Articles - Page 90

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

bmckeiver

It's time to update WordPress again.
WordPress 4.5 has just landed, and it brings about some useful updates that make content editing easier, and customization a little smoother.
<img style="max-width:400px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wordpress-logo-stacked-rgb_400x0_1-1.png" alt="wordpress-logo-stacked-rgb_400x0_1" />
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/wordpress-4-5-customizer-experience/">I praised WordPress 4.5 back in March 2016</a>, when features were still being tested in the beta stage.
That was in contrast to my <a href="/wordpress-4.4-beta-bare-bones/" target="_blank">coverage of WordPress 4.4, where I labelled the update as a bare bones excuse for a semi-major update</a>, and also through my article entitled; “<a href="/how-wordpress-needs-to-improve-itself/" target="_blank">How WordPress Needs to Improve Itself (In 6 Ways)</a>“.
WordPress has continued its tradition of naming its major releases after Jazz musicians, with this version getting the title of “Coleman”, after Coleman Hawkins.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DKWO3pamtbQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
<h2>Inline Links &amp; New Customizer Features</h2>
Adding links to text is something that happens two or three times throughout most articles before you hit the Publish button.
Before today, you would highlight the desired text, then click the “insert/edit link” button on the toolbar. This would bring up a window, allowing you to paste your URL in.
Now, there is no window. Instead, a small inline popup appears, allowing you to paste a link in, or type in the title of existing posts on your website.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/illustration-short-inlinelinks.png" alt="illustration-short-inlinelinks" />
So, internal linking is a little easier, and linking in general is much improved thanks to this subtle interface change.
As for Customizer, you can now use it to preview your website via different screen sizes. You can test how your website looks on desktop, tablet and mobile devices.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/illustration-short-responsive-preview.png" alt="illustration-short-responsive-preview" />
Furthermore, you can now insert your logo into your theme (if the theme supports it) directly through Customizer.
By my estimation, that's two very welcome, and very overdue Customizer features.
<h2>Formatting Shortcuts, Smart Image Resizing &amp; More</h2>
WordPress 4.5 also brings about some nice formatting shortcuts. For example, typing “—” on a new line inserts a horizontal line, as shown in the GIF below.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editing-shortcuts-big.gif" alt="editing-shortcuts-big" />
Also, resized images (WordPress automatically resizes images when you upload them) now load up to 50% faster with “no noticeable quality loss”. That sounds pretty sweet to me.
The other features of WordPress 4.5, which are mostly “under the hood”, bacn be found on WordPress's <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2016/04/coleman/">official blog announcement</a>.

WordPress 4.5 Streamlines Editing, Enhances Customizer

mike-johnston

Since first announcing that I'll be participating in Movember last week, I've had lots of donations thanks to our amazing readers.
Today, I'm going to post a quick update of the fantastic-stache that is growing on my face at the moment.
Before I show you the picture, I wanted to give a shout-out to the amazing donors that have made this possible so far. Remember, if you donate, I'll give you a shout-out too which counts as a valuable link to your website or social media profile (you decide which). It's well worth the donation and my way of saying thank you.
First, thanks to the following donors. Swing by their websites as a way to say thank you:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.dnnhero.com">DNN Hero</a> – DNN Tutorials by experts with DNN.</li>
<li><a href="http://maiahost.com/">MaiaHost</a> – Ultra Fast CMS Web Hosting.</li>
<li><a href="http://impromocoder.com/">IMPromoCoder</a> – Internet Marketing Promotion Codes.</li>
<li>Yee Jee Tso – <a href="http://www.sepiariver.ca/blog/">MODx News Website</a> Owner</li>
<li>My Mom – Thanks Mom!</li>
<li><a href="https://www.lockerfox.com/">Lockerfox</a></li>
<li>Siteport – <a href="http://www.siteport.net/">Automated Migration Software</a> for CMS</li>
</ul>
Thanks to all for your donations so far. We're currently sitting at $382 in funds raised (which is awesome). Let's keep building up this number. Make a donation (minimum $30) and let me know and I'll do a shout-out to you as well.
Here's how I look clean shaven:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bfff063e7c8ff12c059856c79c437167-545257f621200400x0.jpg" />
Here's how I look 4 days into Movember:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/img_0048400x0.jpg" />
Yep, it's that bad. I'm sure it'll continue to get more and more awful as the month continues until it's so bad it's good? Right guys? Anyone? Sigh..
I keep telling myself it's for a worthy cause so let's see how long I can get it in the next 26 or so days.
To donate (and keep the ‘stache growing..) click here: <a href="https://www.movember.com/ca/donate/payment/member_id/10406853/">https://www.movember.com/ca/donate/payment/member_id/10406853/</a>

