Articles - Page 76

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

bmckeiver

This much-debated topic requires further clarity that will, in turn, benefit both the platform provider and the buyer. Let’s start with a definition of each and compare the core differences between them that set them apart.
A CMS, technically a WCMS for Web Content Management System, is used to build, launch, manage, and host websites. In the case of CMS, the user experience is singular, displaying the same content and messaging to every user.
A <a href="https://www.solodev.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Web Experience Platform</a> is also used to build, launch, manage, and host websites. However, a Web Experience Platform delivers a different experience to every website visitor based on a plethora of data which is leveraged to personalize the user experience. With the ability to personalize content and deliver different user experiences to every customer persona, the opportunities are limitless.
Websites built on a CMS are focused on singular content and messaging while a Web Experience Platform can deliver unique web experiences with the content, medium, and messaging completely personalized to the user. Yes, content is still the operative term but it is no longer singular. In a Web Experience Platform, you have tons of content ready to serve up to a wide range of customer personas.
Currently, CMS companies are desperately scrambling to become Web Experience Platforms as they have noticed the tremendous benefit in doing so. Serving up personalized content tailored to the user, giving one user a different experience with your website than another, that is where the future of website management is headed.
As CMS companies scramble to pivot towards delivering tailored web experiences, existing Web Experience Platforms are far ahead of the game but not for long. It is likely that by the end of 2017 a majority of companies previously known as CMS providers will rebrand themselves as Web Experience Platforms. This will push the boundaries of programming languages, <a href="https://www.solodev.com/blog/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">web design</a>, and frameworks as well as the designers and engineers who use them, forcing them to adapt to the new standard in web development which will undoubtedly lead to new programming languages, frameworks, web design practices and much more.
Be wary of vendors that claim to be Web Experience Platforms. A lot of CMS companies are calling themselves Web Experience Platforms, even if they technically aren’t, and others are holding onto the CMS acronym while adding a Web Experience Platform, almost as an additive to the CMS. And everyone else is either a true Web Experience Platform or a CMS. You cannot be both at the same time, the entire purpose and vision of each product, despite being web oriented, is drastically different.
The Web Experience Platform, at times known as a Digital Experience Manager, will become the new standard as technology moves quickly and the entire CMS market migrates their focus to the digital experience. So if you’re looking for a website solution you now know the state of the union and can ask the right questions when looking for platforms to build and manage your website(s).
Begin with this question. Can you really deliver content tailored to the user? And I don’t mean an ad targeted at a certain user that takes them to a certain landing page. I mean someone visiting your website, and all of its pages, and seeing content specific to the customer persona they fall into.
For example, your company sells to marketers, developers, software executives, and agencies. So in the case of a Web Experience Platform, you create content for all of those customer personas and create a conditional structure to serve up the appropriate content based on the persona of the user which can come from several sources of data, namely behavior, cookies, browser history, viewing device, etc.
So reading this as a business executive you’re probably going to ask your IT or Engineering Lead tomorrow why you don’t have a Web Experience Platform. They probably won’t know what that is but tell them to step on it. Be there first, don’t join in at the last second because there isn’t a better time to switch as long as you find the proper vendor with a roadmap to increase the level of personalization the platform provides.
As an end user, a consumer on the web, guess what? Less closing out of windows, skipping through pages, and wasting time looking for the right content online— it’ll be tailor made and served to you. The effect of this shift will be felt across the digital world not just on websites but all digital devices as content becomes more personalized and the experience becomes the focus.
As a buyer, when debating whether or not to choose a CMS or a Web Experience Platform it's much like debating over whether to get a 2017 BMW 7 Series or a 1994 Honda Civic assuming they cost the same. Wouldn't you rather be driving the brand new BMW 7 series?
Web Experience Platforms are the next generation of Content Management Systems. Make sure your existing CMS has a product roadmap that leads to evolving into a Web Experience Platform and if not, find a Web Experience Platform that runs on all six cylinders.
<h3 style="user-select:auto">About the Author</h3>
Shawn Moore is the founder &amp; CTO of Solodev and the driving force behind the Solodev Web Experience Platform. A visionary leader, Shawn has strategically grown Solodev from inception to a successful company that services clients across the nation and has been named to the Inc. 5000’s fastest growing private companies for the past two years in a row.
Winner of several industry awards for Best CTO and CIO, Shawn Moore is changing the content management landscape with Solodev. With over a decade of executive experience serving as CEO of Solodev and COO for software company Helium Flash, Shawn has the industry knowledge and product passion that continues to drive the development of the Solodev Platform. He is a graduate of Stetson University and often speaks on IT related trends and topics at conferences and universities across the state.

