> can be seen in the features they each offer, and the number of people they’ll let you service.
For example, <a href="http://www.infusionsoft.com/" target="_blank">Infusionsoft</a> is one of the bigger MAS providers, and, as such, they have a range of services. The lowest tier is $199 a month, but that only gives you 2500 contacts, 12,500 emails per month, and access to half of their features. Their highest tier, on the other hand, is $599 a month, but that includes full access to their features and almost ten times the contacts and emails.
This difference in service levels isn’t unusual. Brands like Marketo, Pardot, and Oracle have varying levels of sophisticated automated marketing solutions that offer premium features to their enterprise clients. These solutions often go for thousands of dollars a month. That being said, there are plenty of more affordable marketing automation systems available that offer similar, albeit less sophisticated, functionality for far less money.
<h2>Picking the Right MAS For You</h2>
If you’re looking to maximize your performance potential and get the most out of your marketing efforts, then its time you considered choosing an MAS and integrating it with your existing CMS. While it’s not right for every business, a good MAS can help refine your marketing strategy and increase your bottom line.
It’s worth your while to sit down and analyze the state of your marketing efforts. Use the three aforementioned steps to evaluate whether or not you should sign up for an MAS, and if so, which one is right for your business. Every business will have different answers, but it’s important that you have an answer for yourself.
After all, if you don’t know where your company stands, how will your customers?
Do you have a preferred marketing automation system? Tell us about it in the comments, or talk to us over at the CMS Forums.

How to Choose The Best Marketing Automation System For You (In 3 Easy Steps)

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<img title="logo_jahia_avec_cadre_medium" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/logo_jahia_avec_cadre_medium_ccvtcq.jpg" />Jahia, the premier provider of web content integration software – combining web content management, document management and portal features – today announced the release of Jahia Enterprise Edition v6.1, with a number of compelling new features. Key improvements include an optimized search mechanism, enhanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with new powerful URL mapping definition and new social modules to engage website visitors.
“Jahia 6.1 confirms the strength of our development model. Two of our major clients financed various generic enhancements in this new version. As ‘Pay or Contribute’ program members, they influenced the Jahia roadmap and guaranteed their investment by securing long term support and evolution within the ecosystem of Jahia users,” said Elie Auvray, CEO of Jahia Solutions Group. “Our customers experience immediate benefits, while contributing to the long-term project. This collaborative business relationship confirms the dynamic nature of the Jahia project, and validates our sustainable open source business model.”
Better-defined search results
Jahia EE v6.1 provides enhanced search speed and fine-targeted search results, delivering documents, multimedia and other web content. The embedded full-text, open source search engine from Lucene provides advanced search filters and tag library support. Users can define the scope of a search across a given site, sub-sites—or even 3rd party content repositories—to quickly obtain ranked search results with document previews. Jahia supports the OpenSearch standards, which allows end-users to easily access their preferred search engine directly from within their browser.
In addition to Web content, Jahia can search within documents, including Microsoft Office and PDF files. New faceted search capabilities provide dynamic drill-down navigation through the assignment of multiple classifications to any content objects.
“Did you mean…?” 
 
Jahia EE v6.1 delivers a new “Did You Mean…?” feature with search spelling suggestions to improve search results.
 Semantic Search 
 
As information overload is rapidly becoming an important issue due to ever-increasing adoption of Content Management techniques, Jahia is a member of the IKS project, working on new set of semantic features based on the Interactive Knowledge Stack (http://www.iks-project.eu/). This project is in parts funded by the European Commission. New dynamic ways of accessing information are emerging
Tag Clouds are now completed by Semantically-driven Related Content areas, Breadcrumb path by facetted and taxonomy-driven navigations, keyword search by new Social and Semantic-powered Search.These new features aim to provide a better way to contextually filter and surface the most relevant content items for a given user. While the Commission’s project is still a work in progress, Jahia customers will be among the first to enjoy its benefits. 
SEO enhancements 
 
Jahia EE v6.1 also enhances its “friendly URL” capabilities through implementation of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices. A new vanity URL feature allows the addition of any number of URL aliases to a page. This is a key tool that yields great results for website marketers.
To avoid being penalized by search engines, Jahia makes sure no links are outdated and that all internal and external links are up-to-date and up-and-running. The new Jahia Link Checker feature extends internal integrity checks to all external broken links that infuriate end-users and lead to poor search engine results.
New Social Modules improvements 
 
User generated content, Social Media, and other marketing campaigns are becoming must-have features in any CMS. Jahia EE v6.1 enhancements include: 
• A revamped blog template that runs either as a standalone blogging site, or as a plugin for existing Jahia projects. This module provides a solid and flexible platform for deploying user-generated blogs, with a complete set of features including direct content creation (no popup, no edit mode), user-generated comments, ratings, tag clouds and built-in faceted search. 
• A Newsletter module that helps marketers and other information workers create and customize Enterprise-grade newsletters to keep in touch with their communities via internal or external marketing campaigns 
• A form builder that allows editors to quickly design and deploy any type of form. Power knowledge workers with no technical expertise can now easily add a new form to any page of any virtual site.
Available for immediate download 
 
A 60-day trial version of Jahia EE v6.1 is available for download at <a href="http://www.jahia.com">www.jahia.com</a>.

