Janrain Improves Online Marketing for WordPress, Disqus, and Others

Janrain, the social web management solution, announced today new partnerships with Automattic, the creators of WordPress, Disqus, and Umbel. These organizations can now better leverage the power of social by using the Janrain User Management Platform (JUMP). Janrain provides sites with an easy way to engage their site visitors by allowing them to login or join using virtually any social platform — Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo!, etc. Site owners can then use this data to deliver targeted content, for a streamlined and effective marketing approach.

Big News for WordPress.com VIP

Janrain’s integration with WordPress.com VIP is the biggest partnership. Automattic, the creators of WordPress.com VIP, has chosen Janrain as their preferred technology partner for user management. The organizations that run the WordPress VIP CMS include such big-name brands as CNN, New York Times, CBS, Forbes, and others. Instead of cumbersome login processes, these networks can gain more members by allowing them to login via their preferred social media account, specifically market to site visitors, and serve up specific content for a better user experience.

More Partners. More Power.

Disqus, a hugely popular comment system, is another major partner for Janrain. Disqus has been called the “community of communities” for good reason — it transcends social media to comprise a vast discussion platform, rich with features and easy to use. Aided by the power of Janrain, Disqus will enhance their value by collecting user profile information for publisher who want to maximize the use of registered audience development. “Janrain integration is really compelling,” explained Ro Gupta, Disqus’s VP of Development. Compelling indeed, since sites can now socially connect with “the largest population of commenters on the web.”

Janrain’s contribution to the ever-expanding social population is personalizing online consumer experience more than ever before. Automattic, Disqus, and Umbel join more than 30 other partners who are reaping the benefits of better audience engagement. Tore Steen, VP of Business Development for Janrain, said, “JUMP [the user management platform] was designed to easily integrate with other industry leaders to support an entire ecosystem of technology choices and engagement strategies for our clients.”

The Social Solution

According to Janrain, more than 86% of site visitors will give up and leave if confronted with a tedious login process on a site. 77% of users prefer social login. Adding such social login gives companies far more members than they would otherwise have.

It’s apparent how easy the registration process is, when powered by JUMP. Compare the screenshots below with a conventional sign-up process, which often involves seven times as many questions, and takes three times as much time.

Janrain gives people precisely what they want, but it does something more. Janrain’s biggest advantage is to the partners, now including WordPress and Disqus. Partners possess social profile data, customer audience insights, and a huge collection of other information that enables them to better serve their customers. Janrain is more than just ease of use and social integration. It’s a powerful way to improve online marketing.

Check out this video to see how Janrain can totally transform a site.

http://vimeo.com/janrain/overview

About Janrain

The Janrain User Management Platform (JUMP) helps organizations succeed on the social web by providing leading technology to leverage the popularity of social networks and identities for user acquisition, engagement, and enhanced customer intelligence. Our solutions, including social login, social sharing, social profile data collection and storage, access to the social graph, and digital strategy services, improve the effectiveness of online marketing initiatives for leading brands like Fox, Universal Music Group, Whole Foods, Purina, Samsung and Dr Pepper. Founded in 2005, Janrain is based in Portland, Oregon. For more information, please call 1-888-563-3082 or visit www.janrain.com and follow @janrain.

Janrain Improves Online Marketing for WordPress, Disqus, and Others

Mollom Releases New Content Moderation Platform

Acquia, the enterprise guide to Drupal and the developers of Mollom, just announced the release of its new content moderation platform. Mollum is a Content Moderation Platform service that analyzes content quality on a website  and filters out spam or inappropriate messages. Content moderation is a challenging and time-consuming job, but Mollom’s advanced solution makes the task quick and easy.

According to one of the developers, Dries Buytaert (of Drupal fame), “I feel like we’ve secured our place as the leading enterprise-ready content moderation system.” The new rollout is the climax to two years of development, 600 beta testers, and millions of filtered comments.

What’s New in Mollom

Users of Mollom are accustomed to its vast power to control website input (social, comments, forums, etc) with ease and accuracy — accuracy to the tune of 99.98%. The new platform provides the following major benefits:

• Easy to manage teams. The task of moderation is never a one-man show. Now it’s easy for admins to add moderators, analyze their performance, gain at-a-gance view of their overall work, and make sure that they’re keeping up with filtering standards.


• Instant automatic moderation. One of Mollom’s biggest advantages is its ability to scrub spam without a trace. Only the “ham” comes through, making the moderator’s job easy and fast.


• Customization. Mollom now has the power of customization. Users can set up a specific set of parameters for a site, thus creating specific spam or profanity scores. Customizing is as easy as dragging a score bar up or down.


• Multi-site control. Mollom is an enterprise level solution. Customers can manage literally hundreds of sites. For agencies, reputation management consultants, or big brands with tons of web properties, this is a dream come true.

The Mollom Solution

Companies, especially bigger ones, are often the targets of damaging spam. According to some estimate, 90% of the content submitted to websites is spam. Manually filtering such spam would require the full time and attention of dozens of employees — and a boring job it would be.

Mollom makes it easy, and excises thousands of comments a minute. The site’s homepage has a ticker, which at the time of writing, registered over 2.28 billion spam sites caught across more than 61,000 sites. Such large scale filtering allows companies to weed out harmful commentary, and improve their social credibility across the web. “With the Mollom Content Management Platform, organizations can manage social content with the confidence that their brand will be protected with our enterprise-ready content assurance solution,” says Tom Erickson, CEO of Acquia.

Mollom is one of the few moderation systems that works really well and does so on a massive scale. The product is becoming more and more important in an era when social is incredibly important, and when moderation is crucial to a brand’s integrity.

About Acquia

Acquia provides enterprises with the freedom to create extraordinary web experiences based on Drupal, the open source platform that integrates content, community and commerce. Offering a variety of SaaS solutions specifically designed for Drupal, Acquia gives global organizations the unparalleled ability to rapidly deploy and manage multichannel content across web and mobile devices. Co-founded by Drupal project’s creator in 2007, Acquia has helped more than 2,500 companies including Twitter Warner Music Group, Humana, Stanford University, Mercedes-Benz and the New York MTA, to grow and scale their digital experiences with confidence. Acquia was recently named the number one software company in the 2012 Inc. 500 and was named one of the 100 most promising companies in America by Forbes Magazine.  For more information visit www.acquia.com or call +1 781 238 8600. Acquia is a registered trademark of Acquia, Inc.

View Mollom’s Press Release

Read about it on Mollum’s blog.

If Mollom is new to you, check out the three and a half minute video intro here:

Mollom Releases New Content Moderation Platform

Introducing Liferay's New Community Ideation Initiative

Liferay, Inc., provider of the world’s leading enterprise-class open source portal, announced today the launch of a new Ideation initiative designed to foster the development of new products and features for the Liferay Portal platform. The initiative is aimed to empower Liferay’s worldwide community of users, customers and partners to better coordinate the technical resources and business requirements needed to develop new features for Liferay’s products and create new apps that can be delivered through Liferay Marketplace, the company’s public apps repository.

Liferay’s new Ideation initiative includes the launch of a dynamic, easy-to-use dashboard of product and feature ideas and a more streamlined ideation process. In the new Ideas Dashboard, community members can quickly see the most popular feature requests, champion app ideas to the community, and get a direct feed of upcoming features for Liferay products. This allows Liferay community members to actively participate in setting the direction of Liferay’s products and to discover new ideas to implement for their own projects.