The Difference Between a CMS and a Web Experience Platform

mike-johnston

You have been thinking about launching a website for your business for ages. But you do not know where to start. 
You have been scheduling meetings with programmers and web designers for quite some time already. But somehow they still can not grasp the concept of your website. 
You would like to have a full control over your website once it is online. But coding, programming, and web development lie far beyond your area of expertise. 
But, but, but – what an annoying word, isn’t it? Have you recognized yourself in any of these sad situations? Then we have great news for you! All the situations mentioned have an excellent solution called <a href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/59995.html" target="_blank">Evolution Universal Business Website Theme</a>. Let’s examine this multipurpose template from MotoCMS.
With Evolution, Creating Your Website Turns Into a Game
Is there any chance you played with constructors as a child? Remember those interlocking plastic bricks you put together to built pyramids and such? If yes, then congratulations – now you understand the basic principle of Evolution. Simply by moving around the ready-made blocks, you can create the layout for any web page you want in a few seconds. This is achieved thanks to the build-in page editor that MotoCMS is so proud of. No coding skills whatsoever. No tedious hours trying to figure out how to change that one button you do not like. Seems too good to be true, doesn’t it?
Evolution contains one more fascinating feature that can interest both doctors and designers. Do you belong to one of these groups of professionals? Then you will definitely find two child themes of Evolution extremely helpful. These child themes are developed to completely minimize the time you need for the successful completion of your first website. The child page for medical establishments looks positive and refreshing. It helps your clients relax while filling in the contact form, subscribing to your newsletter, or reading about the services you provide. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/evolution-medical-child-page.jpg" />
The child page for designers boasts clear layout and user-friendly navigation. Its primary aim is to focus all the attention of your visitors on the visual representation of your completed projects. So, take the page you need and create a website just by moving blocks around. Why not becoming a programmer for one day to create the website you need (or have always wanted)?
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/evolution-web-design-child-page.jpg" />
Another important feature that makes Evolution one of a kind is its 16 ready-to-use pages. This set of pages is developed to facilitate the process of creating your website to its full extent. All the pages you would need to create a multi-page website are right there at hand. “Home”, “Contact us”, “Services” etc. – your job is just to pick the pages that fit your business project and put them together. Yes, this easy. Just like playing a game.
Evolution Guarantees : Your Website Looks Professional
Now you know how to build a website in a blink of an eye. But this may bring up one crucial question, namely – will this website look professional? And here is another great piece of news. Evolution is developed by the top professionals in the programming world. Thus it boasts amazing functionality and outstanding design. No one will ever tell a difference between your website and an expensive website done by a dozen of programmers. 
For starters, Evolution is 100% responsive. Why is responsivity this important? Well, visitors of your website may use different devices to view the content you offer. And all the visitors expect to enjoy the full functionality of your website. Thanks to the 100% responsivity of Evolution, your website looks the way it should on any existing device. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/evolution-responsive-design.jpg" />
SEO-integration is another professional feature of Evolution. When you opt for Evolution, you choose a full range of instruments to make your content SEO-friendly. And SEO-friendly content, as we all know, leads to high rankings on Google. And the rankings correlate with the size of your client base. With Evolution, enlarging your clientele does not seem as hard as it used to be, does it?
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/evolution-seo.jpg" />
Evolution also allows you to start a blog. It can be of special importance for businesses that are relatively young. But businesses that want to attract clientele as fast as possible can also use blogs intensively. Blog functionality gives you a chance to publish original content on a regular basis. And as you probably already know, this is one of the most effective ways to improve your SEO ranking.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/evolution-blog.jpg" />
With Evolution, You Have Full Control Over Your Website
Let’s imagine that your website is ready and successfully running online. Would you like to have full access to its functionality any time you want? Wouldn’t it be nice to update certain information when you feel like it, e.g. services list?
With Evolution, you can enjoy the full control of what is happening to your business website. It is up to you to decide when your online business needs a slight rebranding or an intensive marketing campaign. Only you decide when to add certain content blocks to your online project. For example, this can be a description of a remarkable event, like opening a branch office, to your “About us” page. To cut the long story short, with Evolution you need no outsourcing to adjust your web project to your current needs.
And in case you have a question or two about Evolution, you can always rely on the 24/7 MotoCMS Technical Support Team. This team consists of top consultants. They all would be more than happy to offer an optimum solution to your issue in the twinkling of an eye.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/evolution-support.jpg" />
So, enjoy the carte blanche that MotoCMS gives you with Evolution! 
To help you with launching of your online business even more, MotoCMS prepared a special gift for the readers of this article – an exclusive 30% OFF promo code: cmscritic30. Use it on the checkout to <a href="http://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/59995.html" target="_blank">get your Evolution with a personal discount just right now</a>.

Creating a Business Website Easy: Evolution from MotoCMS

WordPress is the most popular CMS out there. But, there are a lot of things slowing it down.
Maybe you’ve already noticed this on your own site. With heavy plugins, dense themes and millions of users, <a href="/wordpress-joomla-and-drupal-are-not-the-best-cms/">WordPress isn’t always the speediest platform</a>.
<img alt="make wordpress fast" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/speedy.png" />
The bad news is that a slow website can cause all sorts of problems. First of all, it’s a poor first impression. You want your visitors to associate your site with professionalism and speed – not a slow load time.
Some studies have shown that slow websites actually <a href="http://www.digital-velocity.co.uk/blog/the-impact-of-loading-speed-on-website-performance/">drive people away</a> and kill your conversions. If it’s really slow, Google may even drop your page rank.
The good news is that there are plenty of things we can do to speed things up.
1. Invest in a Fast Web Host
Web hosts come in all shapes and sizes, but most people make a choice based on cost. Problem is, the cheapest is rarely the best!
A cheap web host often means a ‘shared’ server. In other words, you’re sharing space and resources with countless other websites across the world. If one website on your shared server gets a flood of visitors, it might impact the speed of yours.
If you’re curious about how fast your web host is currently performing, check out this server speed checker tool. This will tell you how fast your web host <a href="http://www.bitcatcha.com/">server response time</a> is.
Google recommends a server speed of <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/Server">less than 200ms</a>, so if your server is slower than that, time to rethink your web host.
2. Choose a Lightweight Theme
If your web host is the first place to look for extra speed, your theme is the second. The great thing about WordPress is the <a href="/5-places-to-find-epic-wordpress-themes/">many hundreds of themes you can choose</a> to design your site.
<img alt="make wordpress fast" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/themify.jpg" />But remember, anyone can create a theme and make it available online. There’s no guarantee that the theme has been coded efficiently. Some themes are incredibly heavy and dense with unnecessary code.
But, how do I know if a theme is lightweight? 
The first thing to check is the file size. Anything bigger than 2MB should really be avoided. You can also run the demo site through a load-speed checker to see how quickly it responds.
3. Think Carefully About Your Plugins
It’s easy to get carried away when installing plugins. Again, there are hundreds to choose from, and they’re all useful in their own way.
But remember, every plugin has to be dragged in and loaded up. That means every plugin adds a few milliseconds to your load speed. And, if they’re heavily coded or inefficient, they’ll take even longer.
Think carefully about which plugins your site actually needs. Which ones could you get rid of?
4. Shrink Your Images
We all want our photos and images to look fantastic online. But that doesn’t mean you need to use the full file size. Again, the bigger and heavier your images, the longer they’ll take to load.
<img alt="make wordpress fast" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/optimization.png" />In general, WordPress themes and browsers are rarely more than 1,000 pixels wide. So if your images are larger than 1,000px wide, you can easily shrink them without losing quality.
Consider the format too. JPEGs are generally lighter than PNGs because they’re compressed, so they’ll help speed things up.
5. Don’t Ignore Your Updates!
WordPress sends us tons of update requests, and it can seem annoying. But, trust me, they’re all important!
Updates are essential for keeping your themes, plugins and software secure and speedy. Each new update carries a performance boost. If you’re sitting on lots of pending updates, hit the upgrade button – it’s the easiest and quickest way to speed your website.
6. Install A Caching Plugin
If I could recommend just one way to shave seconds off your load time, it’s this.
Caching stores your website’s data on a visitor’s web browser, so next time they visit your site it loads immediately. In other words, they don’t have to wait for your website to fetch everything from your server every time.
It won’t help your site load faster for new visitors, but repeat visitors should get a slick and immediate response every time.
W3 Total Cache is one of the most popular but I personally prefer <a href="https://wp-rocket.me" target="_blank">WP Rocket</a> and consider it the best caching plugin out there, and it’s super simple to install.
7. Clean Up Your Database
If you write a ton of content and blogs, you might be surprised at how much WordPress is storing on your server.
<img alt="make wordpress fast" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/clean.png" />Every post draft, amendment, trashed article, spam comments and auto-saved versions are all stored forever. Unless of course, you change the settings. If you don’t fancy deleting all this by hand, you can use a plugin like <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-optimize/installation/">WP-Optimize</a>.
It’s like a spring-clean for your WordPress database, and it will clear out anything that’s slowing you down.
8. Use GZip Compression
Compression simply squashes your website so all the parts are lighter and smaller. That means it’s quicker to load when someone clicks on it.
Done correctly, you won’t lose any quality of functionality either so it’s a win-win technique. If your web host offers it, you might find GZip compression in your CPanel. If not, you can try a compression plugin like <a href="https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/gzip-ninja-speed-compression/">Ninja Speed</a>.
9. Use a Content Delivery Network
You might not realise it, but geography plays a huge part in website load speed. Let’s say, for example, your server is located in the UK, but someone in Japan clicks on your website. It’s going to take a long time to send the information halfway around the world from Britain to Japan.
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) solves this problem by letting you place copies of your website on servers around the world. Now, when someone clicks on your website in Japan, the server closest to them will serve up the website. Much faster!
Personally, I like <a href="http://cloudflare.com" target="_blank">Cloudflare</a>, but there are plenty of CDN options out there.
Conclusion
Don’t let a sluggish website hold you back. A slow website can kill your conversions and make the wrong impression. These 9 tricks are simple and straightforward to implement, and you’ll notice a HUGE difference. Try it yourself, and feel free to ask any questions in the comment section below.