Jahia EE v6.1 Launches with Enhanced Search and Maximized SEO

We were recently contacted by FamousWhy.com to review their content management system script, Famous Questions CMS. Famous Questions is an option for those looking to create a site similar in concept to that of Yahoo! Answers for instance.
Some ideas for use may include: being used as a niche social network website for a specific country, business category, profession or job such as : Ask a Doctor, Ask a Lawyer, Ask a Teacher or Ask an Expert for a general community-driven Q&amp;A site.
At first visit to their demo (available online at http://www.famousquestions.com), you can see the default look of the site once installed:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/main-famous-questions-cms-580x382.png" alt="Main - Famous Questions CMS" />
As you can see, the software has been designed to encourage communication either through question / answer style or debate style. The options for both are available and can be used concurrently.
Taking a look at the back end (below) you will see that upon first login you are presented with a number of quick stats signifying the activity on your site:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dashboard-famous-questions-cms-1-580x440.png" alt="Dashboard - Famous Questions CMS - 1" />
You are also shown the last admin activities that have been performed (useful if you have multiple administrators working on the site simultaneously). On the Q&amp;A tab, you are given the option to managed and edit the various questions which have been posed within the system.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dashboard-famous-questions-cms-2-580x440.png" alt="Dashboard - Famous Questions CMS - 2" />
Should you wish to edit the questions, you are given a popup window where you can modify the text, category and topic.
The next tab is quite similar and pertains to the debates section:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dashboard-famous-questions-cms-3-580x440.png" alt="Dashboard - Famous Questions CMS - 3" />
The debates system is an interesting setup. You create a statement or topic for debate, categorize it and publish. Your topic is then shown with a YES or NO button (see below). Clicking on either casts a vote for that choice and gives you an opportunity to state your case. The system works as intended but there are issues such as misspellings in the code which makes the CMS appear less than professional:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/driods-450x535_vg3pb0.png" alt="poll" />Moving on we come to the Users tab where you can suspend, reactivate or edit the individual users within the system:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dashboard-famous-questions-cms-4-580x440.png" alt="Dashboard - Famous Questions CMS - 4" />
Everything works as expected on this tab. Next is the Buzz tab which is used for maintenance tasks. I'm not sure why the developers chose to call it Buzz and not maintenance as it's not particularly clear from the onset what this tab is for until you actually visit it. Personally, I would reword this to make it's purpose more clear.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dashboard-famous-questions-cms-5-580x336.png" alt="Dashboard - Famous Questions CMS - 5" />
Unfortunately, when clicking through the various options on this tab, there is no status shown as to what was actually done. The script just shows a simple message (shown below) that is, once again, misspelled:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/buzz-famous-questions-cms-mozilla-firefox_2011-01-27_08-59-29.png" alt="Buzz - Famous Questions CMS - Mozilla Firefox_2011-01-27_08-59-29" />
Lastly we come to the settings tab:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2011-09-01-at-5_20_30-pm-450x234_powzft.png" alt="Dashboard - Famous Questions CMS - 6" />
The settings tab is well put together with the option to quickly replace the site logo and favicon as well as enter Facebook API credentials (for integration into the CMS). One is given the ability to manage the basic typical tasks you would expect to find and in the Banner section there is space to add your applicable advertisement code.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dashboard-famous-questions-cms-7-580x440.png" alt="Dashboard - Famous Questions CMS - 7" />
The Banner area appears to have been created strictly for Google Adsense or similar products and does not provide an area or means to add your own banner images.  Under the SEO settings, you are able to edit meta descriptions and keywords for each module and page:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/dashboard-famous-questions-cms-8-580x440.png" alt="Dashboard - Famous Questions CMS - 8" />
That concludes our tour through the admin interface.
<h3>My final thoughts:</h3>
While the system works as intended and provides a good alternative for users who are looking to have their own forum for people to debate or pose questions to one another,  there are small quirks that need to be corrected in order to give this product a more professional feel. Unfortunately, misspellings and poor naming conventions do not give the end user a feeling of security or confidence in the quality of the code. If the developers are not able to catch misspelled words, it lends one to wonder whether they rushed to write the code as well, making mistakes along the way there too.
This is not to say that this is the case in this product, but rather that this is the impression that some users will get when seeing these mistakes. Should they be corrected and the naming conventions be changed to more accurately reflect their purposes, this product will be more likely to be successful.
As with all products, however, there is always room to improve and I am confident that the team at FamousWhy.com will make the necessary corrections with the next release.
From a price perspective this script is priced (as of this review) at $269.
Is you are interested in trying this product, you can do so here: <a href="http://www.famousquestions.com">http://www.famousquestions.com</a> or you may purchase it from <a href="http://ask.famouswhy.com/">http://ask.famouswhy.com/</a>