The dashboard also serves as a springboard for those wanting to develop apps for Liferay Marketplace. Developers can find other community members to participate in defining and developing new apps, which may not be on the company’s road map, and use the Marketplace to make their apps available to the public. Liferay initially launched the Marketplace with over 70 apps and themes developed internally, and is now accepting third-party apps from its partners and community members.

“We are proud to say that Liferay from the outset has enjoyed a close relationship with its talented and dedicated community, and together we have made significant gains in raising the profile of open source software among enterprises,” said James Falkner, Liferay’s Community Manager. “We hope this effort will help us better gather and put into action the innovative ideas of our community while empowering individuals to add their own unique voices to the advancement of the Liferay platform.”

Many key features in today’s Liferay Portal have originated from Liferay’s community, which generates thousands of feature suggestions each year and now number more than 85,000 members. Examples include Faceted Search, which debuted in Liferay Portal 6.1, and features that are now fixtures in the portal platform such as Communities, Virtual Hosts, Translations and Control Panel. With this new initiative, community members have a new way to propose and promote ideas of their own.

To contribute ideas to the Liferay community, visit the dashboard at www.liferay.com/community/ideas.

Introducing Liferay's New Community Ideation Initiative

Six Major Trends that Are Changing the Web Industry Right Now

The web world is always changing. Always. For anyone whose livelihood is tied to the web, it’s important to keep an ear to the ground to find out what’s changing and how it might affect you. To save you the trouble of putting your own ear to the ground, we’ve done some listening ourselves. Here’s the rumble on the biggest changes in the web industry. Whatever your role on the web, we suggest you take heed.

1. Responsive Design

As discussed in a previous CMS Critic article, responsive design is huge. Right now, we’re facing a sea change in the web design world bigger than anything since the Web 2.0 revolution nearly ten years ago. Sites without a responsive component are a step behind. Responsive is an integral component of any web strategy. Forsake this major trend at your own peril.

2. The Domination of Mobile

It is cliché to say anything about “the rise of mobile.” It already happened. That’s old news. However, mobile domination is different from the rise of mobile. At the close of last year, CNN cited the presence of five billion mobile users on the planet. That’s a huge percentage of the world’s population toting mobile gadgets. It represents a gigantic demand for mobile information. The mobile monster demands the attention of designers, programmers, developers, writers, marketers, and anyone else whose life is touched by the web. (Which is, uh, everyone.) Mobile is the modus operandi for accessing the web and for doing our jobs. Like it or not, it’s changing how you live your life in 2013.

3. The Demand for Instant

Due in part to our mobile addiction, we want everything now. Maybe that’s why Google Now is a standard fixture on all Android devices. It’s more than just information —  stock tickers in website sidebars or weather widgets in our calendars. It’s more than just blazing connection speeds. No, we want instant activity, instant direction, instant access, and instant everything right now. Whether you’re crafting a site architecture or managing a website, think about the speed issue. How can we get even faster?

4. The Growth of Online Shopping

I’m an online shopping junkie. I even buy food online. (The fifteen-minute drive to Trader Joe’s is just too much. Thanks, Amazon Prime.) The world’s move to online shopping is on an upward swing. We’re watching rising rates of online shoppers flock to the shopping websites across Europe and Asia, and pretty much everywhere in the developed world. More online shoppers means more online stores, bigger online stores, and a heightened demand for the tightened integration of CMS, CXM, and CRM. More money is being spent online. A lot of someones are going to get a lot of money.

5. The Decline of SEO

The domination of SEO is fading. Sure, SEO is going to stick around for a while, but it will no longer have the immense clout that it once had. There are two major reasons for this; both reasons are rooted in search engine algorithms. First, search engines are becoming prescient. They know what words you’re going to type in the search bar before you do. This goes beyond autocomplete. Search engines have the ability to anticipate searches based on your search history, geographical locale, demographic, and other features. Anticipated searches and user-specific results means that SEO is getting weaker by the minute. Search results are at once, far more nuanced and yet less malleable. We can’t force rank shifts as easily as we once could. Second, the algorithms are adept at weeding out junk pages, content farms, spammy sites, and irrelevant information. (I’m looking at you Google Penguin.) Rankings have less value when a search engine acts more like a human than a search bot. And that’s what we’re dealing with now — search algorithms with humanoid complexity. Yes, SEO is declining, yet his is not the decade-old declaration that “SEO is dead!” Nobody’s dead yet. SEO is just changing just like everything else in the web world. SEO is shifting in style and approach, and therefore its influence is waning.

6. The Rise of Personal Influence

Rushing in to fill this void is the rise of personal influence. We all know that Web 2.0 is an intensely personal and interactive web experience. With personal blogs aplenty, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and social media overkill, there is no longer any reason to feel like the web is an impersonal entity. The social trend is coming to maturity. Personal influence is going to matter more and more. For example, a single tweet from one individual can create a massive ripple in the Twitter pool. Likewise, the more prolific and skilled a blogger, the more you’ll see his smiling mug in the search results of Google, thanks to Google+. It’s less likely that a company will command your attention, and far more likely that an individual will carry that company’s flag to the front lines. Personal influence is much more than just hiring managers checking out your Facebook page and LinkedIn profile. The rise of personal influence admits that the Internet is full of people writing information, people selling goods, people selling services, people sharing their lives, people uploading photos, people communicating with other people….people, people, people. Internet equals people. Therefore, it is no wonder that the web will ride on the wave of personal influence.

These trends are not just changing the web industry; they’re changing the world. Although this article doesn’t chase down the various ramifications of these changes, you’ll probably want to do some thinking about how to respond in your own unique situation. Change is happening. We must learn to accept it, embrace it, and thrive.

Six Major Trends that Are Changing the Web Industry Right Now

Teach Coursework with Wordpress - Review of Sensei Plugin by WooThemes

If you’ve ever taken an online course, you’ve experienced the fine work of developers and programmers who have worked very hard. CMSs for education are notoriously difficult to manage. WooThemes and their new plugin, Sensei, set out to change that. Their new tool, “the learning management plugin for WordPress, was released in January.

Introduction

Sensei is exclusively a WordPress plugin. Since WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS, this is a great choice. Sensei is easy to use, even for someone who is not familiar with using a CMS. Anyone familiar with WordPress will find the plugin very easy to use.

Sensei a Japanese martial arts term, meaning “teacher” or “person born before another.” The term applies to this plugin.

Features

Sensei is not what you would call a “really powerful” plugin. In other words, you’re not going to make Coursera. The features it does provide, however, are sufficient. Here’s what you can do:

1. Create an unlimited courses


2. Create lessons within courses


3. Set course and lesson prerequisites


4. Create quizzes with required pass percentage


5. Set custom lesson length requirements


6. Embed videos of any kind to the lessons


7. User registration for students taking the course


8. Complete course analytics and student information


9. Learner access to dashboard to track progress


10. Custom theming options

The plugin interface looks and feels like many other plugin. Creating lessons and courses is easy using the familiar WordPress post creation.

Getting Started with Sensei

(Note:  I tested the plugin using a privately hosted WordPress 3.5.1 site using the Standard Theme.)

The first step to Sensei is, quite obviously, installing it. I navigated to my WordPress site’s plugin page, selected the 253 KB zip file, and clicked “install now.” Within ten seconds, the plugin was successfully installed.

After selecting “activate plugin,” I was redirected to my plugin page, where I was provided with a welcome message.

It was time to do some schooling.

Using Sensei

The plugin provides me with an icon in the sidebar with and five menu items. We’ll go through each one of these.

Here’s the screen I was looking at when I clicked on the Sensei icon.

The plugin page looks just like the main page for creating new posts. Instead of categories like “author” or “tags,” the Sensei plugin featured the titles  ”course” and “prerequisite lesson.”