9 Easy Ways to Make WordPress Lightning Fast

<h2>How A Document Management System Leads to “Big Insight”</h2>
The term “document” has become a ubiquitous, widely applicable term for anything containing information in digital or physical format. However, for the purposes of organizations, it is better described as anything an organization creates that contains information.
As the e-commerce revolution ensued and surged at the beginning of the 21st century, organizational information with each passing year could not be accurately defined as just a document or file.
Instead, the term “data” emerged to explain and categorize the varieties of organizations’ digital information, including the variety of places this information can be stored, duplicated, and lost—making it an equally dangerous medium for unstructured information.
<h3>Leveraging Document Management to Mitigate Skilled Labor Shortage</h3>
The most versatile <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/efilecabinet-online/">benefits of a document management system</a> are time and money savings. In the construction and manufacturing industries in particular—there is a large shortage of skilled laborers.
However, a skilled labor shortage does not have to mean the downfall of an organization, for a document management system solutions can resolve this problem—given that a document management system expedites internal processes, it frees up room for recruitment revenue and the salaries to attract top talent to an organization without breaking the bank, providing a competitive edge on the balance sheet when it is especially needed.
Moreover, new talent is not always needed: cutting costs internally through a document management system alone is enough to free up the profits sought by many executives and administrators—especially those who are beginning with startups.
A <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/what-is-a-document-management-system/">document management system</a> (DMS) is any small to mid-sized organization’s formalized, strategic, and technological means for storing and managing images, web pages, graphics, social content, email content, video, and other rich media assets.
The goal of DMS is to effectively manage all information belonging to and created by organizations—relaying greater insights into the information contained in its content. Document management provides organizations with the means to manage the proliferation of their content, including the data and information it contains.
This signifies a major paradigm shift for the organizational prospectus: moving from big data to big content—focusing less on data-intensive aspects of the organization like data mining (which automation is better equipped to handle today) and more on effectively storing content to effectively harness its information.
This phenomenon is further reified by the <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/mobile-document-management-software/">DMS mobile app</a>, which gives businesses, in addition to other mobile tools, another means of conducting businesses wherever there’s an internet connection.
<h3>Deriving Big Insight through the Document Management System</h3>
Essentially, organizations should not spend money on analytics and big data without the means to effectively do so—DMS being a potent means for accomplishing these objectives.
Additionally, sometimes organizations purchasing a document management system will arrive at sufficient analytics and insight-based conclusions regarding the data in their content without buying big data and other analytics services—further increasing the potential ROI for document management system adoption and use over the long haul.
Analytics, or in other words—deriving insight from data—has dominated organizations’ spending plans for the past two years. For instance, the <a href="https://www.idc.com/">International Data Corporation (IDC)</a> projected that analytics would become a $125 billion market worldwide by 2015.
However, these budget allocations are futile without a document management system or other enterprise-grade document management solutions, for without DMS and similar technologies, including the behavioral means to use them effectively, acquiring crucial insight from data will prove a time-consuming, ineffectual process.
To learn more about what a top-rated document management system, visit <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/">efilecabinet.com.</a>

Document Management and Entrepreneurship: From Big Data to Big Insight

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<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/capture.png" />
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Need WordPress Managed Hosting? WPEngine Offering Huge Discounts with Annual Plan

<h3>Simplifying Existing DMS Market Research</h3>
As is the case with all research geared toward helping organizations make purchase decisions, the analyses in the Magic Quadrant and Wave will attempt to summarize market and vendor information quickly before summarizing it thoroughly and in its entirety.
Quick summaries are useful, but oftentimes not all-encompassing. It will be up to prospective DMS buyers to decide whether it is in their best interest to use what may be the easiest means of selecting the <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/">best document management system vendor</a> as opposed to relying on several diverse sources, including an internal analysis of their own organization’s needs.
However, both Forrester and Gartner offer more specific research insights for prospective technology buyers than the Wave or Magic Quadrant provide: The Gartner Interactive Magic Quadrant and the Forrester Wave tool each allow prospective document management system buyers to input information specific to their organization, providing more individual assistance in the technology selection than a single report can provide.
However, from this input, not all vendors will be available in the results, so prospective buyers should still explore other options as well.
<h3>Analyzing the Document Management System through Market Research</h3>
Commerce is now driven by content, and without the document management system technology and strategy to transform it into knowledge, information limits organizations. “The Information Age” does not just encompass the proliferation of data creation technologies—it also denotes organizations’ reliance on these technologies in lieu of their ability to derive knowledge from them.
Organizations with <a href="http://blogs.gartner.com/darin-stewart/2013/05/01/big-content-the-unstructured-side-of-big-data/">unstructured content</a> can lose access to this content’s information within a second; as this second transpires, it may become a mistake that takes hours, weeks, months, and perhaps even years to recover from—particularly if this information impacts customer experience or satisfaction. Additionally, losing access to information can also result in opportunity costs, legal costs, and an organizational image that subtracts from the bottom-line.
Document management system delivery models and technologies are changing drastically. Therefore, as DMS vendors spearhead innovation, their contribution to users’ understanding of their solutions is imperative.
Now, going paperless in and of itself is neither a sufficient information management policy nor a means of gaining a competitive advantage for mid- to large-sized organizations: 80% of any given organization’s content is digital—and without DMS’s strategy and technology to automate the structure of this content, your employees will continuously perform the duties of a librarian in one capacity or another—detracting from the revenues to be earned within the scope of their actual roles.
Often, DMS is viewed as an ineffective resolution to the ills of corporate disorganization—one that does not account for the subtleties and nuances of individual roles in the workspace, let alone each organization’s role in its respective industry.
However, no matter what organization you run, the majority of what you do is creating, managing, and processing information through human capital to make informed decisions, and given <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/filing-cabinet-software-deployment-mistakes/">proper training and implementation</a>, a document management system provides the features, benefits, and simplicity to expedite the attainment of these results.
Going paperless alone is not the singular value of DMS. Rather, this involves the management of paperless information, because although there may have been an organizational process and storage guidelines when paper was there, uploading and digitizing it without a storage infrastructure has created content chaos in mass—a phenomenon that impinges the productivity of knowledge workers and the economy as a whole alike.
A document management system offers executive leadership and administrators in the fields of education, business, and government the power to extract actionable insights from content.
DMS is designed to support content throughout all lifecycles in an organization at the levels of its <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/assimilate-a-dms-into-a-modern-it-model/">IT infrastructure and organizational strategy</a>.
Document management is an equalizing technology-leveling the playing field among small to mid-sized organizations striving to compete with larger, paper-dependent ones. In a business climate that is rife with competition and economic uncertainty, organizations must do everything in their power to reduce expenses without sacrificing output, and use of a document management system is one of the foremost ways to effectively achieve this goal.
To learn more about <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/what-is-a-document-management-system/">what a document management system is</a>, visit eFileCabinet’s website today.