Movember Update - CMS Critic does Movember

It might sound repetitive, but it’s been another month packed with acquisitions, big investments, and major announcements from across the CMS and DXP landscape. The consolidation streak continues, particularly as enterprise platforms hunt for customer data and digital experience capabilities to gain a competitive edge – or simply keep up.
We’ve covered some head-spinning moments this March, from <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizely-acquires-customer-data-platform-zaius/">Optimizely buying CDP player Zaius</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-enters-agreement-to-acquire-nuxeo/">Hyland agreeing to acquire Nuxeo</a>, and the real doozy of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51/">Sitecore snapping up Boxever and Four51</a> at the same time.
We also covered <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/gatsby-unveils-v3-0-cloud-hosting-and-more-at-gatsbyconf-2021/">GatsbyConf 2021</a>, where Gatsby unveiled its version 3.0 along with cloud hosting enhancements and key partnerships. The event was sponsored by several CMS platforms, reinforcing the connective tissue between these communities and the growth opportunities within the JAMstack.
Adobe also made the news cycle, perhaps not content with its reign in the lead position on both the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner 2021 MQ for DXP</a> and the Forrester Q1 Wave for Agile CMSes. This month, they announced the addition of new headless CMS capabilities and updates to its Commerce Integration Framework.
Here are some other stories we’ve been tracking:
<h3>Crownpeak Acquires Digital Experience Platform Provider e-Spirit</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img style="max-width:650px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/crownpeak-espirit-logos.jpg" alt="crownpeak and espirit logos" /></figure>
<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/">Crownpeak</a>, a US-based web content and experience management platform, has <a href="https://www.crownpeak.com/about/press-events/press-releases/crownpeak-acquires-digital-experience-platform-provider-e-spirit">announced</a> that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire <a href="https://www.e-spirit.com/us/homepage/">e-Spirit</a>. Headquartered in Germany, e-Spirit enables businesses to rapidly deliver personalized, content-rich experiences across online channels.
The acquisition combines Crownpeak’s SaaS-based web content management system and other best-of-breed offerings – which wrap digital quality, governance, and privacy into experience delivery – with e-Spirit’s key differentiators. This includes FirstSpirit, e-Spirit’s core product, which enables content-driven commerce experiences and personalization powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
According to company officials, the combination of Crownpeak and e-Spirit will create the most agile digital experience platform for brands – regardless of location or vertical – to efficiently orchestrate digital experiences that build trust and maximize customer lifetime value.
It's worth noting that Crownpeak and e-Spirit were in close proximity within the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Niche Player quadrant</a> of the Gartner 2021 MQ for DXPs. In essence, Crownpeak "bought the competition," although e-Spirit actually has a slightly higher headcount.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/01/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms-2021.png" alt="Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms-2021" /></figure>
e-Sprit will provide Crownpeak with a hybrid headless architecture, which has become an essential component for modern CMS and DXP platforms. Whether that will give Crownpeak a competitive advantage against other niche players remains to be seen. One area that might bear fruit from the unification is that e-Spirit will expand Crownpeak’s access to the EMEA region.
<h3>Squarespace Raises $300 Million Investment Round At $10 Billion Valuation</h3>
<a href="https://www.squarespace.com/">Squarespace</a>, the popular website builder and e-Commerce platform, announced that it has raised $300 million in a new investment round – and is now valued at a whopping $10 billion. The news comes just two months after Squarespace <a href="https://newsroom.squarespace.com/blog/squarespace-confidential-s-1-submission">announced</a> their IPO in January.
The new investor docket includes some heavy-hitting market makers like Dragoneer, Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management &amp; Research Company, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Spruce House, with participation from existing investors Accel and General Atlantic.
“We’re thrilled to welcome our new investors as we continue scaling our product suite in service of our customers around the world,” said Squarespace Founder &amp; CEO Anthony Casalena.
Founded in 2003, Squarespace has built a stellar reputation as a small business website solution and competes with platforms like <a href="https://www.wix.com/">WIX</a> and <a href="https://www.weebly.com/">Weebly</a>. A “do it yourself” experience, Squarespace offers users a simple, code-free, subscription-based toolset for building your own website and adding transactional e-Commerce capabilities. It has become immensely popular, especially for artists, freelancers, and entrepreneurs who want beautiful, inexpensive, easy to manage experiences.
Hosting companies like <a href="https://www.godaddy.com/">GoDaddy</a> are also carving out a segment in of the SOHO/entrepreneur market space, offering a free website builder as part of their experience. Even marketing automation platforms are hungry to own the web layer, with players like <a href="https://mailchimp.com/">MailChimp</a> and <a href="https://www.constantcontact.com/">Constant Contact</a> adding web builders to their solutions.
On the more complex side of the do-it-yourself toolset, platforms like <a href="https://webflow.com/">Webflow</a> are offering a rich, dynamic builder with access to code, APIs, and a new CMS capability. Webflow also secured its own <a href="https://webflow.com/blog/webflow-series-b-funding">investment of $140 million</a> in a Series B this January (putting it at a $2.1 billion valuation).
Squarespace received a significant funding infusion of $200 million on a $1.7 billion valuation in December 2017. Their unprecedented growth – likely exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and a shift to digital channels – has driven the outlook beyond the SMB sector. The future may include a more diversified portfolio of customers in the enterprise range, where their <a href="https://www.squarespace.com/select">Squarespace Select</a> offering is gaining ground.
<h3>WP Engine Launches Atlas, the Future of Headless WordPress</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img style="max-width:650px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/wpegine-atlas.png" alt="wpegine atlas layers diagram" /></figure>
<a href="https://wpengine.com/">WP Engine</a>, a leading WordPress digital experience platform, <a href="https://wpengine.com/atlas">introduced Atlas</a>, its new headless WordPress product line that enables exponentially faster dynamic sites with the flexibility and security that comes with headless solutions.
Delighting both developers and content publishers, Atlas brings together a modern development framework with powerful front-end Node.js hosting and headless WordPress – all in one complete package.
“Headless solutions are absolutely the future of enterprise WordPress, yet there isn’t one end-to-end solution out there that includes the dynamic Node.js layer, the static CDN layer and the Headless content management systems (CMS) layer, in one package,” said Jason Cohen, Founder and Chief Technology Officer at WP Engine.
As famous and iconic it is, WordPress has been “stuck” in the traditional category of CMSs, falling behind more modern headless or headless-hybrid platforms. This has been a significant drawback in a digital world that demands omnichannel solutions for distributing content. Atlas offers WP Engine an opportunity to shift the dynamics and develop new market potential around the headless play.
Today’s developers are under pressure to deliver highly-performant and secure omnichannel digital experiences that rank higher and convert better. To achieve that, they need a platform that easily scales and integrates with an increasing array of martech SaaS tools.
A headless WordPress essentially means no WordPress frontend. Companies that use an entirely headless solution typically host a separate JavaScript application for the frontend, which pulls specific WordPress data via APIs via the <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/">WordPress REST API</a> or the <a href="https://www.wpgraphql.com/">WPGraphQL plugin</a>. With Atlas, WordPress will join the growing ranks of headless CMS solutions that are powering modern digital experiences.
“With Atlas, developers aren’t forced to choose between incredible site performance and dynamic experiences," said Cohen. "And they can keep the open-source CMS platform that drives 40% of the web, now upgraded to support developers’ modern architecture. It’s the best of all worlds.”
To learn more about Atlas from WP Engine, <a href="https://wpengine.com/atlas">click here</a>.
<h3>Siteimprove Releases New Study Guiding Manufacturers on Powerful Digital Engagement Strategies</h3>
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/siteimprove-seo-provides-all-in-one-capabilities-for-enhancing-search-performance/">Siteimprove</a>, an industry-leading accessibility scanning and monitoring solution provider, announced the release of a new study, “<a href="https://hello.siteimprove.com/en-us/content/report/consumerreport">Achieving Success in the Age of the Digital Consumer</a>.”
For the report, Siteimprove partnered with Adobe and Capgemini to survey 3,025 U.S. consumers to discover what key elements currently distinguish B2B and D2C digital experiences – and what consumers expect from online experiences and brand relationships.
Some key findings in the survey include:
<ul>
<li>83 percent of respondents said their online research experience is somewhat important to very important in the purchase process – with 43 percent saying it is very important.</li>
<li>Online influencers have now largely replaced retail employees as a primary pre-purchasing voice. While 52.69 percent of respondents indicated they still rely on word-of-mouth, 31.34 percent also turn to YouTube review videos, 11.47 percent take advantage of augmented-reality tools, and 9.22 percent use AI experiences to collect product information and insights.</li>
<li>Product information or reviews on a retailer’s website are considered the most important factor in an online purchase decision (37.85 percent).</li>
<li>Barriers to buying from the manufacturer were cited as inconsistent pricing (60.46 percent), lack of info on delivery, returns, poor UX, and poor checkout experience.</li>
<li>The majority of survey respondents (76.6 percent) indicated they abandon a website with poor UX in less than two minutes. As many as 37 percent of respondents move on after less than one minute.</li>
</ul>
To read the free report, visit <a href="https://hello.siteimprove.com/en-us/content/report/consumerreport">https://hello.siteimprove.com/en-us/content/report/consumerreport</a>.
<h3>Contentful Helps Businesses Build Digital Experiences Faster With New Compose + Launch Apps</h3>
<a href="https://www.contentful.com/">Contentful</a>, a leading content platform for digital business, <a href="https://www.contentful.com/blog/2021/03/16/launch-compose-release/">announced</a> the release of Contentful Compose + Launch – two apps that, together, significantly extend Contentful’s native capabilities for content teams.
Compose structures content into blocks, so it’s reusable across various digital experiences and channels. Compose was explicitly designed for non-technical users who prefer a more traditional content management system environment.
Launch enhances the ability of content teams to plan and schedule releases. Content pieces can be viewed together, managed as one project, and scheduled to publish in a flexible manner. Teams can easily manage and deliver content as part of large campaigns, such as a Black Friday sale or new product announcements. And campaign managers can use Launch to plan the release of content from a single destination, allowing teams to collaborate better and deliver faster.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/contentful-content-schedule.jpg" alt="Contentful content schedule screen" /></figure>
To learn more about Compose + Launch, click <a href="https://www.contentful.com/blog/2021/03/16/launch-compose-release/">here</a>.
<h3>WordPress Releases Enhancements to Its Reusable Blocks with WordPress 5.7</h3>
WordPress officially released <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/02/wordpress-5-7-release-candidate/">WordPress 5.7</a> on March 9, 2021 – and as its first major release of 2021, it’s packed with a ton of new features and fixes.
Included in the update are several enhancements that make <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/02/gutenberg-tutorial-reusable-blocks/">reusable blocks</a> more stable and easier to use. And now, they save automatically with the post when you click the “Update” button.
Reusable blocks have been a fixture in WordPress for quite some time. They are basically component blocks you can create and save – and use later in any post or page on a website. These blocks can be anything from a testimonial on your homepage, a “Subscribe to My Newsletter” box, a contact form, a survey, and more.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/add-a-reusable-block.gif" alt="Wordpress adding re-usable block animated gif" /></figure>
To see the full list of features and updates that come with WordPress 5.7, visit the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/wordpress-version/version-5-7/">WordPress support page</a>.