Add New Lesson

My first step was to add a new lesson.

This was familiar territory, since it mimicked the features and layout of typical post creation.

Unlike typical posts however, adding a new lesson displayed the following additional features below the main field:

I went ahead and wrote a mock lesson and published it. In doing so, it was necessary to create a new course and assign this particular lesson to that course. If this action is not completed, the course will not be available for viewing or taking from the main page.

When I visited my blog home page to take the course, the first thing I noticed was the addition of two category tags in my header menu:  ”Courses” and “My Courses.”

Clicking “My Courses” brings me to the main page for courses that I published.

Let’s take the class.

 

What follows is a simple display of the lesson that I created. I clicked on the blue button to “start taking this class.”

What follows is the lesson display, along with a progress bar.

It was unclear to me how to set the lesson to completed. The “In Progress” notification appeared on the lesson whenever I looked at the lesson.

“Create New Lesson” is where the real work of course development happens. You are provided with a full editor, plenty of options, and access to all the familiar plugins that you have installed. The nice thing about creating lessons is that there is no learning curve for typing or creating a new lesson.

All Courses

Next, I chose to view “All Courses.”

The interface is familiar for those who are used to using WordPress. I created this course when I was in the process of writing up my lesson. The Course Creation was provided as one of the options underneath the lesson creation field. Editing a course takes me to page that looks just like a post or lesson creation.

Analysis

The analysis page provides a course instructor’s perspective on all the necessary metrics for courses, grades, and learners. Here are the features you’ll see when you click “Analysis.”

This page provides a survey of numbers only. It is not possible to submit queries or display the data in any other way. Unfortunately, there is no way to manually change student grades.

Settings

The settings page is a complete way to design courses, lessons, and general settings. There are plenty of options for each. Here is a look:

General Settings

Course Settings

Lesson Settings

Editing the Sensei settings is a great way to customize the individual lessons and create a virtual school with specific images, appearance, and features.

After becoming familiar with the Sensei interface and features, I figured it was time to give it a go with additional features.

Adding a Quiz

Let’s go ahead and create a quiz to test this feature.

After clicking “create a quiz,” I’m prompted to stipulate a pass percentage.

To proceed in creating questions, it is necessary to save the draft lesson. After this, quiz creation can commence.

The only questions that you can create are multiple choice questions. The help article states that there will be “the ability in the future to include multiple types of questions such as assessment, essays, etc.”

 

After you create the quiz question, it appears in the “Lesson Quiz” area, with the option to add additional questions. 

After saving the question, you can go on to create additional questions. I created a total of four, then went to view my lesson.

When I clicked “take quiz” on the lesson page, I was redirected to a new page, still displaying my familiar blog template, and displaying a post with the title of the lesson and “quiz.”

At the time I tested, my quiz did not display. I presume this was due to a conflict with my theme’s CSS. WooThemes is available for any WordPress installation, but is designed to be fully compatible with Twenty Eleven and Twenty Twelve.

Using Video Courses

Sensei is primed and ready for video instruction. Each lesson provides the opportunity to add a video embed code. Doing so is as easy as using WordPress’s oEmbed function and all its supported codes.

Changing the Plugin Appearance

For those who desire to customize the sensei template within their theme, there is a Sensei Theming guide for doing so.

Charging for Courses

Although I did not test this feature, Sensei also integrates with WooCommerce, allowing you to charge for courses. The process, apparently, is as simple as creating your course and then linking it to a product on the commerce plugin.

The Future of Sensei

This plugin is a work in progress, and Sensei makes this clear. There are good things in the offing. Thankfully, they provide a way to vote on future features in the Sensei forums. At the time of writing, there are dozens of suggestions for improvements.

Cost

A single license costs $99. For a five-site license, the cost is $149. For $299, you are allowed to use the plugin on an unlimited number of sites.

Conclusion

While Sensei is not a large and full-featured educational CMS, it does provide an easy-to-use plugin for those conducting small scale educational courses on a website. It’s the perfect solution for selling educational services from a blog, or providing employee or subscriber training. It is not, however, designed for large-scale usage by educational institutions.

If you’re looking for an easy way to add courses to your blog or website, Sensei is for you. Like anything from WooThemes, it’s fun and virtually bug-free. Plus, it’s got a bright future.

Visit the WooThemes Sensei plugin page.

Teach Coursework with Wordpress - Review of Sensei Plugin by WooThemes

MobStac Review - Manage Mobile Websites and Apps Across All Mobile and Tablet Devices

Click to visit MobStac

At present MobStac are the “only product in the world to offer mobile websites, tablet websites and native apps for every device“. When I received the MobStac information pack in an email I noticed, below the company contact info, the tagline “Mobile is the new Web“. According to their research there is an estimated 788 million mobile users predicted by 2015. In this infographic by New Relic called Why The Future is Mobile they state that there are more Android phones being activated each day than babies being born. So making sure your web presence is mobile compatible is going to be crucial in the days to come; if it isn’t so already.

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MobStac has done all the hard work so you don’t have to try to comply with thousands of devices on top of the mobile learning curve. They provide a SaaS mobile cloud that lets you easily manage your content from whatever device is at hand. It supports HTML 5, complies with Google’s SEO guidelines and can integrate with all your content management systems and feeds; making you “mobile in minutes“.

Working With MobStac

MobStac is fairly easy to work with, but there are some occasions where it’s not necessarily obvious how things work. You can navigate quickly around the dashboard; everything is broken down into manageable chunks that, for the most part, comfortably lead you through the process.

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You are given a sub-domain on MobStac that you can visit in a browser on your computer or a mobile device (if you open it in a mobile browser you may get prompted to download the app). The look of the mobile site will stay pretty consistent between devices and I was able to test it on a XP Laptop, iMac, iPad, iPhone and an Android S3. They provide built in analytics that shows you not only the number of site views, but also what devices were used to view your mobile site.

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One of the things I really like about MobStac is that it provides user accessibility through three buttons on the bottom of each page. There are two buttons to increase or decrease the size of the text and there is a button for alternative contrast, used when reading at night. It also remembers the settings you last used, so when you return to it you don’t have to set it up all over again.

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You can also change the look of your mobile site with themes. If you click on your MobStac page that lists all you mobile sites (if you are in a dashboard click ‘Your MobStac’ in the top left to return to it). Towards the bottom of the screen there is a row called ‘Mobile site’ or ‘Touch site’ (iPad), clicking the ‘Preview’ button next to ‘Mobile’ will open up the theme for editing. You can alter the colours of the various font classes used, or enter your own CSS stylesheet. MobStac provides you with a wireframe as part of the preview so you can see what it will look like on a mobile device.

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The one thing you should note is that MobStac appears to strip out all photographs from your posts, presumably to reduce loading times and bandwidth costs. On mobiles it looks fine, you can see the text and share the post if you wish, but I personally find on the iPad (Touch site) the preview looks a bit empty with lots of whitespace, almost as if the photos haven’t loaded yet. It also doesn’t appear to follow the same theme that is used elsewhere. There are no theme settings under the Touch site preview page, so it could be this part of the system is still a work-in-progress.

click to enlarge image

I only really had a couple of issues through out: I created a section based on an existing tag we used in the CMS Critic blog, however I didn’t see the section show up anywhere in the mobile site, so I was left a little confused about how it works. I looked into their support forum and a search for ‘Section/s’ returned no results, even though if I scrolled down the main support page I was able to find a relevant post on sections. This explained that you have to tag a post with the section name for it to show up on your mobile site under that section. Since this was a tag that was already in use in our blog feed it’s possible there is a bug here or the indented use needs some clarification.