Famous Questions CMS (Questions and Answers Script) - Review

Magnolia 5.3 has offiically been released and with it, introduced a new blend of CXM and CMS for this rapidly growing company.
With year over year growth exceeding 35% and a churn rate lower than 5%, Magnolia has seen some incredibly promising up ticks in sales and presence over the past few years.
To keep the ball rolling, they've introduced a new release that offers even more amazing refinements to their mobile first open source CMS. Magnolia 5.3 focuses on better positioning the product in a market of customer experience management driven suites by focusing on expanding capabilities such as personalization in order to improve customer interaction.
<blockquote>
“Creating better brand experiences is about taking the best tools and the data collected from them to quickly deliver new and personalized customer interactions” explains Boris Kraft, Magnolia Co-founder and Chief Visionary Officer. “The innovation in this release has been driven by our customers and their need to track, enhance and organize every online interaction through a simple-to-use content management system.”
</blockquote>
Let's take a look at some of the new capabilities and changes in this release.
<h3>Personalization</h3>
Magnolia's new personalization feature is based on page variants. Variants are alternative content that replace the original content in personalized delivery. You can target page variants to visitor according to traits such as country, date, or new vs. returning. Dedicated apps support creating segments and personas and impersonating visitors. Take the example below for instance, as you can see, you can personalize the experience based on the individual user or other traits as outlined above.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/magnolia-personalization953x0.png" alt="Magnolia 5.3" />
<h3>Tag Management</h3>
Another new feature in this release is the introduction of the Tags Manager app. This app lets you take those often used snippets of code for best-of-breed services such as <a href="http://www.google.com/analytics/"> Google Analytics </a> , <a href="http://www.comscore.com/"> comScore </a> , <a href="http://www.turn.com"> Turn </a> , <a href="https://www.omniture.com/"> Omniture </a> , <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/"> Optimizely </a> , <a href="http://www.leadlander.com/"> Leadlander </a> and many others and integrate them quickly and easily into your platform with no developer support required.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/teaser-tags-manager_2014-06-24-12-15-05.png" alt="Magnolia 5.3" />
These tags can be used for a number of purposes and you aren't required to use any specific vendors, it's simply a way to quickly integrate code with minimal effort. What's nice is you can determine whether they show within your content and which platforms you'd like to display them on.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/diagram-tags-manager_2014-06-24-12-16-45.png" alt="Magnolia 5.3" />
Is it revolutionary? No of course not. This type of functionality already exists in a number of systems but the implementation here is what counts in my mind. There are similar solutions in products such as WordPress for specific themes (I'm thinking Genesis snippets here) and with the use of third party plugins but this being an app that is developed for Magnolia by Magnolia makes me more likely to consider it over an unvetted third party solution.
<h3>Tasks Inbox</h3>
This is one of the items I've been waiting to see the most since my  <a href="/my-visit-to-magnolias-offices-in-basel-switzerland/"> first visit to the Magnolia offices </a> last year. One of the features I saw missing was a workflow process that could be utilized to communicate between team members and Magnolia has done a great job in creating what I consider a solid implementation.
<blockquote>
The new Tasks Inbox provides instant visibility into open tasks, allowing administrators to easily check status and assign tasks to users. The Tasks Inbox is integrated with the Pulse, so assignees get instant notifications of new tasks…and of course, it all works seamlessly whether you're at work or on the move.
</blockquote>
In a demo by Andreas Weder and Mikael Geljic here at the 2014 Magnolia Conference, we saw a good example of how this Tasks inbox can be utilized when they demo'd the creation of an instagram based app that pulls photos and suggests them for future content to approvers.
Here's a great video that showcases a bit of what the Tasks inbox can do:
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZrwbBBnGiKg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h3>Content at home or abroad</h3>
Perhaps you use third party cloud storage or web services in addition to databases to store your content.
<blockquote>
With Content Connectors, developers can now build Magnolia apps with the same great user experience as native apps, and quickly interact with any external data source while users manage the content in a familiar way. 
 All native Magnolia content apps in community and enterprise editions are updated to use the new content connector automatically. Magnolia 5.3 also introduces an improved DAM API making it possible to plug in external asset providers such as Flickr, YouTube or a file system, and integrate the DAM with WebDav and CMIS.
</blockquote>
With Magnolia 5.3, you can manage all of it using your favorite Apps. Content can be stored in a number of places as illustrated by the diagram below.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/teaser-content-connector_2014-06-24-12-16-12.png" alt="Magnolia 5.3" />
The obvious advantages here are that you don't need to create yet another repository just to make things work with Magnolia but rather, you can simply connect it to existing services and manage them from within.
In addition to these new features, Magnolia has also introduced their new App Finder, which is a centralized repository for Magnolia approved applications, modules, source code and partner contributions.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/appfinder887x0.png" alt="Magnolia 5.3" />
It is available to all customers and community contributors and can be found at <a href="http://apps.magnolia-cms.com"> http://apps.magnolia-cms.com </a>
To learn more about this new release from Magnolia, visit https://www.magnolia-cms.com/home/campaigns/magnolia-5-3  and be sure to  <a href="http://www.twitter.com/cmscritic"> follow us on Twitter </a> to get the latest updates.