CMS Monthly Recap: Crownpeak Acquires e-Spirit, Squarespace Raises $300M Investment, WP Engine Launches Headless for WordPress, and More

paris-tuzun

Ahead of a <a href="http://investors.wix.com/eventdetail.cfm?EventID=150924" target="_blank">scheduled Wix conference call and webcast</a> to announce their 2014 third quarter financial results, <a href="http://www.wix.com/" target="_blank">Wix</a> has unveiled two notable upcoming releases; WixStores and WixJet.
Wix was recently crowned the winner of the <a href="/the-winner-of-the-2014-peoples-choice-cms-award-for-best-website-builder/" target="_blank">People's Choice CMS Award for Best Website Builder 2014</a>. Chosen to be covered in detail over at <a href="http://websitebuilderscritic.com/" target="_blank">Website Builders Critic</a>, Wix has solidified itself as one of the world's leading website builders after just a year of being a public company.
Along with their financial reports and some general business updates, two announcements have caught the eye. Let's take a look at them both.
<a href="http://www.wix.com/" target="_blank"><img style="max-width:241px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wix-musa-1.png" alt="Wix" /></a>
<h2>WixStores: Cohesive eCommerce</h2>
First up, Wix have confirmed that they are set to release a brand new eCommerce solution, WixStores, before the end of 2014.
With a completely redesigned software architecture, WixStores will give online merchants the ability to create beautiful online store with typical Wix ease.
A full set of store management tools like payment processing, inventory management, shipping and more will be bundled, along with a superior mobile and social commerce experience.
WixStores is designed to integrate seamlessly with other components of the Wix platform, including Wix ShoutOut, contacts database and App Market offerings. When combined with these products, WixStores will enable online merchants to create, manage and grow their online business from one cohesive environment.
CEO and Co-Founder of Wix, Avishai Abrahami, had this to say upon the announcement of WixStores:
<blockquote>“I’m excited to announce that we will soon be launching WixStores, a completely revamped e-commerce product. When designing WixStores, we focused on the needs of online retailers and came up with a complete solution that provides a visually appealing store front that is seamlessly packaged with advanced back-end tools. With the other products released this year, ranging from CRM database capabilities to e-mail marketing tools, we have created an ecosystem – an end-to-end online solution for the needs of small business owners everywhere.”</blockquote>
<h2>WixJet: The Need for Speed</h2>
WixJet is set to speed up the web. Or at least, the Wix-powered web.
The speed of a website is now more important than ever. This is true when it comes to SEO as most know, but it's also vital when it comes to brand credibility and general conversion rates.
Traditionally, it has been the big boys of the Internet who have been able to fine tune their websites for speed. SMBs, freelancers and startups on the other hand, have had to make do with the available tools on the market, many of which are clunky pieces of software.
Wix though, has now decided to bring that speed-induced goodness to the masses, by unveiling a new technology that promises to load Wix websites faster than an estimated 95% of the websites on the Internet. That's pretty fast.
This proprietary advancement, “WixJet” was developed by Wix using <a href="http://facebook.github.io/react/" target="_blank">Facebook’s React JS technology</a>. It constitutes a complete restructuring of the platform’s codebase, enabling Wix user websites to run faster than ever before.
You can find out more about WixStores and WixJet by tuning into the <a href="http://investors.wix.com/eventdetail.cfm?EventID=150924" target="_blank">scheduled Wix conference call and webcast</a>, due to be held on November 5th 2014 at 8:30am Eastern Time.
Check out the <a href="http://www.wix.com/" target="_blank">Wix website</a> for more information about their platform, and of course, be sure to swing by <a href="/products/wix/" target="_blank">Wix via our CMS Directory</a>.

Wix Announces WixStores & WixJet Amid Latest Financial Results

Evidently, Squarespace has noticed a trend within its customer base. Namely, that lots of Squarespace users are running three or more Squarespace websites at once.
<img alt="sshot-33" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sshot-33.png" />
Why else would they put together <a href="http://circle.squarespace.com/">Squarespace Circle</a>, an exclusive club for those users who run at least three Squarespace instances.
Aimed at the developer community, Squarespace Circle members will get some perks that make building websites for clients more manageable.
<h2>The Inner Circle</h2>
Here's a look at some of those perks, that only those with multiple Squarespace websites can access (<a href="http://Squarespace Circle">by signing in at the Squarespace Circle website</a>).
<h4>Six-month trial periods</h4>
Firstly, and perhaps most interestingly, Squarespace Circle members will have extended trial periods of up to six-months for all new projects.
That's a massive step up from the two week trial extended to everyone else using Squarespace.
<h4>Optimized Customer Care</h4>
Squarespace is offering Circle members “optimized customer care”. They haven't divulged the details of this supposed optimization, though.
<h4>Exclusive content</h4>
Squarespace is developing exclusive advanced guides, marketing materials and product release notes to help Circle members produce better websites and grow their business.
<h2>More Than Just Circle Time</h2>
Squarespace has already announced that they're working to make Squarespace Circle a serious resource and information hub for developers.
<blockquote>
“Squarespace Circle is growing. We’ll be listening closely and looking for new ways to improve your workflow, help you sell your services, and connect you with each other.”
</blockquote>
I can't help but feel a little bit excited about this whole development.
I've always seen Squarespace as one of the best website builders around, but I've always wondered about how tough it would be to run a web design agency that deals solely with Squarespace.
Before Squarespace Circle, you essentially had two weeks to build and present your client his website before payment was due for the first month. Now that is one epic time constraint.
But now I can definitely see how more developers and professional web designers will be attracted to Squarespace as along term solution for their existing and future clientèle.
Also, it's nice to see that Squarespace aren't charging a fee here. It feels more like a reward for being a serial Squarespacer, rather than just a paid privilege.
In any case, I'm eager to see how this all pans out.
The official announcement of Squarespace Circle can be found on the <a href="http://blog.squarespace.com/blog/introducing-squarespace-circle">Squarespace blog</a>.