I also noticed that when I clicked on the twitter feed link (@cmscritic) on the main page of the mobile site I got a “link appears to be broken” error in my browser. I realised after some trial and error that you had to click the ‘+’ symbol next to the feed in the dashboard for it to work, as it gave the impression it was set-up correctly without doing this. Therefore I think a few extra prompts, tips or guides might help when you are new to MobStac. Most of it was simple enough to get started, but a little clarity in certain contexts might help to light the way.

Create Your Own Mobile Domain

I’m sure many of you have seen the trend of adding a sub-domain with the single letter ‘m’ to reduce the length of the URL for ease of use on mobile devices. MobStac allows you to do this too if you own a domain. It will connect your sub-domain to your MobStac site, which allows you to use your domain address instead (e.g. m.cmscritic.com instead of cmscritic.mobstac.com). The instructions below gives you the main details in order to set this up as well as details for WordPress integration.

click to enlarge image

All you have to do next is save and your done, the API Key will be different to ours so we didn’t show it (besides security reasons). They also give you the code for a badge you can add to your blog, as well as some basic instructions on how to use some of the common features of MobStac.

Conclusion

click to enlarge image

As you can see from the image above MobStac can integrate a whole host of things into your site. The settings section gives you a lot of options so you can include and configure all kinds of content just the way you like it. The information pack had a long list of features as well as comparisons between MobStac and other providers, and it is clear they are definitely ahead of the curve.

The ‘Starter’ plan is free with certain limitations like traffic. When your website has grown enough to warrant upgrading, the price I think is fairly reasonable when you consider everything it can do. The professional and premium plans can be paid monthly, as shown in the image above, or you can pay annually to get a two month discount (the plans are on a ‘per website’ basis).

By opening your doors to the mobile market you can increase your readership, improve your conversion rates, making it more likely MobStac will pay for itself. Since you can test MobStac out for free though the question really should be why haven’t you gone mobile yet?

MobStac Review - Manage Mobile Websites and Apps Across All Mobile and Tablet Devices

Should You Build an App?

Apps are the new black. Everyone wants their own. From Mom & Pop shops to blue chip corporations, companies are scrambling to get their brand, product, or service in the app store. If you don’t have an app, you might feel kind of lonely. Many developers, who spend their days managing a CMS or developing sites may consider the app market as the new gold country. Is this where you should be digging for gold? Is is time to pack up and move to mobile country?

The App Question

Before you rush into the app frenzy, stop and think. Do you need an app? Should you build one? What is the ROI from building an app?

Apps cost money to create. Plus, they have a subtle impact upon your brand. They can either erode your brand integrity or they can build a stronger brand presence and more loyal customer base. An app can frustrate users, or it can be a huge crowd pleaser. An app can either drive conversions or it can slow conversions. Before you decide to build an app, you need to have an overall mobile strategy.

The Mobile Imperative

You probably already know that mobile is huge. You might even be reading this article on a mobile device. Every company with an online presence — which is basically every company by now — needs to have a mobile strategy. That mobile strategy is going to look different for every  single company.

Here’s the thing to remember about a mobile strategy. As Google’s Mobile Playbook explains, having a mobile strategy does not mean having an app. You can have a robust presence on mobile without investing the time and resources into creating an app. Using a website with responsive design, for example, is often a more cost-effective and reasonable solution for many companies.

What is an app for?

What’s the whole purpose behind an app? There are two broad potential purposes:

1.  Entertainment:  E.g., Pandora, Angry Birds, Kindle, Words With Friends, Instagram, Zombie Apocalypse

Game apps are great. As I write, I have two Words with Friends games going on. (I’m losing both games.) Are you a mobile game maker? Is your company name Zynga? If so, then entertainment apps are perfect for you. If, on the other hand, your company is not in the mobile gaming industry, this is probably not a great option. Some companies, however, have chosen such a strategy.

F’or example, Capri Sun created an iPad game. I downloaded it for my toddler daughter to play. The game consisted of trying to score points by throwing a beach ball into a goal defended by a dolphin. You can also make the dolphin do tricks. It was cute. My daughter played it a few times.

I don’t think we’ve drunk Capri Sun since downloading the app three years ago.

2.  Utility or Information:  Docs to Go, Evernote, CNN, Dropbox, Flashlight, Maps, Weather

If you see someone busy on their mobile device, chances are, they’re playing a game or surfing Facebook. If they aren’t, they might actually be working, catching up on the news. or emailing a colleague. Useful tools comprise a vast number of apps. Many companies who create traditional software tools have also created useful mobile versions of their software. For example, Evernote users may use the robust desktop version, an equally powerful online version, or a scaled down Evernote for their Android or iPad mini. Most companies, however, are not in position to profit from a new utility app.

An App that Promotes Your Brand

One website with an obviously older article discusses apps for “promotional purposes.” The article seems to indicate that promotional apps are a great idea. It can “enhance your status and stand out of other competitors [sic].”

Are brand promoting apps a good idea? It all depends.

Obviously, the Capri Sun app, mentioned above, is promoting its brand. It’s probably not trying to become another Zynga. What about Coca-Cola? They have an app, several actually. One of their apps allows you to play games. Another Coca-Cola app allows users to view the history of the Coca-Cola product and brand. Starbucks has created an app that allows users to make purchases, earn stars, create custom drinks, and even get free music. It’s like a loyalty card, only it’s an interactive app.

Perhaps the overarching reason why a company would create an app — be it an app for utility or entertainment — is to promote their brand. Is this a good idea for your company? Are people going to download an app you made in order to play with a dolphin or read about your brand’s history? Do you have an international chain of coffee shops where people can use your app to make purchases? Maybe, but probably not.

Making a Decision

Though the siren call of apps is strong, the numbers tell a different story:*

• 73% of mobile users would rather use a mobile website to do shopping, rather than an app. 


• 60% of mobile users prefer entertainment via their browser rather than an app.

(Stats taken from http://mashable.com/2012/06/06/mobile-site-mobile-app-infographic/)

There are plenty of good reasons to build an app. App users are generally more engaged with your brand. Besides, apps provide a greater level of interactivity and functionality. As the mobile browsing experience matures, however, there is less and less driving motivation to build an app.

You’re out to make an impact, not waste money on a dud. Before you move forward with your awesome app idea, stop and think for a moment. Apps have had their heyday.  Your answer to the app question may be instead to focus your development on responsive design and mobile customization rather than app building.

 

Should You Build an App?

How Do You Get a Blog?

How do you get a blog? Where do I get a blog? These are some of the questions I get every day from readers looking to experience the exciting (and if you are lucky, profitable) world of blogging. Blogging used to be something that only the most hardened geek would get involved in but nowadays, everyone from stay at home moms to massive corporations are using blogs as a means to communicate with the world.

How do you get a blog?

I have heard this question many times from friends, family and via contacts from this website, How do you get a blog? A simple question with what you think would be a simple answer, but in actuality, the process can be quite overwhelming for those with little to no experience.

Today, I’m going to attempt to alleviate these stresses and guide you through the process of selecting a blog platform and getting up and running.

First, it’s important to note that the definition of blogs has changed drastically over the years. Originally, the term “web log” (which was later shortened to blog) meant an online journal of sorts, like your diary except public. Today, however, things are much different. Today, blogs are used as sources for news, information, research and more. They don’t just apply to personal websites anymore. Companies have blogs which they use to share their articles and photographers have blogs to share their photos. This site is a blog.

Blogs are everywhere. So, how do you get a blog?