Understanding the Document Management System through Market Research

With the holidays approaching, I thought rather than write a million press release style articles, I'd just share with you what has happened over the last couple of weeks in the CMS world.
Here are some of the popular happenings from in an around the world of CMS and business software:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.magnolia-cms.com/blogs/antti-hietala/detail~@magnolia-core-5-5-is-our-strongest-release-so-far~.html" target="_blank">Magnolia 5.5 was released</a></li>
<li><a href="https://contao.org/en/news/contao-3_5_20.html" target="_blank">Contao 3.5.20 was released</a></li>
<li><a href="http://documentation.concrete5.org/developers/background/version-history/803-release-notes" target="_blank">Concrete5 8.0.3 was released</a></li>
<li><a href="http://processwire.com/blog/posts/pw-3.0.45/" target="_blank">ProcessWire 3.0.45 was released</a></li>
<li><a href="http://share.ez.no/blogs/community-project-board/the-week-in-review-ez-platform-1.7.0-release-name-changes-php-7-benchmarks-and-more" target="_blank">eZ Platform 1.7.0 was released</a></li>
<li><a href="https://arastta.org/blog/arastta-1-5" target="_blank">Arastta 1.5 released</a></li>
<li>ExpressionEngine 3.4.6 released</li>
</ul>
Check out the websites for more info and have a great holiday!
~Mike

CMS News Round-up - December 19, 2016

Best Video Experience

Give your audience the best video experience

#000000

DNN announces the general availability of Evoq 9, which delivers omnichannel publishing via a microservices architecture. Evoq 9 includes Liquid Content™, a new Content as a Service platform that’s delivered as a microservice via DNN’s Liquid Content™ Cloud.
Included in Liquid Content™:
<ul>
<li>A headless CMS to manage content </li>
<li>A content analytics application to measure and analyze the impact of content </li>
<li>A stateless API to access and retrieve content </li>
<li>Delivery of services via Liquid Content™ Cloud, powered by Microsoft Azure</li>
<li>The content delivery and presentation features of the Evoq CMS, including a library of 100+ visualizers</li>
</ul>
Liquid Content™ facilitates the intelligent re-use of content beyond websites, to apps, devices and Internet of Things (IoT). 
<blockquote>
According to Navin Nagiah, President and CEO, DNN, “Liquid takes the shape of the objects it’s placed in and flows around barriers and obstacles. Our vision with Evoq 9 is to transform your content into liquid. Your content becomes fluid and adaptable, and can easily be published to any channel.”
</blockquote>
Fred Beer, President of ITX Corporation, a DNN Gold certified partner said, “Liquid Content™ and Liquid Content™ Cloud are exciting developments that help us efficiently deliver digital experiences to our customers. Creating content once, then re-using it across channels, will help our customers gain a higher return on their content.”
Because all Liquid Content™ features are delivered as microservices, DNN can publish weekly or daily updates to individual features. All customers will receive updates instantaneously, which provides enhancements and fixes as quickly as possible.
“We’re bringing multi-tenant Software as a Service (SaaS) to a CMS, which is quite rare in our industry,” said Nagiah.
While most headless CMS platforms require developers to create front-end experiences, DNN leverages the longstanding capabilities of the Evoq CMS to deliver content without writing a single line of code. “Evoq is the head that’s attached to the headless CMS of Liquid Content™. Customers will receive all of the content delivery and presentation features they’ve come to expect, along with visualizers and other new features,” said Nagiah.
Visit them on the web at <a href="http://www.dnnsoftware.com/" target="_blank">http://www.dnnsoftware.com/</a>