Squarespace Circle: The Club For Serial Squarespace Users

<a href="https://www.hyland.com/en">Hyland</a>, an enterprise content management (ECM) and process management provider, has <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-enters-into-agreement-for-the-acquisition-of-nuxeo">signed an agreement</a> providing for exclusive negotiations to acquire <a href="https://www.nuxeo.com/">Nuxeo</a> – a content services and digital asset management (DAM) platform.
A leading ECM provider, Hyland is best known for its <a href="https://www.onbase.com/en">Onbase</a> and <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/perceptive">Perceptive</a> content management products, which securely centralize enterprise content and deliver relevant information to users across a wide variety of industries – including healthcare, finance, insurance, higher education, and manufacturing.
Nuxeo offers a cloud-native, open-source, low-code platform with content services and DAM capabilities, among others.
“We’ve innovated an entirely modern platform that provides both enterprise-class content services and digital asset management capabilities," said Eric Barroca, CEO of Nuxeo. "And we look forward to bringing these capabilities to the Hyland portfolio as well as leveraging Hyland’s considerable global resources to deliver even greater success to our customers and partners."
<h3>A Leader on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/figure_1_magic_quadrant_for_content_services_platforms.png" alt="Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms" style="max-width:570px" /></figure>
Hyland has been a consistent force in the ECM and content services landscape, commanding the second-place position in the Leader Quadrant of <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/explore/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-content-services-platforms">Gartner’s 2020 Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms</a>.
While Hyland has been trailing right behind <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/12/08/over-200-million-users-rely-on-sharepoint-as-microsoft-is-again-recognized-as-a-leader-in-the-2020-gartner-content-services-platforms-magic-quadrant-report/#:~:text=Leading%20in%20the%20Gartner%20Content,Platforms%20Magic%20Quadrant%20for%202020.">Microsoft’s 365 platform</a> (fueled primarily by <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/sharepoint/collaboration">Sharepoint</a>), they were also being followed closely by <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/">Alfresco</a>, a fast-growing open-source content services platform that was gaining ground in the market but still viewed as a somewhat niche solution by large enterprises.
Following suit with many other CMS and DXP platforms in the last year, Hyland <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/">acquired Alfresco</a> in 2020, eliminating their next closest competitor and changing the game in the leadership grid.
While buying a competitor is far from novel, Alfresco’s low-code tools – combined with its ability to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) services from <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/ecm-software/aws">cloud providers like AWS</a> – were likely key factors in Hyland's decision, enabling them to accelerate their modernization efforts.
<h3>Adding Nuxeo's low-code AI service and DAM capabilities</h3>
With the Nuxeo acquisition, Hyland is consuming another competitor – this time from the Visionary quadrant of Gartner's MQ for Content Services Platforms.
Nuxeo brings some unique assets to Hyland that may translate into significant advantages against Microsoft and Sharepoint. First, it gains <a href="https://www.nuxeo.com/content-services-platform/ai/">Nuxeo Insight</a> – an AI offering that enables customers to use their own data and content to train custom ML models for a variety of business applications. This includes enriching content with metadata, classifying people, products and records, automating forms processing, and more.
The critical advantage with Nuxeo Insight is that it generates ML models that are trained with a customer’s own data – rendering them far more accurate and insightful than typical AI services offered through public clouds (like AWS).
Nuxeo is also known for its strong enterprise <a href="https://www.nuxeo.com/solutions/dam-digital-asset-management/">DAM capabilities</a>, which provide out-of-the-box solutions for enterprises. Additionally, its large-scale repository – which includes NoSQL and distributed file system options – provides storage and scalability support for organizations with a large number of documents.
In fact, last year, Nuxeo proved its scalability performance with an <a href="https://benchmarks.nuxeo.com/11-billion-benchmark-story/">11-billion-object benchmark test</a> on AWS.
<h3>What does the Nuxeo acquisition mean for Hyland?</h3>
Considering some of Hyland’s core industry verticals – specifically finance – Nuxeo may be well worth the investment. Along with its cloud-native, low-code solutions, Nuxeo's open source community and AI-driven capabilities address key gaps in Hyland's modernization strategy, and will likely be a source of continued product innovation.
The transaction is expected to close in April 2021. Until that time, both companies will continue to operate as two companies. Upon transaction close, Nuxeo's business will be integrated into Hyland.
<h3>About Nuxeo</h3>
<a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3043355-1&amp;h=141805745&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nuxeo.com%2F%3Futm_source%3DPRNewswire%26utm_medium%3Dpress%2520release%26utm_campaign%3Dhitrust&amp;a=Nuxeo">Nuxeo</a>, the developer of the leading Content Services Platform, is reinventing <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3043355-1&amp;h=1356444015&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nuxeo.com%2Fproducts%2Fenterprise-content-management%2F%3Futm_source%3DPRNewswire%26utm_medium%3Dpress%2520release%26utm_campaign%3Dhitrust&amp;a=enterprise+content+management">enterprise content management</a> (ECM) and <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3043355-1&amp;h=3747046695&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nuxeo.com%2Fproducts%2Fdigital-asset-management%2F%3Futm_source%3DPRNewswire%26utm_medium%3Dpress%2520release%26utm_campaign%3Dhitrust&amp;a=digital+asset+management">digital asset management</a> (DAM). Nuxeo makes it easy to build smart content applications that enhance customer experiences, improve decision making, and accelerate products to market. Its cloud-native, low-code platform has been deployed by large enterprises worldwide. Customers like Electronic Arts, TBWA, ABN AMRO, and CVS have used Nuxeo's technology to transform the way they do business. Founded in 2000, the company is based in New York with offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Learn more at <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3043355-1&amp;h=1092214406&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nuxeo.com%2F%3Futm_source%3DPRNewswire%26utm_medium%3Dpress%2520release%26utm_campaign%3Dhitrust&amp;a=www.nuxeo.com">www.nuxeo.com</a>.
<h3>About Hyland</h3>
<a href="https://www.hyland.com/">Hyland</a> is an enterprise content management (ECM) software platform, combining integrated document management, business process management, and records management in a single application. Hyland software allows organizations to manage, control, and share digital content with employees, business partners, customers, and other constituencies. Learn more at <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en">www.hyland.com</a>