Well, you start by figuring out the answers to a number of questions. The first of which is…

What will I blog about?

The first step to answering the question “how do you get a blog?” is to start by deciding what it is you want to blog about. Perhaps you have a hobby you’d like to share with the rest of the web, such as photography, art, short stories, recipes or something of the sort. Maybe you’d like to incorporate the ability to sell your crafts (or inventions) through your blog or perhaps you’d simply like to use one as a catalyst to entrepreneurship.  Either way, it’s important to have an idea as to why you want a blog and what you will blog about.

Answering these questions is of paramount importance when searching for the right platform.

Let’s assume for a moment that you are interested in blogging and sharing huge amounts of pictures. In this case, you’d most likely want to explore a platform that puts emphasis on photo publishing and provides the necessary tools to allow you to share your pictures on your website quickly without slowing things down. Most hosted blog platforms (we’ll explain what these are a few paragraphs down) perform some form of caching (a fancy word for pre-loading) that allows your site to be served up to the reader quickly with minimal load time.

Why is this important? Slow sites account for a huge percentage of lost traffic. People who are surfing the web typically have very little patience for slow sites and if you want to establish any kind of active readership, you’ll want yours to load as fast as possible.

Once you’ve ascertained what you want to blog about, you’ll be able to make a more educated decision as to what platform to use. So, before you move to the next question, grab a pen (or keyboard) and plan out what you want to blog about.

Hosted or Not?

Now that you know what you will write about, you need to understand the difference between a hosted solution and a self-hosted solution.

Hosted Solutions

A hosted solutions or SaaS (which stands for software as a service) simply means that you sign up for your blog for either free or a small monthly fee and can be up and running within minutes. Your website is served up by servers that are owned by the company you signed up for your blog with.

The advantages; you typically get a fast loading site with little to no downtime that is supported by someone else and is updated as necessary and protected from possible security threats. The disadvantages; it can be difficult to migrate off of a hosted solution and sometimes those who are technical and want to dig deep into the code of their sites find these services limiting.

Blog platforms that are classified as hosted solutions include Squarespace (read our Squarespace review for more info), WordPress.com and Blogger.

Self-Hosted Solutions

When I used the phrase Self Hosted Solution, I am referring to a piece of software that must be downloaded from the internet, installed on a hosting provider and managed entirely by you. In some instances, people may choose self-hosted solutions in order to have more control over every aspect of their blog. Those who are technically minded usually prefer self-hosted solutions should they plan to alter code or make significant changes to the sites structure on a regular basis.

Of course, even with a self-hosted solution, you can often find hosting providers (such as WP Engine for WordPress – read our WP Engine review for more info) that will provide incredible speeds, daily backups and excellent support for a reasonable fee.

Blog platforms that are classified as self-hosted solutions include WordPress.org and Serendipity, amongst others.

What you choose with regards to going hosted or self-hosted really depends on what type of user you are. If you want ultimate control and are able to fix issues on your own, perhaps self-hosted is the best choice. If you want it to “just work” then hosted is likely right for you. Either way, you need to consider your options and make a choice one way or the other. Personally, I’m a code guy so I went with self-hosted but for most people who are looking to start a blog, I usually point to solutions like Squarespace, because they look good, are fast and “just work”.

Where do I get a blog?

If you’ve done any research of your own, you’ve more than likely come across the two most common blog platforms, WordPress and Blogger, but are they the right ones for you? Not necessarily. They are certainly the most used blog platforms in the world but not because they are the best. Here, I’m going to make some recommendations as to which platforms I think suit specific needs the best in hopes of providing you with a base to start from.

Let’s start with the obvious ones first.

WordPress

WordPress is, without a doubt, the largest blog platform in the world and is certainly a good option to consider if you want to get into blogging. There are some caveats, however, that often are not considered when choosing WordPress.

Who’s it suited for?

The hosted WordPress.com solution is suited to anyone who is willing to take the time to learn to use WordPress and isn’t interested in earning revenue from their site. Good uses might be: personal blogs that showcase family pictures, journals and the like.

The self-hosted solution is best suited to those who either have or know someone who has a reasonably good knowledge of WordPress (or PHP programming language) and is interested in a blog platform that provides unmatched control and flexibility and has the potential to incorporate advertising, if desired. Good uses might be: news blogs, sports fan blogs, subject matter expert blogs, online stores, realty websites, law offices, small businesses, etc.  For those who want to be have thousands of theme options and tons of flexibility for expansion, WordPress (hosted or otherwise) is a good choice.

Positives

• There are hundreds of thousands of people using WordPress as their platform of choice (including this site!). For this reason, finding someone who can support you or help you get things going is relatively easy.


• Thousands of themes to choose from. Themes, for those unaware, are looks that you can use as starting points to build your site off of. Here are some examples of Responsive WordPress themes to give you an idea of what I mean.


• There’s a plugin for pretty much everything. Plugins are add-on programs that help extend the functionality of your site by adding features like social bookmarking icons, newsletter subscription forms, etc.


• Hosted or Not. With WordPress you can choose to go with their hosted solution which you can learn about on WordPress.com or their self-hosted solution, which you setup, host yourself, configure yourself and are wholly responsible for. You can learn about it at WordPress.org

Negatives

• If you go with the hosted solution, you can kiss making money goodbye as they do not allow advertising other than their own (which they earn from) on WordPress.com sites. Unless you pay for a VIP solution which is quite costly and, quite frankly, not worth it in my view. You also get no support (well, no fast support) unless you have a paid upgrade with them (see here) and even then, the support is slow tedious with back and forth emails.


• If you go with the self-hosted solution and you have issues, you are pretty much pooched unless you know someone who can provide support to you and at this point, you are relying on someone who does not work for or with the WordPress organization directly, so you have to ensure you trust them and their skill set.


• Since there are so many plugins, they are not vetted in any way meaning that installing a plugin can potentially break your site but can also cause security issues. The same applies for themes. You also will need someone to assist you in updating your site and keeping it current.

Now, having said that, I think WordPress is a great platform but I’ve been using it for years and feel comfortable with it. It takes some learning and there’s definitely a curve but once you get past it and figure out how to circumvent issues, it’s a good choice. The negatives aren’t meant to say it’s a bad platform but more to highlight the possible issues you COULD encounter so you are aware in advance. There are millions of people using WordPress successfully, but there are also millions who should be using something else. Keep that in mind. Click here for Self-hosted WordPress, or here for Hosted WordPress.

Blogger

Blogger is Google’s baby and is one of the oldest blogging platforms out there. It’s sufficient for those looking for a simplistic platform to quickly publish content. While it’s been revamped a number of times over the years and has certainly improved, it’s not one that I would ever personally recommend. I find blogger to be too dumbed down and old school and to be honest, quite limiting in a number of aspects. Still, a lot of people continue to use Blogger and it’s still amazingly popular, I assume because it’s a Google product.

Who is it suited for?

Blogger is really suited to those who aren’t too concerned about the look and flexibility of their blog but more about just getting started.Blogger is quite limiting in it’s capabilities but it does a good job for personal sites and family blogs. There are, however, limits to the size that it grows before you lose the ability to add more content (see here for more info) so if you upload lots of pictures, you’ll want to avoid Blogger. Good uses might be: personal blogs that showcase family pictures (see limits note above), personal journals and the like.

Positives

• Since Blogger is a Google product, it is also widely believed that Blogger sites perform reasonably well on Google as a result of this (we’re referring to rankings or SEO here).


• Quick and easy to setup with minimal effort required.


• It’s a Google product and offers some integrations with Google products.