DNN Announces the Release of Evoq 9

Your website is your most visible and valuable marketing asset and the decision as to which <a href="https://www.solodev.com/" target="_blank">content management system (CMS)</a> to use when building your site can have a long-term impact on the success of your organization. Today’s CMS solutions are at the epicenter of your marketing technology stack and are key factors in driving revenue, brand awareness, and engagement with prospects and customers. Finding a solution that can be tailored to support the needs of your business is more important than ever.
And remember, you’re not just choosing technology. The vendor of that technology is an essential part of your decision. Do they see the needs of your market the way you do and are they working on a product roadmap that will support your organization going forward? Or are they focused on features you don’t really need and will just serve to clutter the product you’re using. Is there even a vendor? Open source solutions may seem great — but if you require any support, you may not have an obvious place to turn to when you need it.
Choose the right CMS platform and you can avoid several issues:
<ul>
<li>outgrowing the platform sooner than is reasonable</li>
<li>allocating more budget than you really need to</li>
<li>always relying on someone else to update your site</li>
<li>greater vulnerability to security breaches</li>
<li>not keeping pace with the needs of your customers</li>
</ul>
To help you in your selection effort, we offer this overview of 7 critical factors we feel are important to address when choosing a Content Management System for your organization.
1. Ease of Use
When choosing a CMS Platform ‘ease of use’ is paramount. However, there is a fine line between ease of use and robust functionality. Many CMS platforms compromise on functionality to make their platform easier to use. When searching for different solutions, make sure that not only is the platform easy to use and intuitive, but also has all of the features and functionality your organization will need to meet your business goals.
Updating and Maintaining Content
The days of having to know how to code to make edits to your website content are long gone. Microsoft Word-like interfaces with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Editors and inline editing are basic requirements of any modern CMS platform. Additionally, it should be easy to share content and data across several channels without requiring multiple instances of content. Find a CMS solution that enables anyone in your organization, from marketing to sales, to make site-wide edits without requiring IT support, developers, or a third party agency to update your content for you.
Custom Content Applications
CMS platforms typically come with applications, sometimes called modules or plugins, either out of the box or as an add-on and/or upsell to the platform. These applications are used for many purposes, including easy, form-based authoring of structured content for specific content types like news items, events, and management bios. Look for a CMS that offer applications out of the box that do not embrace a one size fits all mentality, but are customizable to suit the needs of your business.
2. Breadth of Features
Any product is only as strong as the features, functionality and ease-of-use they provide out of the box. When evaluating CMS platforms, carefully review what features and functionality come with the product and if they meet the needs of your organization and avoid the expense of required third party plugins and integrations for what should be standard functionality. The ideal CMS has almost everything you need right out of the box, but also provides the option to integrate with third party applications where necessary.
Native Functionality Vs. Third Party Plugins
Third party plugins are required in many CMS platforms. While seemingly convenient, they can be both a pro and con at the same time. Plugins may save hours of development time and even money in the short term. But they can also be developed by a third party who may or may not continue to support the tool consistently or at all, which could leave you in a vulnerable position. Plugins can also be a major security problem — even well established plugins like Yoast, a widely used Google Analytics plugin, can be exploited by hackers. In fact, the more widely a plugin is deployed, the more attractive it may be for hackers to go after it.
Digital Marketing and Ecommerce
Managing a website in today’s marketplace often involves a robust integration of digital marketing technologies — CRM, marketing automation, social media management, etc. At the end of the day your website is a tool to help your organization meet its marketing and sales goals, whether that’s through lead gen tools like landing pages and calls-to-action, or eCommerce features to increase shopping cart conversions. When looking for a CMS platform, you’ll find that more and more platforms have native digital marketing and eCommerce capabilities — or have established integrations with the leading products in those segments — and deliver the metrics you need to understand if you’re achieving digital success. You need to decide if you’re looking for more of an integrated suite offering, where digital marketing and eCommerce are native to the platform, or if you prefer a best of breed solution that is more focused on third-party integration.
Front End User Role Management
In a world driven by big data, personalization that delivers state-of-the-art digital experiences is more and more commonplace. Real-time intelligence on how users navigate your site can help you deliver just the right content at just the right time to visitors based on their credentials, cookies or even just their site actions. CMS platforms with front end user role management can maximize your bottom line by serving up different content based on how often a user has visited a certain page or even offer a buying incentive to a shopper after 60 seconds of being idle in your shopping cart.
3. Deployment Infrastructure
There are many factors to take into consideration when deploying a website and CMS platform. Is it a cloud-based system that lets your organization focus on its business, not investing resources in IT infrastructure. Is the environment Linux or Windows. What type of system resources do you require based on your traffic and bandwidth, or how mission-critical your site is (i.e. uptime and backups). When evaluating these various requirements, it’s important to think beyond cost and focus on the needs of your organization and whether the CMS platform meets the goals and objectives of your infrastructure plan.
Flexibility
How flexible is the CMS platform? Can it operate in various environments or is it OS specific? Some CMS platforms will run in either Linux or Windows, some only run in one. This can limit your hosting options and create issues down the road. If possible, look for a platform neutral CMS.
Speed
When you hear the term speed related to CMS platforms, it can mean a variety of things. One is how easy it is to install, setup and configure to deploy your first website. Are we talking hours, days, weeks, months? Another is page load speed and how quickly the CMS renders content. Not all CMS platforms are the same so it’s important to understand how the system works and how easy it is to get up and running.
SaaS or On Premise
There are different ways to purchase CMS platforms. Some are premise-based which means you have the license rights to setup the software in your own hosting environment. That can mean “on premise” as in an internal server or on your own server within a colocated environment. Another popular way to structure things is what’s referred to as software as a service or SaaS model. This means you pay monthly as part of an overall infrastructure option based on the monthly or annual installments tied to the hosting environment, software license and support. This is a great way to structure things if your organization desires to leave the IT tasks to the software people.
Scalability
Whether premise-based or SaaS, another factor is how scalable is the environment you’re using to host the CMS platform. Can it handle large spikes in traffic and easily scale up so that a great day for visitor traffic does not become a nightmare. In many SaaS environments, like within AWS (<a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=8e11c912-6253-41b8-b065-bf32bd27911b" target="_blank">Amazon Web Services</a>) you have the ability to add resources and create multi-server environments that mirror each other. That means you can add servers and resources to balance the load of traffic across multiple servers versus a single server. Cloud-based “clusters” work extremely well for organizations looking for speed, uptime and security.
4. Design Flexibility
So many websites look exactly the same today. Sure, the designs are cleaner and the navigation crisper than ever before — but visiting websites today can be like driving through a planned community where it’s hard to distinguish one house from the other. This is largely the result of theme-driven platforms like WordPress. But in a world of cookie-cutter websites, it’s more important than ever — and somewhat easier — for your brand to stand out from the crowd with amazing web design.
Represent Your Brand Exactly How You Want
Not all CMS platforms can handle the nuances of custom, complex design as well others. It all depends on how much control the CMS allows over the templating system. Control may vary from simply being able to edit the existing templates to being able to work outside of a template structure altogether. CMS platforms that offer a flexible architecture that allows complete development freedom from a template structure are much more able to accommodate the exact design that could differentiate your brand from the competition.
Support for Mobile
Depending on your business, today’s web visitors are more likely to find you on a smartphone than on a desktop. We live in a mobile-first world — that is getting more mobile every single day. Be sure that your CMS supports responsive mobile design directly out of the box so that you can reach customers and prospects seamlessly across all channels and devices.
Ease of Design Refresh
The flexibility of today’s SaaS CMS platforms offer options that make it possible to stay on one CMS for years. SaaS vendors can continuously upgrade the CMS platform without you ever needing to do anything. Upgrades fix bugs, improve performance and add more functionality. In fact, you’re more likely to outgrow your look and feel than you are your CMS platform. Certain CMS architectures make it very easy to port all of your existing content and custom functionality into a new look and feel without the pain of a replatform.
5. Multi-site Management
Many organizations no longer manage just one or two sites. Even mid-size businesses may have multiple sites to manage, while large companies may have dozens or even hundreds of sites. Sometimes it’s due to different lines of business or a network of subsidiaries, but more and more, it’s driven by organizations launching various marketing campaigns, all needing their own websites, content and landing pages. What can frequently happen is that all of these sites end up being managed on different platforms. This can be super inefficient, expensive, and can result in your brand looking vastly different across your different websites.
Manage From a Single Platform
Having all your websites on a single platform and part of the same installation means your entire team can work from a single interface to develop and manage content. This means more efficient training and better user adoption. It also allows for better utilization of hardware resources and ultimately lower hosting fees. Additionally, a single platform can make it extremely easy to spin up new sites by making a clone of an existing site that offers a starting point of existing content and templates. It also makes it possible to share the same piece of content or other assets across all of your sites. This approach can enforce a consistent template governance across sites and ensure your brand is presented the way you want it to be.
Assign Admin Roles by Site
Not all content editors should have access to manage content across all of your sites. If managing multiple sites is important in your selection process, be sure that the CMS can assign roles that control access to your sites, and even sections within sites. Granular permissions gives you total control over who can access what, yet still allow you to work together with common workflows that enable sharing and teamwork.
6. Third-Party Integration
In today’s marketplace, your website isn’t just about pretty pictures and marketing copy. The digital experience should be about streamlining operations, automating workflows, and providing your end users with tremendous value. That’s why third-party integration is important. The ability of a CMS platform to communicate with other third-party applications — whether CRM, commerce or marketing automation — allows for seamless integration and workflow, therefore improving the overall digital experience.
APIs
One key thing to look for in a CMS platform is API connectivity. An API, or Application Programming Interface, allows data to be two-way communicated between the CMS platform and other applications. This is paramount if you have plans to develop mobile applications that connect to the CMS platform data. A native API will make those future app plans much easier to implement.
Developer and Custom Application Support
Third-party integration can be completed in many ways. You can leverage your own internal programming and IT team to write the code. You can contract a system integrator to implement the connectivity. Of you can have the developers of the CMS platform handle the heavy lifting. Not all CMS platforms have development support options. Many are “open source” which means they are being developed with the best of intentions but due to the software being free to use (licensing options vary) there isn’t any developer support to assist you in customizing the overall experience. Depending on your plans for development, launch and future implementations, this may be a very important part of your decision making process.
7. Security and Support
The CMS platform’s security and support options can be an important factor in the decision-making process. In some situations, it’s enough just to download the software, install it on a server and build your own site. In others, the need for security and support factor into the equation because the demands of your business and mission-critical uptime lead the charge.
Security
Hackers love hacking, and that’s not going to stop. When evaluating CMS platforms, you have to consider the security implications, the integrity of your data, and whether you can afford to have your site go down or suffer from a data breach. In theory, all websites can be hacked when targeted, but some platforms are more secure than others. Do your research to be sure that the source code is sound and that security is not a major issue.
Support
Know who will be there for you after you go live. Not all CMS platforms come with support options. For example, many open-source applications do not offer direct access to support teams. Typically they develop security patches and software upgrades that you must download and install to keep your site up to date and secure. Most closed-source or SaaS products offer technical support and periodically “push down” the security and feature upgrades to all sites running their platform. This is a great thing if you do not want to worry about the potential technical issues. Its also a bonus to wake up one day with new features that were added at the request of the user community.
Conclusion
The right CMS for your organization is one that fits with your current and future needs and helps you achieve success. If you need help making the right CMS decision, there are plenty of places to turn. You can speak to local developers in your area or engage CMS experts for larger projects. In any event, make sure you choose wisely and test drive the software first. If possible, download trial installations and evaluate systems using consistent criteria. The decision you make could affect the health of your organization for a long time to come.