Hyland Enters Agreement to Acquire Nuxeo

If compare rookies with no coding experience and web developers whose job is creating websites in a professional manner, you will come to a reasonable conclusion. Though both groups of users employ different methods to go online, they tend to achieve maximum results with minimum efforts. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/1200kh630_31097x0-is.jpg" />
For this reason, MotoCMS released Skyline – a <a href="https://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/63777.html" target="_blank">new website template</a> that provides its owner with limitless functionality possibilities, requires minor expenses of resources and fits any possible business. 
<h2>Drag &amp; Drop Block Editor</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-blocks.gif" />
The primary feature that reflects the ease of a website customization process with Skyline is the drag &amp; drop Block Editor in the <a href="https://www.motocms.com/" target="_blank">website builder</a> from MotoCMS. It will do good for an amateur who needs facility for creating a professional website, as well as for an expert who requires a simple tool to churn out several websites at the same time. Just pick any block in the list and drop it on a page to start customizing the layout.
<h2>100+ Content Blocks</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-100-blocks.jpg" />
Skyline combined more than one hundred blocks with ready-made content, so you could have dozens of possible layout variations to choose from. All blocks are divided into categories according their purpose. 
<h2>20 Ready-to-Use Pages</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-twenty-pages.jpg" />
Skyline is a perfect website template for highlighting each part of your business because it is really hard not to find a particular page for a particular goal. Introduce your company to the full with the enormous number of pages: 
<ul>
<li>Home</li>
<li>About Us,</li>
<li>Contact Us</li>
<li>Careers</li>
<li>Team</li>
<li>Profile</li>
<li>Services</li>
<li>Single Service</li>
<li>Gallery</li>
<li>Projects</li>
<li>Customers</li>
<li>Privacy Policy</li>
<li>Events</li>
<li>Single Event</li>
<li>Testimonials</li>
<li>Prices</li>
<li>503</li>
<li>FAQ</li>
<li>Blog</li>
<li>Contacts</li>
</ul>
<h2>4 Additional Home Pages</h2>
Another feature for both expert website creators and first-timers to benefit from Skyline is the set of extra home pages: Skyline Black, Dentist, House Construction and Travel. 
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-home-pages1024x0-is.jpg" />
If you are related to one of the niches, do not be shy to set one of Skyline’s additional home pages and, thus, create your website faster in many times. As for web developers, if you are among them, take advantage of these extra mockups to make websites for various businesses and save a tremendous amount of time you spend on completing the project.
<h2>Professional Blog</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-blog-functionality922x0-is.jpg" />
A blog is still a must-have for any website owner, taking the own job seriously. Skyline includes the ready-made functionality for creating a professional blog that have all the odds to bring the lion’s share of traffic to your web resource. Add new posts, publish and edit them easily with an intuitive interface of the MotoCMS admin panel in your copy of Skyline.
<h2>SEO Settings</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-seo-settings992x0-is.jpg" />
Get tools to optimize your website page by page. Enter necessary keywords, titles, descriptions and ALTs for images, add 301 redirects of any URL registered under your site domain, hide or reveal pages for search engines to index them, set Hide Canonical and No-follow attributes and more.
<h2>Responsive Design</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-responsive.jpg" />
To provide the audience of your website with a positive user experience, it should be available on each platform and web browser. Skyline is a responsive website template that automatically fits any smartphone and tablet. So you don’t have to develop an extra version for mobile devices because you already got one that can guarantee the users of your web portal a high usability level.
<h2>24/7 Customer Support</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-design-support.jpg" />
Whether you need an expert advice, you are new to the website creation process or just want to get more details that concern your website and the admin panel from MotoCMS, contact the MotoCMS support center that is available 24/7 and free of charge during one year. 
<h2>Skyline Free Test</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/skyline-business-website-template-home-page.jpg" />
Became interested in Skyline? Go ahead and <a href="https://www.motocms.com/website-templates/motocms-3-template/63777.html" target="_blank">test Skyline free of charge</a>. Log in to the MotoCMS admin panel with Skyline right now with your email or social media account. Test the CMS and the template before launching your website and if you like the final result, the specialists will transfer all demo progress for you to get a ready-made website.

Push The Limits of Developing a Website with Skyline From MotoCMS

Not everyone uses JAVA or .NET as their platform of choice and for this reason, we included some additional categories this year to account for all of the other CMS built with programming languages that don't get as much attention.
Today, we're going to announce the winner of the People's Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise CMS (Other Langs).
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/best_enterprise_cms_other_languages200x0.jpg" />
This year the contenders were Mura CMS, Plone CMS and Paperthin Commonspot.
The win this year, however, goes to <a href="http://www.getmura.com/">Mura CMS</a>!
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mura_cms200x0.png" />
The runner up this year was Plone.
Congratulations to the team at <a href="http://www.getmura.com/">Mura</a> on their win. It's clear that when it comes down to excellence in the world of CFML based CMS, Mura CMS is the top dog and they should be proud of their win. This clearly shows that not only do their customers love them, so do our readers. Congratulations to all contenders this year as well.

The Winner of the 2014 People's Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise CMS (Other Langs)

CMS Summit 26

Find out at CMS Summit 26, May 12 - 13 in Frankfurt, Germany

What's ahead for CMS in the agentic era?

#ffffff

SocialEngine has been around for a few and we've enjoyed trying it out and seeing it develop into a more and more powerful system as the years go by. We decided to share the experience with our readers and show you the true power this system possesses. If you are looking for a system that's affordable and works well as a social networking product.. then this is definitely a very solid choice and one of the better options on the market today. It's also very reasonably priced at about $250 for a license. Let's examine it in today's SocialEngine Review
Here's how the install process looks for those interested:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine1.png" alt="SocialEngine Review" />
Now that you have your login information, you can proceed to the control panel and get started by playing around with it.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine4.png" alt="SocialEngine Review" />
Above you can see the default look of the system before you do any modifications. Let's create an account and play a bit shall we?
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine6.png" alt="SocialEngine Review" />
SocialEngine also has a number of plugins which can be installed and configured for use. Plugins are available for between $30 to $50  depending on the plugin. In this case, we have all of the plugins that are not third party.
<dl>
<dt><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine8.png" alt="SocialEngine Review" /></dt>
</dl>
There is some pretty amazing functionality built into SocialEngine. Let's install some of the plugins and see how they work/look.
Here is the compose screen from the blog editor. once installed, it's fully functional and works very well. Looks like it uses TinyMCE by default.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-blog.png" alt="SocialEngine Review" />
Here is a screenshot of the classifieds section (once the module has been installed). This particular module is a great way to monetize your site as well should you choose.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-classified.png" alt="SocialEngine Review" />
This plugin is for music uploads. One comment on it would be that it lacks an effective admin entry and there doesn't appear to be an easy way to modify the number of files or file sizes (that I could find).
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-music.png" alt="SocialEngine Review" />
And finally, the last plugin we tested was the videos plugin. It works beautifully with Youtube and uploads.
<div class="mceTemp">
<dl>
<dt><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/socialengine-video.png" alt="SocialEngine Review" /></dt>
<dd></dd>
</dl>
Overall, We'd say this is one heck of a great collection of modules and software that can be used to put together one heck of a killer social network.
It's easy to theme and easy to customize as well so you can create your own unique look without much effort. For the cost they are charging for this, you could put together an amazingly well equipped social network with very minimal effort.
The admin panel is incredibly straight forward and simple as well.
The SocialEngine team has done an outstanding job on this great product. It's no wonder it has such a large number of users.
<a href="/social-engine" target="_blank">Check out SocialEngine</a>

</div>

SocialEngine Review - Is it Good Enough for your Social Network?