Negatives

• As mentioned above, Blogger has limits on the number of images (1GB), the size of images (250kb), the size of posts and the size of pages. Here is a full list of Blogger limits.


• There are a few sites that provide themes for use with Blogger but most of them are not optimized well or if they are, contain tons of links back to their publishers and end up serving no use other than to help them. For the most part, there are very few good themes for Blogger / or the ones that are good are only available for a fee.


• Customization is extremely limited. Google likes to play safe so you won’t be able to do anywhere near as much as you could with a different platform (like WordPress, etc)

So in a nutshell, Blogger has its uses but its popularity is declining year over year and I wouldn’t recommend it for anything other than minimal use. Click here to visit Blogger.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a great platform that is used by millions of people. The purpose to it is to get your content out there with the least effort possible. You can share text, photos, chats, links, videos, audio and quotes with the click of a button and there are plenty of great themes (both free and premium) to choose from. The interface is intended to be as minimal as possible (and it is) but it also suits most people just fine.

Who is it suited for?

Tumblr is there to share thoughts or collect things you find interesting, so it is most frequently used by people who have a passion for sharing content with others. It’s recommended for photographers, those who share videos (or create them), writers, and personal use. Companies sometimes use it as well for quick links that they want to share with the customers. It is not something you would typically use to create a full blown business website, although I have seen it done. You can check out some of the premium Tumblr themes that are available.

Positives

• My grandmother could set up and use a Tumblr blog easily.


• The single fastest way to get content up and shared with the least effort possible.


• Fast, hosted solution that doesn’t cost a dime.

Negatives

• Challenging to find ways to earn money from advertising (you can, but it’s hard to implement for the average user).


• No plugins or methods to extend it’s functionality.


• Limited themes (although the ones that it does have are quite good).

Now for the less obvious choices. Here are some other ones to consider:

Squarespace

Squarespace is a pretty powerful hosted solution that offers pretty much everything the average blogger would need plus a number of extras; such as eCommerce integration, built-in analytics (so you can see who is visiting your site and get details about them) and more. It’s also extremely popular with photographers, designers and entrepreneurs due to it’s fast speed, excellent caching (there’s that word again) and easy to use minimalistic interface.

Who is it suited for?

Bloggers will find pretty much everything they need here; speed, social integration, analytics and if needed, eCommerce. Photographers love it because of the caching and CDN integration (meaning pictures load really fast) and Designers love it because there are a number of beautiful portfolio templates. If you want to run an online shop, the eCommerce component is pretty slick as well. I’d recommend it for designers, photographers, bloggers, sports websites, law offices, small businesses, online stores, etc. If you want more info on Squarespace, read our Squarespace review where we show you the interface and explain everything.

Positives

• Slick, clean interface with controls that get out of your way when you need to write but are there when you need them.


• Beautiful look and feel to their templates and themes, it’s very, very easy to make an attractive website with Squarespace.


• Fast websites with excellent caching, CDN for pictures and images.


• Integrated analytics and lots of control without being overwhelming.


• You can easily enable and setup advertising and earn money from it with Squarespace.

Negatives

• Squarespace is hosted so you won’t have as high a level of control as you would with a self-hosted solution but they’ve definitely given you a lot more control than most will likely need.


• Small monthly fee associated with it as it’s not a free service but rather a paid one. Costs about the same as it would if you paid hosting fees to host your own site so it’s definitely reasonably priced.


• Not as extensive a list of themes and while it certainly has a ton of integrated features, there is no way to add-on extras. You have to submit feature requests.

I’m personally a huge fan of Squarespace and think they’ve done an excellent job of putting together a great product and doing well for themselves. I’ve no problem recommending them and would suggest those who are curious either sign up for their 30 day trial (they don’t need your credit card for the trial so it’s a good way to test it out) or read our Squarespace review.

Serendipity

Serendipity is a self-hosted blog platform. It has been around for a number of years and offers a reasonable amount of themes and plugins to extend it’s functionality. It’s not as easy to use as some of the other platforms we’ve listed here but it’s definitely packed full of power, if you take the time to learn how to use it.

Who is it suited for?

It’s best suited for small businesses, bloggers with a bit of technical know how, those who want a solid blog platform and are familiar with the process of setting one up on a web host (or know someone who is), designers, photographers, lawyers, realtors and the like. Serendipity is quite powerful and offers a lot of flexibility and because it’s written in PHP, like WordPress, it can be extended fairly easily.

Positives

• Fast, capable, proven platform that’s been around for a number of years.


• Strong, but small community that’s willing to help those who have questions.


• Flexible and easy to extend with the right skill set.

Negatives

• Like WordPress, you need to have either knowledge with PHP or someone who does to assist with issues, setting up hosting, etc.


• Not as large a community as WordPress so harder to find support outside of the Serendipity forums.


• Nowhere near as many themes or plugins as WordPress, but the average person wouldn’t need thousands of them anyway.

If you are looking to avoid WordPress for whatever reason and want a strong platform and are willing to learn how to maximize it / tweak it as needed, Serendipity is a great option. Click here to visit Serendipity.

Now that you’ve got a list of platforms to peruse and select from, you’ll need to figure out which one best suits your needs. I’m happy to offer basic advice via the comments if you have a question, so please feel free to ask / pose your scenario and I’ll respond when I can.

In my next post, we’ll discuss what to do with your blog once you have it up and running / have selected a platform. Stay tuned! I will be adding to this list of platforms gradually so be sure to check back once in a while.

How Do You Get a Blog?

Interview with Shaun Walker – Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of DotNetNuke Corporation

Shaun Walker is the Co-Founder and CTO of DotNetNuke Corporation. In this interview, Shaun took some time so share with us his thoughts about how the product came to be, where he sees it going and some insight into his background. We hope you find it an interesting read.

With that said, here’s the interview.

Please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background.

My name is Shaun Walker and I am the Co-Founder and CTO of DotNetNuke Corporation (DNN) and the creator of the DotNetNuke open source project. I started my professional career in 1992 as a

Shaun Walker

software developer and have worked in a variety of different software disciplines over the years including development, architecture, project management, and product management.

My first experiences with software development were in elementary school on the Commodore 64 and later on IBM PC’s and mainframes. My first professional experience was writing accounting and payroll software for school districts and municipalities on the DEC VAX/VMS environment using VAX BASIC. In the mid-nineties I made a switch to the Microsoft platform and gradually developed my skills writing desktop, client/server, and web software. In 2000, when Microsoft came out with its next generation platform, the .NET framework, I knew I was going to have to upgrade my skills so I downloaded a sample application that Microsoft had made available called the IBuySpy Portal and I proceeded to add a bunch of additional functionally to it over the next 2 years.

Can you tell us about how the idea of DotNetNuke was born?

My original idea was to create a web application for amateur sports clubs to manage their own team websites.  The idea was that the application needed to be simple and easy to use for non-technical folks and it needed to have the ability to host many different team sites from the same web hosting account (which is now referred to as a multi-tenant architecture). After working on the application for a couple years in my spare time, I concluded that I wasn’t going to be able do anything commercially with it due to the other commitments in my life. I also realized that most of the features I had created were applicable to not only sports organizations, but also to businesses, non-profits, etc. Essentially I had created a general purpose content management system. And since I had some experience with open source software in the past, I decided the best way to get value from the effort I had invested was to release my application as open source (this decision was made in spite of the fact that Microsoft was openly and publicly opposed to the open source software movement at that time). I packaged up the source code and posted it for download on December 24^th, 2002. And the rest is history.

When & how did the DNN Corporation come about?