7 Critical Factors when choosing a CMS

Content management systems are wide and varied. There are tons of them on the market, some are proprietary but a very large amount are created under an open source license. The reason for this is simple; it allows a small team of developers to become a bigger team by opening up their code to a wider community of users who may wish to contribute or provide enhancements.This is one of the greatest strengths that open source products have; the often large pools of available developers. Of course, like anything, there can be downsides as well but lately, we've seen more and more open source products become viable options for companies in search of stable, regularly updated platforms on which to run their businesses. Today, I'm going to share with you my thoughts on how open source CMS' are taking over the world.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bigstock--123736220.jpg" />It'd be foolish of me not to tip my hat to the current king of open source CMS. WordPress has developed from a small but popular blogging platform to a widely used solution for websites of all sizes. Sadly, this also means it's very often used in situations where it isn't the right fit but there's no denying the incredible growth of WordPress, which <a target="_blank" href="https://trends.builtwith.com/cms">powers almost 50% of the websites worldwide</a>. Whether the stats are accurate or not, WordPress has some impressive staying power.There are several factors that makes WordPress so popular: ease of use, a wide variety of theme selections from seasoned developers such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.studiopress.com/">StudioPress</a>, tons of third party plugins from successful online marketplaces like <a target="_blank" href="https://codecanyon.net/category/wordpress?ref=cmscritic">CodeCanyon</a> and a large (and growing) network of companies and individuals who can provide support for the platform. Furthering this; should you wish to use the platform for more serious purposes, there's always the option to consider the WordPress.com VIP platform as a potential candidate.The success of products like <a target="_blank" href="https://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a> hinges on the community of developers worldwide who've found success developing for the platform and making a living from it by offering services such as theme development, plugin development, <a href="/products/wp-engine">managed hosting</a> and more. Companies have literally made millions supporting WordPress and continue to do so thanks to the widespread adoption of the platform.It's not all about WordPress, however, although it's hard to write an article talking about the success of open source CMS without first point out one of the most successful ones. Companies like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.acquia.com/">Acquia</a>; formed by a desire to offer a more commercially supported Drupal; have had great success offering cloud based CMS offerings built on the success of their open source counterparts. Over the last few years, I've seen a number of companies take on this approach and begin offering not only cloud based solutions but other options like emergency support, migration assistance and even webmaster services. An example of this would be <a target="_blank" href="https://modx.com/services/">MODX</a>, which now offers a wide variety of these services to help their user based get the support they need when they need it.The most common means of monetizing open source CMS solutions is to offer support services. Popular platforms like Umbraco do this by offering <a target="_blank" href="https://umbraco.com/products-and-support">monthly support packages</a> that provide companies who choose to use their platform with the peace of mind of knowing someone is available should assistance be needed. Often times, this is a cheaper alternative to hiring in-house support staff for newly implemented open source CMS products.Sadly, there are still several widely used platforms that offer no premium support or cloud solution to their communities. In my personal opinion, those are the products that will begin to fade in usage over time (at least as far as businesses are concerned). An example of one such company that I'd like to see begin to offer these types of services would be <a target="_blank" href="https://www.joomla.org/">Joomla</a>. Currently, Joomla! does not offer any support contract options nor a viable cloud based offering (Yes I'm aware of Joomla.com which is powered by Siteground but this is hardly something I'd recommend to a serious business and it's not the same as a cloud solution offered by the development group). Joomla! has a good opportunity with its already large user base to really expand their reach if they choose to go this route, something I hope they do before long.Open Source CMS have been getting increasingly popular over the last few years with widespread adoption and growth thanks to companies realizing the value of having worldwide developer communities at their fingertips. As such, a lot of open source enterprise vendors have grown leaps and bounds thanks to this renewed interest. As we continue to see open source adoption sky rocket with these new cloud based offerings, the vendors who stay on top will be the ones that are agile enough to make the leap of faith required to get offerings like this in place sooner rather than later.