I took Publii, one of the newest up and coming free website builders for a spin to see how it worked and what it brings to the table compared to what’s available today.
<h2>What is Publii?</h2>
Publii is an open source website builder that runs off of your desktop instead of over the internet. It’s creator, Bob Mitro, has been in the web business for over 10 years. Bob started TidyCustoms prior to creating Publii. TidyCustoms is an online service for website optimization, and that was one of his key goals coming into the Publii project. Speed.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/publii-app1005x0-is.png" />
The popularity of website builders like Shopify and WordPress has led to a ton of developers cranking out themes that are bloated, and they risk adding page load time unnecessarily. This isn’t always the case of course, but there’s no way to test the thousands of themes individual effects on page-load times. Additionally, using several plugins to add site features or security adds to the issue. These two factors, in turn, slow your page-load speed and hurt your SEO rankings. There are steps you can take to speed up these sites, but you can only get so far. Finding a well-developed theme and keeping plugin use to the minimum are important factors in reducing page-load time.
Publii set out to change the game by acting as a CMS for static blogs. Other website builders use a database, which is good for more complicated websites but is a bit overkill for blogs. By giving the user just what they need, the page load time can be increased significantly.
<h2>Publii’s Key Features</h2>
Work Offline: This feature earns big points from me. It’s one of the only website building platforms that lets you work offline and sync your updates when you have internet access again. This is a big benefit for travel and outdoor bloggers who may not always have a reliable internet connection (if any). Instead, you can work offline and create posts directly on the platform rather than re-create the posts from a Word document when you have a connection.
Another great benefit to offline page building is site previews even without an internet connection. Publii has a built in page preview that can show you the mobile layout with the simple switch of a toggle button. It also has a built in inspector element to display HTML
Speed: Since most of the bloat was cut out from what other website builders offer, page load times are significantly shorter than the same post built on a different platform. There are, of course, other variables that affect page load speed that need to be taken into account. Publii also took care to not remove too much from the modern-day CMS platform and kept things like themes and automatic responsive design available.
Easy to Manage SEO Tools: It has built in search engine optimization tools that let you control things like the page title, slug and meta information. You can also tag posts to be indexed or not for each individual page or post.
Turn Key Functionality: Many times when I’m building a client’s WordPress page, there are a handful of plugins that I would consider “Must Installs” and a few more on top of that which will likely need to used to fulfill client requests. These plugins do add to the page bloat I mentioned earlier, but I would consider essential. Publii, however, has many of these tools already built into each vanilla install. For example, you can choose to show or hide publishing date and time, show post author, include social sharing icons or even show related posts based on your assigned tags. These can be controlled as a default for your entire blog, but can also be enabled or disabled on individual posts. It’s always better to have more control than less in these types of situations.
Separate Custom CSS &amp; HTML: With any theme provided by a blogging platform, you typically need to edit or add some extra CSS to match your brand vision. Publii has a separate container for custom CSS, so you don’t have to scroll through an entire CSS document to edit yours in. This also helps prevent removing an important piece of CSS that could break how your site displays.
In addition to the separate CSS Location, there is also a separate HTML location for adding things like Google Analytics tracking, Pinterest page verification and more to the head, footer and body areas of your website.
You would need at least four or five plugins on other website builders to get the functionality of a vanilla Publii install. Plugins are a great tool for developers, but if their creators stop updating, it could leave you with a broken website in extreme cases.
What to Consider Before Choosing Publii as Your Website Builder
Like all website builders, each has their own drawbacks. Publii is not an exception, so it’s important to understand the things you’ll need to do before pulling the trigger on a CMS.
You Will Need Some Very Basic Website Setup Knowledge: Since Publii syncs your file structure to an FTP site, you’ll need to know how to link your FTP site to it. Another good thing to understand is how an FTP site syncs with the folders in your file path so you don’t inadvertently break your site paths the next time you sync to your site.
Additionally, you’ll want a good grasp of FTP file structure so that a year down the road your site’s backend isn’t an unorganized mess.
Have Your Website Organization Planned Out: If you’ve previously had experience with website builders like WordPress, you should be able to figure out where everything is relatively quickly and get going. Those newer to user-friendly website builders will have a bit of a steeper learning curve, but there are explanations for most of the features in Publii. 
Either way, you will want to have a site structure organized prior to firing up Publii to begin creating content. Publii uses a few core themes which will provide the layout, look and functionality to your blog. However having a plan for the types of categories, posts and menu items you will have will go a long way to getting everything set up smoothly when you start publishing content. Without one, you might be a little more lost than you otherwise would be in WordPress or Shopify.
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
Publii hasn’t been around for too long respectively, but I see it growing in the future as more bloggers become aware of it. The lightweight platform that is built for speed will surely scratch an itch that some of the more cumbersome website builders would be overkill for. Why not <a href="https://getpublii.com/" target="_blank">try it for yourself</a>?

Publii Review - The Light Weight Open Source CMS

david-doucette

StudioPress, the popular WordPress theme developer, has announced a new theme entitled <a href="http://my.studiopress.com/themes/interior/?_ga=2.126455624.4583036.1624549743-4831094679.1623261405671">Interior Pro</a>. This new theme was designed by Ashley Schweitzer.
This theme offers clean typography and a slick color palette to bring an overall look and feel that is sure to please.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/interior-pro-theme-1024x1024.jpg" alt="interior-pro-theme" />
Features include:
<ul>
<li>A mobile-responsive design that looks amazing wherever it’s viewed</li>
<li>Support, documentation, and the StudioPress community forum</li>
<li>The best rankings possible because of our clean code and mobile-friendly design</li>
<li>Super-fast page load times</li>
<li>One-click theme updates</li>
<li>Airtight security so you can rest easy</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://my.studiopress.com/themes/interior/?_ga=2.126455624.4583036.1624549743-4831094679.1623261405671">Try the demo</a> or check out StudioPress's <a href="https://www.studiopress.com/themes/">other themes</a>.