From 2002 to 2006 I managed the open source project through my personal consulting company, based in British Columbia, Canada. In late 2003, the Web Platform and Tools group within Microsoft actually recognized the value of the work I was doing and offered to sponsor me for a year, which led to my pivotal decision to quit my full-time job and devote my full attention to the open source project. By 2006 the project had grown substantially with millions of downloads and hundreds of thousands of users, and I decided that it was time to get serious about creating a suitable legal entity to ensure the longevity of open source project and be the official steward of the DotNetNuke brand. DotNetNuke Corporation was incorporated in September 2006 as a U.S.-based company and Scott Willhite, Joe Brinkman, and Nick Kalyani joined me as co-founders. The first order of business was to establish a suitable revenue model which could provide the project with adequate resources to continue to grow and expand its footprint.

Over the years, DNN has seen a lot of competitors come and go, what do you think has helped the product maintain its popularity?

DNN has maintained its popularity by adhering strongly to a number of core principles. First, our software is available under a standard MIT open source license which provides the maximum freedom in both commercial and non-commercial environments. Second, the platform is architected in a highly extensible manner which allows third party developers to customize the application and add their own functionality. Third, there is a large ecosystem of third party ISVs building skins and modules, as well as System Integrators and Web Agencies who have based a significant portion of their livelihood on implementations of the DNN platform for customers.  And last but not least, we have been able to successfully maintain the fine balance between the free open source community and the needs of commercial businesses.  Our commercial product edition provides us with the resources needed to continue to innovate and build on the product and ensure the longevity of the free open source platform.

What led you to take DNN to the enterprise level it’s at today? What factors contributed to its success?

A common phenomenon for many open source projects is that they get adoption by software developers within large enterprise environments. This is largely because the cost and licensing is not a significant blocking factor as it typically is for commercial software applications. Once the open source software is utilized in these environments, it typically starts to evolve very rapidly to support some of the advanced functionality and more sophisticated use cases that exist in the enterprise. So rather than the software vendor having to “push” its product into the enterprise, open source software tends to experience a “pull” from enterprise users as they try to utilize it in a variety of scenarios. This results in the software adapting to meet the specific needs of enterprise customers and ultimately becoming an enterprise level solution.

The factors that contributed to the success of DNN in this regard was:

• the MIT open source license,


• the extensible architecture which could easily adapt to new use cases,


• the availability of high quality commercial third party extensions which enterprise customers could immediately take advantage of to fulfill their business objectives,


• and the presence of DNN Corp as an official steward and legal entity behind the open source project

How does the open source philosophy tie into how DNN operates as a company?

We prefer to operate under a philosophy that we refer to as the “abundance mentality.” This is simply defined as a belief there are enough resources and success to share with others. One of the fundamental ways in which we live and breathe this philosophy is by making our software available under a highly liberal open source license. However, it does not stop there. Every program or service we offer is intended to be a win/win with our community; we feel that the collective success of the various members of our ecosystem ensure our own success as steward. As the number of users and businesses utilizing DNN increases, so do the opportunities available to everyone. In economics terms, we do not believe in a zero-sum game; rather, we believe that as the ocean rises, all the boats will rise with it.

What do you consider the biggest achievement over the years for DNN?

For a software application to exist for ten years and continue to be highly relevant is definitely a big achievement in our opinion. DNN has been able to achieve that by being well-entrenched in a very dynamic and growing market sector, and by constantly investing in product innovation that allows us to adapt to the latest technology trends. This would not have been possible without our other big achievement, which is raising venture capital from some of the most reputable investment firms in the world.

The biggest failure?

Hindsight is 20/20. It is hard to categorize anything as an absolute failure as there are always important lessons to be learned from every mistake. That being said, I do believe that there may have been some benefit of incorporating DNN earlier in our evolution, solidifying a scalable company structure behind the project, and accelerating more quickly with the addition of more key resources. And another regret, which I believe is a common one for any serious entrepreneur, is not recognizing and capitalizing on emerging trends or opportunities earlier.

What do you see as the future of the product?

DNN continues to invest in product innovation and quality so that we can serve our diverse and rapidly growing customer base. Specifically, we are laser-focused on providing business solutions that enable customers to take advantage of the most significant and disruptive industry trends around cloud computing, social collaboration, mobile devices, and managing big data.

What separates it from the competition?

Our open source license, our large ecosystem of commercial ISVs and Systems Integrators, our focus on developing best-of-breed functionality for social communities and collaboration, and our modern cloud infrastructure allows us to differentiate ourselves from the competition.

If there was one thing you could have done differently, what would it be.

It is hard to pinpoint one thing that I would have done differently. Life is not a straight line; it is a winding path full of many unexpected surprises. I think it is important to plan, but it is equally important to be able to adapt. From a business model perspective, we learned very early on that there is no blueprint for how to successfully combine an open source software project with a commercial software business. So you need to be prepared for some experimentation and education in real-time as you pursue your goals. At the end of the day, all I can advise is that you stay true to your core values and trust your instincts.

Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?

In five years’ time, I hope to see that the DotNetNuke platform is just as relevant and innovative as it is today. I see our product lines expanding to include more specialized solutions that solve specific problems for customers. Our footprint in the enterprise will expand significantly and I see our customers having a more intimate relationship with the corporation as we get deeper into the business of providing cloud infrastructure. On the product side, we will have a very comprehensive story around mobile and social, and I am sure there will be plenty of exciting new industry trends that we have not yet even anticipated that we will need to adapt to so that our customers can take full advantage of them in their business.

Thanks for your time today, Shaun

I appreciate the opportunity to share the story of DNN with your readers. Hopefully it will inspire them to pursue their dreams but also realize that opportunities sometimes reveal themselves while you are busy making other plans.

To learn more about DotNetNuke, visit their website: DotNetNuke

Interview with Shaun Walker – Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of DotNetNuke Corporation

Interview with Ian Truscott of SDL about the Bemoko Acquisition

As you may have heard, SDL recently acquired mobile web solutions provider Bemoko to enhance their Tridion content management system. To help us understand what it was that made this acquisition attractive to SDL, we decided to speak with VP of Product Marketing for SDL Content Management Technologies Division, Ian Truscott.

Why did SDL feel it was necessary to purchase bemoko as opposed to implementing their own solution?

Ian Truscott

Good question. SDL already has a strong track record of customers using Tridion to deliver content to mobile devices.

In addition to the underlying platform capability to do that, we have been investing in a product strategy to deliver this single, multi-channel delivery tier for some time. For example, the 2011 product release included functionality that enabled the content author to preview and then edit in context content as it appeared on a selected mobile device – so this was our trajectory, toward a single multi-channel delivery tier.

What we found in bemoko was a complimentary technology that will accelerate the realization of that underlying strategy. We are probably best known for the strength of our content model (managing content variants, multiple sites and channel localization through the BluePrinting model) and we found that the way bemoko manages devices is very complimentary to that.

That complimentary fit was essential for us; our strategy dictated a single delivery tier – I refer to this as an experience tier – rather than a bolt on capability, a silo of technology/content or an additional thing for our customers to figure out.

In addition, an acquisition obviously brings talent to the organization – and in this case we have acquired some outstanding individuals that will be a key part of delivering this strategy.

Why bemoko specifically?

Our research revealed what I think most people assume about this space, there are a lot of niche players. What we found during that research was a wide variance in what mobile vendors offered in terms of the product/services mix.

As I touched on in your last question we needed technology that had a level of maturity that would accelerate our own strategy and people that would contribute and fit into the SDL culture. In the UK we have a saying that” you are judged by the company you keep” and in bemoko we found they kept pretty good company as a technology provider for brands such as Pizza Hut and Cable & Wireless.