How Open Source CMS are Taking Over the World

Utilizing Third-party Software Integrations
Although it is also a key step in the paperless office software selection process, many third-party software integrations across the vendor pool go underutilized by their users.
Selecting and using software with third-party integration relevant to the organization’s industry is imperative.
For instance, accounting firms should seek solutions with ample <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/software-integrations/">Salesforce integration</a>. However, a solution’s integration with more deeply embedded software like Microsoft Office is essential regardless of the industry.
Redefining Organizational Workflow
In order to get the most out of a paperless office software’s workflow feature, testing various workflows that either build upon or challenge the workflow utilized prior to the purchasing of the solution is important in using the collaborative features of the tool.
If emulating a preexisting workflow that does not use the scope of the solution’s workflow in its entirety, it is worth creating a new workflow that does.
Erasing Organizational Knowledge Silos through the Solution
When used as the vendor specifies, an organization’s content will eliminate knowledge silos in both behavioral and technological form.
Behaviorally, many workers in paper-and shared drive-dependent organizations usually spend anywhere from 10% to 20% of their time searching for inaccessibly stored information, whether through filing cabinets or shared drives.
This presents enormous costs to output, even without accounting for the fact that many workers spend time remaking or re-creating documents that are already stored somewhere, but cannot be found. <a href="http://www.efilecabinet.com/office-automation-zonal-update/">This is why Zonal OCR technology</a> in paperless office software provides an immense benefit to knowledge workers struggling to keep their information retrievable.
Extracting Data Driven Insight through Paperless Office Software
Given the present rate of data and information accumulation in organizations, gaining insight about this data and information becomes nearly impossible without technological intervention, and paperless office software is one of the few enterprise technologies that can structure content in a way that imparts, not prevents, insight regarding valuable information.
This provides strategic advantages in relation to competitors, marketing, information governance efficiency, and external auditing.
Relevant Certifications for Paperless Office Software Usage
A Note on Certifications 
Although many content management and information governance authorities issue general certifications, product diversification, including the industry-specific specialization of these vendors, will create a paradigm shift among certifications—with vendors themselves developing certifications specific to their solutions. Until then, the following certifications may give credibility to professionals’ information management skillset across a variety of different paperless office software solutions.
ECM Practitioner, Specialist, and Master Certifications
These certifications, as issued by <a href="http://www.aiim.org/wpfd">AIIM</a>, can be divided into two camps: sales-based certifications and technology-based certifications, with the latter being most beneficial for ECM users and users of similar technologies.
However, both kinds of certifications overlap in developing content needs assessment skills for organizations, and the level of mastery over ECM is indicated by the three certification tiers: ECM Practitioner, ECM Specialist, and ECM Master Course completion.
COMPTIA Certified Document Imaging Architect (CDIA)
The <a href="https://certification.comptia.org/">CompTIA</a> Certified Document Imaging Architect certification provides IT personnel with the means to fully implement paperless office software into preexisting IT structures, including the knowledge to ensure full utilization of the system’s features.
This certification provides insight and training on the more complex facets of electronic information management, such as workflow and workflow assessment.
ARMA Information Governance Professional (IGP)
<a href="http://www.arma.org/">ARMA</a>, as an information governance entity, offers an excellent, general ECM certification that ensures those certified under this specification understand information governance at the intersection of business auditing, information privacy, information technology, records management, and compliance.

Key Elements of Paperless Office Software

A new release of the popular open source content management system, WordPress, is upon us. Version 4.7 brings with it a new default theme as well as a slew of usability and design enhancements. Let's take a look through some of the changes in this latest release.
<h3>New Theme – Twenty Seventeen</h3>
The new theme, aptly named Twenty Seventeen is a theme designed for business websites that focuses on a creative home page and an easy site setup experience for users.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/twenty-seventeen-top.png" />
Features include:
<ul>
<li>multiple sections on the front page, selected in the Customizer.</li>
<li>a striking asymmetrical grid.</li>
<li>custom color schemes, built on top of a monochromatic foundation, and adjustable via a hue picker.</li>
<li>different headline placement for pages, changeable in the Customizer, via them options.</li>
<li>a great experience in many languages, thanks to language-specific font stacks.</li>
<li>SVG icons (a first for a default theme).</li>
<li>support for custom logo, custom header image and many post formats.</li>
<li>the use of <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/09/09/new-functions-hooks-and-behaviour-for-theme-developers-in-wordpress-4-7">new functions in Core</a> for making child theming easier.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Other updates in this release include:</h3>
Theme Starter Content
Starter Content is the theme-specific selections of content to help showcase a theme to users and serve as a starting point for further setup of new sites. The initial view of a theme with starter content will only happen for “fresh sites” – new installs that have not yet had any posts, pages, widgets, or customizer settings updated (<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/11/30/starter-content-for-themes-in-4-7/">read more</a>).
Edit Shortcuts
Visible icons appear to show you which parts can be customized right there while live previewing. Click on a shortcut and get straight to editing, no decoding of widget area names or extra clicks needed. Paired with starter content, getting started with customizing your site is faster than ever (<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/11/10/visible-edit-shortcuts-in-the-customizer-preview/">read more</a>).
Video Headers
WordPress 4.7 extends the Custom Header feature to introduce support for video. Video headers play automatically, loop by default, and don't have sound. They work best when paired with an image, so they can progressively enhance the experience when video is supported (<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/11/26/video-headers-in-4-7/">read more</a>).
Smoother Nav Menu Building
Many primary navigation menus for sites contain links to the pages of your site. But what happens when you don't have any pages yet? Now you can add new pages while building nav menus instead of leaving the customizer and abandoning your changes. Once you've published your customizations, you'll have new pages ready for you to fill with content (<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/06/16/feature-proposal-content-authorship-in-menus-with-live-preview/">read more</a>).
Custom CSS
Sometimes you just need a few more visual tweaks to make your site perfect, or a plugin adds something that doesn't quite look right with your site. WordPress 4.7 allows you to instantly see changes while adding custom CSS to give your site that polish (<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/11/feature-proposal-better-theme-customizations-via-custom-css-with-live-previews/">read more 1</a> and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/11/26/extending-the-custom-css-editor/">2</a>).
User Admin Languages and Locale Switching
Users can select their preferred locale (language) when editing their profile. The back end will be displayed in the user's individual locale while the locale used on the front end equals the one set for the whole site (<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/11/07/user-admin-languages-and-locale-switching-in-4-7/">read more</a>).
PDF Thumbnail Previews
Managing your document collection is easier with WordPress Version 4.7, which now shows preview thumbnails instead of a generic icon for PDFs in the media library (<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/11/15/enhanced-pdf-support-4-7/">read more</a>).
For additional details on this release visit <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Version_4.7" target="_blank">https://codex.wordpress.org/Version_4.7</a> or to download visit <a href="https://wordpress.org" target="_blank">https://wordpress.org</a>