StudioPress releases Interior Pro Theme for Genesis Framework

While the typical fanfare of a Las Vegas convention has been on a losing streak in the age of Covid, virtual events have emerged as a winning surrogate – especially for software companies looking to cultivate their user communities and make big announcements.
That was the case last week at <a href="https://gatsbyconf.com/">GatsbyConf 2021</a>, a free two-day meeting held by <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/">Gatsby</a>. While the biggest news on the table was the unveiling of <a href="https://gatsbyjs.com/docs/reference/release-notes/v3.0">Gatsby v3.0</a>, our editorial team sat through a number of sessions, and we’ll cover some of the high points in this article.
Pandemic travel blues aside, the creators of the open-source JavaScript website framework <a href="https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby">GatsbyJS</a> have been on a meteoric rise – <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/blog/2020-05-27-announcing-series-b-funding/">raising $28 million</a> in Series B funding in 2020. This investment has certainly helped fuel their growth, but Gatsby’s thriving community of users is what's helping to shape their future.
What was clear during GatsbyConf is that Gatsby is listening to their base. This is reflected in the newly released v3.0, which sports several new features users have been pining for. This includes incremental builds for faster deployment and new image optimization capabilities that improve website speed and performance.
But that’s not all. Gatsby also announced the addition of <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/products/cloud/hosting/">Gatsby Hosting</a> to its <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/cloud/">Gatsby Cloud</a>, offering a true, end-to-end platform. Now, users can build websites and fully deploy on Gatsby Cloud – complete with a CDN – all without having to rely on a third-party provider.
<h3>The static site revolution</h3>
A bit of backdrop always helps – and with Gatsby, that backdrop is short. And on fire.
GatsbyJS was born in 2015 with a simple mission: make it easy for users to create a website with <a href="https://reactjs.org/">React</a>, a Javascript library for building user interfaces. In just a few short years, the platform has seen tens of thousands of developers flock to their open-source community, leveraging Gatsby as the go-to static site generator for creating a wide range of web experiences – from basic blogs to rich e-Commerce applications.
Gatsby’s React-based framework is built on the <a href="https://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack/?utm_source=thenewstack&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=platform">JAMstack</a> (Javascript, APIs, and markup) and leverages a number of modern web technologies such as GraphQL. As a static site generator, Gatsby uses static files to build websites in the browser – not on the server – as a user enters each page.
By abstracting the database from the equation, Gatsby provides a lightweight website that takes less time to build and maintain – and delivers a lightning-fast load. With speed becoming one of the most important measures for a website’s performance, Gatsby has been powering websites with a competitive edge that reduces bounce rates while improving the overall customer experience.
<h3>Unifying developers and marketers</h3>
The battle between developers and marketers has been waged since the dawn of the modern web. Regularly at odds, Gatsby is focused on uniting the disparate realms – and this was the subject of several discussions during the conference.
"Our mission is to raise the quality of websites and the web by providing developers and marketers with the best tools,” said the Gatsby CEO Kyle Mathews. “We believe that great user experience depends on developers and marketers having great tools and workflows to rapidly collaborate on improving the user experience”
At GatsbyConf, there was talk about rich web experiences being the new norm and how teams of marketers, designers, and developers need to work both quickly and collaboratively to create websites that have great content – but also perform at the highest levels.
"It is not just developers who are building sites,” said Dustin Shau, VP of Product at Gatsby. “The interplay between developers and marketers is a key one to keep top of mind, and this is squarely the challenge we are trying to solve with Gatsby.”
<h3>A new era for headless CMS</h3>
To power the front end, Gatsby’s static websites rely on headless CMS platforms to manage content – providing the perfect marriage of lightweight frontend and backend capabilities.
For the unindoctrinated, a headless CMS is a backend-only content management system that behaves more like a content repository. It allows users to author content without being tied to a specific output – like, say, a rendered web page. Instead, it decouples the “head” and allows the CMS to display content on any device or presentation layer via API. This includes static site generators like Gatsby.
This blend of technologies gives developers the ability to create and deploy faster with incremental builds and collaborate on code. Meanwhile, marketers can use a headless CMS to make content edits, preview their changes, share them with their colleagues for feedback and publish when approved – all while gaming the speed and power of a static frontend.
As the landscape of headless and decoupled CMS players continues to expand, so too have the opportunities for Gatsby. They offer support for a number of <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/how-to/sourcing-data/headless-cms/">headless CMS services</a>, including <a href="https://ghost.org/pricing/">Ghost</a> and <a href="https://prismic.io/">Prismic</a> – and now feature a <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/plugins/gatsby-source-wordpress/">WordPress Source plugin</a>.
On the e-Commerce side, Gatsby also has a <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/plugins/gatsby-source-shopify/">Shopify Source Plugin</a> for pulling data into Gatsby from Shopify stores using the <a href="https://shopify.dev/docs/storefront-api">Shopify Storefront API</a>.
Back in October, Gatsby also <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/contentstack-and-gatsby-announce-partnership-to-power-ultra-fast-websites-with-headless-cms/">partnered with Contentstack</a>, a market-leading headless Content Experience Platform. The co-mingling enabled Contentstack to offer blazing-fast websites and applications on their CMS platform while allowing organizations to better unify their marketing and development teams through the unique collaboration.
<h3>Highlights from GatsbyConf 2021</h3>
With Gatsby v3.0 taking up most of the air, here are some of the big-ticket features that were covered during the event:
<ul>
<li>80% speed improvement in local development experience via incremental builds: Gatsby v3.0 uses incremental builds – meaning every time a site is changed, Gatsby only re-builds the parts that have been updated as opposed to the entire site. Waiting for every image and page to be processed in the development session made the building process more laborious, especially for large, media-rich websites.</li>
</ul>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img style="max-width:700px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/incremental-build.jpg" alt="gatsby incremental build diagram" /></figure>
<ul>
<li>Intelligent caching in the Gatsby Cloud: Together with incremental builds, Gatsby Cloud uses intelligent caching and a real-time edge network to dramatically reduce the time spent waiting for deployments.</li>
<li>Better performance and a higher Lighthouse score: Websites built with Gatsby already have a solid reputation for being fast – and it’s mostly due to Gatsby’s image optimization feature. With v3.0, Gatsby graduated the <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/reference/built-in-components/gatsby-plugin-image/">gatsby-plugin-image</a> feature from BETA to general availability. The plugin takes advantage of the latest improvements in browser technology and image file formats. The API is also simpler and easier to learn, which streamlines the entire process.</li>
<li>Gatsby Hosting: After listening to user feedback on incremental builds in Gatsby Cloud, it was clear there was a bottleneck for publishing updates. With <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/blog/introducing-gatsby-cloud-hosting">Gatsby Hosting</a>, this problem is all but resolved. By partnering with <a href="https://www.fastly.com/">Fastly</a>, a content delivery network (CDN) provider turned edge cloud company, Gatsby added a secure global CDN that both accelerates deployment time and content serving to customers.</li>
<li>Additional developer and admin features: Gatsby also added tools and resources in Gatsby Cloud to make managing websites even easier, including custom domains, SSL certificates, and Workspaces.</li>
<li>Upgrades to core dependencies: Last but not least, Gatsby bumped their core dependencies to the latest stable versions, including Node 12, Webpack 5, React 17, GrapQL 15, and ESLint 7. These upgrades will eliminate bugs that people may encounter with older versions and unlock new features Gatsby can leverage in future updates.</li>
</ul>
It’s worth noting Gatsby’s choice of GraphQL, which is typically used by large-scale enterprise CMS and DXP platforms. Most recently, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-cloud-adds-new-headless-cms-capabilities-updates-to-commerce-integration/">Adobe added GraphQL for headless content delivery</a>. GraphQL might be seen as “overkill” for Gatsby, but using GraphQL makes it much easier to see where data is coming from – and how to change it.
<h3>What’s next for Gatsby?</h3>
As CEO Kyle Mathews noted, great user experience depends on both developers and marketers having great tools – and the ability to collaborate and ideate quickly.
While GatsbyConf 2021 was a springboard for highlighting their latest accomplishments, it’s clear that one of Gatsby’s strongest assets is their community of users – and this includes both developers and marketers. By listening and engaging, they’ve been able to focus their improvements on key areas that will have a real impact on customer satisfaction.
The JAMstack is getting jam-packed with static site generators, including <a href="https://nextjs.org/">Next.js</a>, <a href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo</a>, <a href="https://jekyllrb.com/">Jekyll</a>, and others – many of which are deployable to <a href="https://www.netlify.com/">Netlify</a> and instantly connectable to Github. As these competitors build niche communities of developers, service may become one of the key differentiators for Gatsby. They have already demonstrated their commitment to listening to the voice of the customer – and this will serve them well in the future.
If you haven’t tried out Gatsby yet, you can <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/get-started/">sign up for free</a>. If you’re wondering how to upgrade from v2 to v3, Gatsby also provides a <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/reference/release-notes/migrating-from-v2-to-v3">v2 to v3 migration guide</a>.
<h3>About Gatsby</h3>
Gatsby, Inc. is the creator of GatsbyJS, the leading JAMstack frontend framework and static site generator for React. GatsbyJS enables organizations to build highly performant, secure websites that can integrate data from multiple content management systems and other end points using its unique content hub architecture. Gatsby offers <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=QsxpV3REm_gUHc0XrS8P_S-GvX_OgybDXJdd8yqDpE6HOXoszjUf6SoxitACU4HmmFrtFAS_DBY1k8pbTdmgW0fP3gVcsP5YSO9k4jwpMOU=">Gatsby Cloud</a>, a turnkey SaaS solution for building, previewing, deploying and managing Gatsby-based websites plus support and professional services to help organizations build modern websites. GatsbyJS is used in industries including financial services, retail, ecommerce, hospitality, SaaS and gaming by companies, including Venmo, Little Caesars, Braun, Raleigh, Quip, Figma, Meetup, Headspace, Draft Kings and Nintendo. Gatsby, Inc. is funded by Index Ventures, CRV and Trinity Ventures. Visit <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=bdzydamtROY_gZXyiFdp7LM7Gh5xQZSp3EzX2cCGHcES9KWcf2X2nnmDE7YpGur-e7ZLlbuQcQcYsXePXH0Ihg==">www.gatsbyjs.com</a> to learn more.