What does this new offering bring to SDL’s current feature set?

Put simply, on day one, it gives our customers an “out of the box” delivery platform that renders content optimized for the device (from a trusted partner with an investment in the integration) and analytics to provide insight into that experience.

Of course they all say that – so I think some of the highlights are the way it handles image scaling (something often forgotten in responsive design strategies), the way it manages device families, inheritance of capabilities and a focus on salability and security – all consistent with the needs of a typical enterprise Tridion customer.

That’s just day one – going forward – and this will start in our next major Tridion release at the end of this year – these capabilities will be baked into our next generation content delivery platform. A delivery platform that already includes the targeting and personalization functionality we have built or acquired through the FredHopper and Alterian acquisitions.

Can we expect mobile apps from SDL in the future that coexist with / allow interaction with the CMS?

This was already happening thorough our UX development strategy; significant parts of the product are already optimized for touch and this will continue. We anticipate a growing number of our users to be using mobile devices to contribute and manage content.

Will bemoko continue to operate under the bemoko name or will they disappear and become absorbed by SDL instead?

I think the rest of my answers give you a sense of the nature of this acquisition; we see the technology from bemoko in the core of our next generation content delivery platform – rather than as a bolt on.

What other future opportunities does this acquisition present for SDL?

Talking to our customers, they are moving from mobile being a side project, limited to some brands, markets, products or services – a content/technology silo – to being a part of their mainstream content and marketing operations. This obviously coincides with how their customers are engaging with them – access to the web is ubiquitous as we reach for whatever device comes to hand.

We therefore perceive a future for digital customer experience that is omni-channel, not simply that you can blast your content out and it looks pretty on a smaller screen – but that as a consumer you can move between digital touch points and maintain a consistency of conversation from device to device during that engagement – something that leverages all of the pieces of the CXM platform that we are building out.

Does this round out all of the necessary pieces that SDL needs to provide a solid solution for the consumer or are there still other pieces of the pie that you are looking to fill?

That depends on the pie! Joking aside, it really does depend on what is the customers need and therefore what would make up a solid solution for them. If we ring fence this conversation around the mobile web, then yes.

—

So there you have it. I fully expect we’ll see more and more acquisitions coming down the pipeline involving other vendors within the next year or so as they scramble to ensure their products are mobile ready.

For more info, visit SDL online at www.sdl.com/products/tridion/

Interview with Ian Truscott of SDL about the Bemoko Acquisition

Why Responsive Design is So Important

 

There’s no arguing about this fact:  Responsive Design is really important. No doubt you’ve heard of it. Maybe you know a little bit about it. Perhaps you even have a responsive site already. Whatever the case, responsive design is the new must-have of website design. Here’s why.

The Importance of Responsive Design – A Word from the Pros

The tech oracles have spoken on the importance of RWD. Neil Patel (QuickSprout) wrote that “ responsive design is “ a standard that’s taking everything you know about web design and turning it on its side.” He claims that responsive design influences everything about a site, including conversion rates. He’s right. John Polacek’s masterful treatment of the subject declares that it’s a “fundamental shift in how we’ll build websites for the decade to come.” Mashable prophesies that 2013 is “the year of responsive design.” .net Magazine placed responsive design at number two of their Top Web Design Trends for 2012.

This is kind of a big deal.

There’s more to responsive design that just tweaking CSS or adding bits of code to a site. Responsive design is all about how the web is maturing.

Responsive design is important because mobile is dominating.

Responsive design was born because of mushrooming mobile statistics. When the market became saturated with mobile users, we all finally realized that tiny screens weren’t optimal for traditional websites. UX stunk. Responsive design was the answer. The growth in mobile is where every discussion of responsive design must begin.

Responsive design fills in where apps left off.

Apps are not the answer to a mobile-saturated society. As mobile devices grew in popularity, so did the demand and appetite for apps. Remember Apple’s slogan,  “there’s an app for that”? That was so 2010. We’ve reached a point now where apps have plateaued. Plus, the iPhone isn’t the only big player in the mobile market. There are more platforms that need to be appified. Savvy companies don’t feel the need to rush out and make a fancy app. Instead, they unleash the power of responsive design. It’s better, smarter, cheaper, and way more 2013. Besides, if conversions are the goal, why create an app? An app can often be a distraction or barrier to conversions. Responsive saves the day by allowing a businesses website to do what it’s supposed to do rather than get bogged down in app building.

Responsive meets the need of multiple devices.

Today, we’ve got desktops, notebooks, netbooks, tablets, and handhelds of every size, dimension, and resolution. With all these net-accessing devices, there is no way that a static site design will please everyone. The variety of devices demands responsive design.

Responsive design is a design necessity.

We can’t forget that responsive design is at its core a design phenomenon, despite its far-reaching implications. As a design feature, it is designed to take away the unnecessary aspects of a web presence. After all, when you access a responsively designed site on your mobile device, you don’t see everything that you would see if you were to visit from your desktop browser. Responsive design is about simplicity. In order to meet the scaled-down sizes of tablets, minis, and mobiles, responsive sheds the excess, and offers the beautiful and simple core. This is a design trend that’s not going away soon.

Regardless of what CMS you use, what industry you’re in, or what your role in your company is, responsive design is important. Now, it’s time to do something about it.  If you are on WordPress, check out our list of where to get Responsive WordPress themes to get started in your transition to a responsive design.

Why Responsive Design is So Important

Where's the Criticism?

One of our readers recently made an interesting comment on one of my write-ups from the Adobe Summit that I attended this past week. The user said “Where’s the Criticism?“, which made me feel it was necessary to write this post so that the rest of our readers understand how we think and what we hope to achieve here at CMS Critic.

Our goal is not to bombard you with re-worded press releases (although admittedly, at time it’s necessary to share them), but to keep our articles fun, fresh and informative. We tend to share personal experiences alongside reporting which is why this site is considered a blog. You come here for the opinion, you get it when it’s warranted.

When it comes to reviews, make no mistake, we aim to be 100% unbiased in how we handle them.  We make it very clear that we will write what we think and we always aim to be brutally honest. I think, personally, that’s what separates us from some of the other sites out there. Here at Critic, we like to think we bring a balanced view to the table no matter where we go or what we review. I’ve definitely written my share of reviews that were not necessarily positive and I’m sure I’ll do the same in the future. That’s part of the game and that’s how we keep our reviews honest.

On the flip side of the coin, if we are invited to attend conferences by a company, we will absolutely ask the tough questions if we feel there are any that need asking but our objective when we are there is to COVER the news and share the experience with you and not to find negativity just for the sake of it. Would you like me to tell you that the food wasn’t as great as last year? It wasn’t, but does that really matter? Or would you prefer to just get a quick overview of the key elements of the conference and get a feel for what it’s like should you choose to attend?

The latter, I believe, is more important.

Another item I’d like to add is that before most interviews or prior to question periods, I usually put a call out on Twitter to see if anyone has any questions they’d like me to ask. If I get no replies and I have no tough questions of my own, I roll with the punches.

https://twitter.com/cmscritic/status/309332637334503424

We want this site to be as interactive as possible and we welcome any input from you as to how we can improve, what we can do, how you’d like to be involved. I think it’s great that people raise points like this as they often form the basis for discussion and help us clear the air, which I think is great.

So that’s what our goal is and that’s how I think personally. Do you have comments or thoughts to share? I welcome them. Please offer up your comments and suggestions below. I promise to reply to each of them personally, if warranted.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

Where's the Criticism?