Magnolia 5.3 Blends CXM with CMS to Deliver Best of Breed Software

<a target="_blank" href="https://www.motocms.com/">MotoCMS</a> 3.0 was only <a href="/motocms-3-0-formally-launched/">released a few weeks ago</a>, but now there's a new update in town.<a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/motocms-3-0-6-update-main_1.jpg" /></a>Capable of producing crisp-looking responsive Websites, MotoCMS is a platform that's fast, sleek and heading in an interesting direction. CMS Critic has a review of MotoCMS on the way, so do keep your eyes peeled.Here's what's new with MotoCMS.<h2>Support &amp; SEO Enhancements</h2>First up, users will notice a “Quick Help” button within their admin panels. New users will see a helpful pop-up whenever they enter a new area, explaining the area.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/motocms-3-0-6-update-quick-help_1.jpg" />Experienced users though, can access the same help at any time by simply clicking the Quick Help icon.Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has also been enhanced, as users can now make use of “noindex”, “nofollow” and “canonical” link elements.Another notable feature lets users add custom html-code to Headers and Footers. This can be done via the Settings section to make the code valid for the entire website, or alternatively, the code can be injected into specific pages.More information on MotoCMS 3.0.6 can be found on the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.motocms.com/blog/en/motocms-3-0-6-update-technical/">MotoCMS Blog</a>.You can find out more about <a href="/products/motocms">MotoCMS through our CMS Directory</a>.

MotoCMS 3.0.6 Brings About Support & SEO Improvements

<a href="http://www.elcomcms.com/" target="_blank"> ElcomCMS </a>  have unveiled version 9.5 of their platform, with a “focus on customer experience”.
Geared towards mid-large size enterprises, ElcomCMS comes with over 70 core features to enable users to manage multiple sites, intranets, micro-sites, and so forth.
ElcomCMS 9.5 is scheduled to go live on July 1st 2014.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/elcomcms9_5.jpg" alt="ElcomCMS 9.5" />
The Elcom team has identified some common challenges facing IT managers, marketing executives, and everybody in between.
Here are some of those common challenges ElcomCMS 9.5 is aiming to address:
<ul>
<li>Reducing the time it takes to transfer content from old sites to new sites with a migration toolkit.</li>
<li>Authorized staff will be able to update the website anywhere, anytime on a mobile-friendly admin interface.</li>
<li>Push important information out to your employees through a new intranet mobile app.</li>
<li>Segmentation-based delivery of content to website audiences.</li>
<li>Faster performance resulting in quicker page-loading and reduced bounce rates.</li>
</ul>
Elcom's Product Director Tim Kirkman made the following comments regarding the announcement:
<blockquote>“Increasingly, IT and marketing teams are working together to create websites and intranets that not only meet the basic corporate requirements but integrate the many elements of marketing technology that are now critical to sales strategies.
As technology advances, companies are able to build on their existing platforms rather than having to change products. At the same time most want to take more control over migration and administration, to cut out the middle man and reduce time delays.
In upgrading our CMS platform a core consideration has been enhancing both our customers’ experience behind the scenes as well as the experience of their own customers. We want to offer a foundation from which companies can manage all their communication tools with flexibility to grow in the future.
Our goal is to help businesses get the most from their websites, intranets and portals by integrating existing systems with new functions. By putting the focus on communication rather than technology or sales, we can ensure the needs of all departments are met – regardless of a company’s core business.”</blockquote>
For more information on ElcomCMS 9.5, check out <a href="http://www.elcomcms.com/Resources/Articles/elcomcms95-customer-experience" target="_blank"> Elcom's recent blog post</a> regarding the impending release.

ElcomCMS 9.5 Set to Be Released

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