Gatsby Unveils v3.0, Cloud Hosting, and More at GatsbyConf 2021

Having to call your web design company or developer every time you need to make a simple change on your website should be a thing of the past. Companies can no longer afford to rely on such an inefficient process for every tiny content update, as users and customers expect information to be up-to-date at all times.
Thankfully most Content Management Systems (CMSs) today allow you to make content edits and updates yourself. However, not every CMS is ideally suited to efficient, non-technical updates, nor is every one easy to manage when you’re working with multiple content editors.
In this article we give you a rundown of the benefits of instant content updates, as well as the key things you should look out for when researching a CMS platform, from the standpoint of content updates.
<h2>Why instant updates</h2>
When a CMS enables you to make instant content updates, this usually means that you can log into your CMS platform, find the relevant page where you would like to make an update, and easily make it without need for support.
Content changes can vary a lot, from a quick address update after an office move, to publishing a new article. Sometimes a content update involves creating new pages or adding new modules to a page, although this kind of functionality really depends on the type of CMS you choose.
Being able to log in and change content yourself means that you can ensure your website is always up-to-date. For example, if you have an event coming up and you only just realized one of the event details on your website is incorrect, you can easily go in and make a last-minute edit. Having to wait on a developer, on the other hand, would be useless in this scenario.
Regularly updating your website is also important for another reason: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is because regular and relevant content will allow your site to be noticed by search engine crawlers, which will award it a higher ranking and enable your target audience to easily find your content. Sites that are static, no matter how much old content they hold, will struggle to remain relevant to search engine crawlers. Being able to regularly update content yourself is, therefore, a key way to increase your inbound leads.
Companies can also benefit from instant updates materially, by generating additional revenue and saving costs. For example, instant updates enable you to take advantage of new, time-sensitive opportunities, such as relevant special offers or promotions. On the other hand, updating your site content yourself is also a much more cost-effective way of keeping your website up-to-date, as developers and web agencies often charge fees for every content update they carry out.
All-in-all, empowering your team to keep your website updated themselves is the way of the future, and companies who are still relying on third parties to update content are really missing out on all the benefits outlined above.
However, not all CMS platforms are equal and not all will allow you to efficiently manage your content to the same degree. If you’re looking for a CMS that allows you to deliver your own content updates, here are a few things you should be looking out for.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/pablo2011.png" />
<h3>1. Multiple content editors</h3>
Is your site content going to be managed by one or multiple editors? Either way, looking for a platform that enables access to multiple editors will be the safest choice, particularly if your company is growing.
This means finding a platform that can be extended to multiple users, each receiving an individual login that they can use to access the platform. Ideally, the platform should allow you to track changes by editor and history, so you are always aware who is updating what and when.
The best CMSs also allow you to provide different levels of access and permissions, from contributor to admin. This reduces the risk of mistakes or intentional attacks on your site, as you can make sure that users accessing the backend are only able to modify whatever is relevant to them.
Finally, the ideal CMS should provide you with tools to allow your teams to work together. Things such as being able to preview content together, to assign tasks, to group content changes and report on these changes will make collaboration among your team easier and lead to less errors and better content updates.
<h3>2. No technical knowledge needed</h3>
Although most CMS platforms allow you to access the backend to edit content, not all of them are non-technical. This means that non-developers and non-technical users can’t easily update content without the aid of a developer.
Ideally any non-technical user should be able to log in, find the relevant page and easily input or modify the text. Or if they’re publishing a new blog post, they should intuitively be able to set up a new article, modify the settings, input all text and images using a text editor, add metadata and publish.
Unfortunately not all CMSs are non-technical and intuitive enough to allow any user to edit content, which can lead to time-consuming and inefficient content management processes. Some CMS platforms are in fact focused on developers, which is a great option if these are the people who will be making changes to the website, but not so great if they’re not.
Another aspect that, ideally, a CMS should allow editors to manage is page layouts. Of course, any major design changes that require coding will have to be done by a developer, but at the very least non-technical users should be able to add new page elements or reorder existing ones. Many CMSs also provide page templates, so that non-technical users can build brand new pages and easily add the appropriate modules.
This means that simple pages can be built very fast and still look good, without the need for a developer to come in and work on every single new page.
<h3>3. Cloud-based</h3>
The CMS of the future is cloud-based. By being hosted in the cloud, a cloud CMS allows you to log into the platform and update your website simply by using your regular web browser. This means that you can quickly make content updates no matter where you are, without the need to physically be in the office. All you need is an internet connection!
Ultimately, this allows you to make time-sensitive updates, or to make quick changes outside of office hours. This also means being able to update content on mobile, which of course requires a content management interface that is mobile-friendly; another thing to keep in mind when choosing a CMS.
<h3>4. 24/7 Support</h3>
Finally, it is very important that your CMS provides technical support, preferably 24/7. This way, if your content editors are experiencing a difficulty updating or publishing content, the support team can promptly fix it for you and prevent you from missing out on key revenue or traffic.
Working exclusively with a developer, on the other hand, means that you are again constrained by their schedule and availability, so that the necessary updates can’t be made instantly. It’s all about enabling your users and customers to access and use your site at anytime, and proprietary platforms offering good support are best suited to ensure this.

Why Your CMS Should Allow You To Make Instant Content Updates

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