WordPress 4.7 Now Available - Features a New Default Theme & Usability Improvements

Last week, the Solodev team attended Amazon Web Services re:Invent, where some 30,000 engineers, startups, executives, consultants, partners, and techies from around the world converged on the Las Vegas Strip to hear the latest and greatest innovations from the brilliant minds at <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Web Services</a>, the world’s #1 provider of cloud computing services.
Immediately after our arrival in Las Vegas we found ourselves at an airport covered in AWS Branding, the most notable of which was their new SaaS Subscriptions Program, which Solodev was selected to participate in among a select number of partners. After a five-hour flight across the country, we were greeted with the Solodev logo at every turn from the airport all the way to the conference. What an arrival.
Our direction was clear at re:Invent, show the power of Solodev, and how AWS strengthens that power, to the world. Being the 5th booth once entering the exhibition hall, it was difficult to avoid our booth and within seconds of the doors opening, our booth was packed. I observed how energetic and excited everyone was and most of all, curious about all of the AWS Partners and what they did that was so special. For Solodev, the answer to “What do you do?” was simple.
<blockquote>“We’re the only web development platform (CMS) fully optimized for the AWS Cloud and its entire product suite, giving you unparalleled levels of security, scalability, and redundancy while you build, launch, manage, and host amazing websites and mobile apps in the cloud with Solodev.”</blockquote>
AWS CEO Andy Jassy and Amazon CTO Werner Vogels announced a series of new products and services to add to their already impressive product suite, the most game changing of which are the newly announced <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/codebuild/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS CodeBuild</a>, a fully managed build service that compiles source code, runs tests, and produces software packages that are ready to deploy, and <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/xray/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AWS X-Ray</a>, which makes it easy for developers to analyze the behavior of their production, distributed applications with end-to-end tracing capabilities. In addition, AWS made tremendous announcements in the Big Data, Serverless Computing, and Artificial Intelligence spaces with the product launches of AWS Glue, Amazon Rekognition, Amazon Athena, Amazon Lex, and Amazon Polly.
On a less technical level, the focus of the conference was on how AWS Partners like Solodev can provide better products and services by leveraging the tremendous power of the AWS Cloud and its entire product suite and the implications this rapidly evolving infrastructure in the cloud can provide both existing, new, and emerging startups and organizations. Several AWS Partners spoke at the conference about how leveraging the AWS Cloud empowered their businesses to scale, streamline their cloud infrastructure, and provide better experiences to customers and expand their businesses faster with the power of Amazon Web Services.
The relationship between AWS and its partners isn’t a one-way street as Werner Vogels, Amazon CTO, stressed the fact that all partner relationships with AWS are mutually beneficial and how important partner feedback is to continuous product innovation at Amazon. “The reality is, we are going to direct business to our partners who are committed and who really understand the platform because our customers want partners who understand the details of our platform.” said AWS CEO Andy Jassy.
With the leading minds of tech at a conference held by the leading provider of the most important piece of the engineering puzzle, cloud infrastructure, in the same place at the same time there was a sense of urgency that agility, artificial intelligence, big data, migration to the cloud, the importance of partnerships, and pushing the cloud to its limits through added layers in cloud infrastructure were at the forefront of the messaging coming from AWS speakers and executives.
Although attending re:Invent was extremely informative we were able to accomplish much more than learning about technology trends, new AWS products, and how our fellow AWS partners had leveraged Amazon’s infrastructure to scale and iterate. Being the only web experience platform for the enterprise built for the AWS Cloud makes us stand out and as a result, we were able to meet with Jeff Barr, Chief Evangelist for Amazon Web Services, who kindly tweeted our Amazon Marketplace listings after finding out about Solodev from a co-worker.
AWS re:Invent also gave us a chance to expand existing partnerships (AWS, New Relic, Atlassian, Cloudability, DataDog, Zenefits) and explore new ones. An unexpected amount of web development shops were falling over each other to learn about how they could use Solodev to manage their clients hundreds and even thousands of websites while others were looking for new CMS platforms to migrate to. The end result, Solodev was named one of the most talked about products debuting at AWS re:Invent 2016 in <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/article/3144911/cloud-computing/cool-tech-at-aws-re-invent.html#slide47" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Cool tech at AWS re:Invent” by Network World</a> within 24 hours of landing.
The major takeaway from the event is that the world has embraced cloud computing and much like the space race of the 1960s, it seems like everyone in tech is competing to build the best cloud products and services available and leverage the power the cloud provides to build amazing products. So it can be broken down like this.
<ul>
<li>If you’re still on premises, you’re behind</li>
<li>If you’re considering the cloud, it’s time to pull the trigger</li>
<li>If you’re already in the cloud, make sure you’re in the best cloud environment</li>
<li>If you’ve mastered the cloud, leverage its power to build new amazing products and services on top of cloud infrastructure</li>
</ul>
Solodev is honored to have gained so much recognition in 2016 from winning a series of web design awards to clinching the <a href="https://www.solodev.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">People’s Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS</a>. 2016 also saw Solodev named among America’s fastest growing private companies by the Inc. 5000 for the second year in a row as well as being among a select number of AWS partners to join their newly announced SaaS Subscriptions Program. Going into 2017, Solodev has 5 listings on the AWS Marketplace, including our latest build of Solodev for Windows on the AWS Marketplace.
About Solodev
<a href="https://www.solodev.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Solodev</a> is the world’s first on-demand web experience platform created by developers for developers. It allows organizations to create amazing websites with unparalleled levels of security, scalability and total design freedom.

AWS re:Cap: Solodev goes “all in” at AWS re:Invent  2016

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