contentmanagement

No More RedDot

This flew a little under the radar today, but CMSWire posted an article today which pretty much speaks for itself, Farewell, RedDot. Viva OpenText Web Solutions. Ok maybe it doesn't speak for itself, Open Text didn't drop the RedDot product offering, but rather rebranded their offerings under a single Open Text umbrella, Open Text Web Solutions. Actually this was a bit of a journey for RedDot who were first acquired by Hummingbird in June of 2005 and then subsequently acquired by Open Text, via Hummingbird, about a year later in August of 2006.

There's a great line in the article where CMSWire asks Open Text's SVP for Corporate Strategy, Daniel Kraft "How and why did the decision to 'shut down' RedDot come about?", and Daniel's response is "First of all, we don’t 'shut down' RedDot." You know he's answered that question internally a million times and it showed in that response, bravo! Actually, I've talked to some RedDot guys at different industry events and this has been in the making for a while, so it's not necessarily new news. But what this says loud and clear is that Open Text has just now, almost two and a half years after acquiring Hummingbird/RedDot, finally has these things working together as part of the bigger ECM suite...note that I said "working together" and not "integrated."

After the Autonomy announcement last month to acquire Interwoven (who actually did a great job in leveraging it's acquisition of Optimost), this certainly doesn't fall into the category of further industry consolidation, but it sure does make things a bit more interesting.

All CMS's Are Puppies

So, there's been some great back and forth on a recent blog posting over at Interwoven.  In that posting, Interwoven's Annie Weinberger makes the argument that Open Source is Free like a Free Puppy is free. 

Once again, the Open Source fans yell that this isn't fair and someone trots out the original quote in the Free Software Movement mantra that Open Source was meant to be free as in "Freedom" not "Free Beer". 

Seth Gottlieb (as he almost always does) gets it right in his reply here.

The truth is that the metaphor is just clumsy.   ALL CMS's are like Puppies - some you buy and some you get for free.  They ALL require care and feeding.  And let me tell you from personal experience that TeamSite is like a stubborn male Pug when it comes to the care and feeding (it eats alot and goes where it wants to go).

But I owned a Pug and absolutely loved that dog.  And, so too, can you "own" a CMS and have it be successful for you; whether that CMS is an Open Source or Commercially Licensed product.

The question isn't whether the CMS choice is like a box of puppies - some you buy and some you get for free.  But, rather, it's whether you should have a dog in the first place - and what breed is most appropriate for you.  If you live in a small one bedroom apartment and are single, a Bull Mastiff probably isn't the best choice (oy this metaphor is getting tired already).

The key here is (and maybe this is the point that Annie is really trying to make) something that we've been saying for a long time.    The reason to acquire an Open Source CMS should not be because you think it's "free".  There are many reasons to choose Open Source CMS products (flexibility to customize, access to the source code, community etc...)  But a low ("free") licensing cost is not one of them.

To use another clumsy metaphor.  The licensing cost of ANY CMS product is like buying a sailboat.  It's the smallest part of the cost equation.  It's the ongoing management and maintenance of that solution that will become the biggest cost-factor.  And your thirst for that piece is what should be a guiding principle in your decision on a solution.

Come See Us At Gilbane

Well, it's here again - and we're back - the fifth annual Gilbane Boston conference kicked off yesterday.  The theme of this year's conference is "where content management meets social media".  Many of the breakout sessions are focusing on how you can manage all these different types of content that will be coming from disparate locations.

There's about 50 of us "vendors" breaking the quiet of the conference.  And, if you're interested in seeing what they're all up to, you can check out this posting of the press release on Fierce CIO.  If you're in Boston, be sure to come see us at the CrownPeak booth.

Content Migration - It's Not All Sour Milk

Yesterday on CMSWire, Gerry Mcgovern, certainly one of the more preeminent experts on content management had an interesting post on web content migration.

If I read the post correctly, the point Gerry makes is that all content migration projects are doomed to fail if you don't focus on the quality of your content. Moving old content into the new CMS is like pouring spoiled milk into a new, shiny jug.

In concept, I definitely agree with Gerry. Focusing on the quality of your content is an absolute must if you expect your web site redesign, or new CMS to affect the results of your web site. At CrownPeak, we've seen the best re-designs fail because of a lack of focus on content.

However, we would respectfully also point out that this is a bit more nuanced challenge than Gerry points out in the post. Having been a part of hundreds of CMS and content migration projects for more than seven years - our experience is that some times re-editorializing content comes at the expense of success.

We've seen a few examples of content that may not be the best written, or adhere closest to the brand - but because of a "happy accident" of keyword density becomes one of the most highest ranked pages from Google's perspective.  Then, when that page is removed and/or changed - losing all its page rank glory.  Similarly, especially with Government and Non-Profit sites - we've seen so much attention time and effort paid to putting an inventory of content together - that the entire project gets out of hand.  Or, similarly, we've seen old content get removed because of "quality" issues and  just simply confuse users of that content.

Sometimes, we have to say, content is just content - and just like the crazy old uncle that you've come to live with - your old content may be kind of embarrassing - but it may serve a very particular purpose.  

So, as anyone familiar with our CMS Pocket Guide and our webinars realizes - we are the first to agree that content migration projects - well quite simply - suck.

But, while I absolutely agree with Gerry that "taking your old intranet content and migrating it into a new software system [can be] doomed to failure", I would just add a helpful safety tip.   Don't just take an inside-looking-out approach before determining quality.  Make sure that you also take an outside-looking-in approach as well.  It might surprise you just how many people don't see sour milk in your jug - but rather see sour cream.

Amazon Announces They're getting Into Content Services

So, add "content delivery services" to your shopping cart the next time you're putting that new book or album into your basket.

Amazon has announced that they will launch a content delivery network.  This will work (as they say) seamlessly with their S3 service and have no minimum usage requirements.  So, is it an extraordinarily inexpensive and easy way to host your new web site, or online application?  Well, certainly "easy" is a relative term - but, as Yoda might say, inexpensive it will definitely be.

Before we get into that, just a quick primer on what a content delivery service is.  When you have a web site, or other piece of content that you're delivering online (e.g. a podcast or online video) and you expect a tremendous amount of traffic - historically you've gone to "edge network" types of solutions in order to maintain a high service rate (e.g. your web site isn't brought to its knees with a high rate of traffic) or a big bill (e.g. your overage rates are really high).  This is especially true for podcast and other episodic types of content where the announcement of a new episode (typically via RSS) invites a rush to actually download that file. 

It's not surprising that Amazon would get into this service, and they're going up against a number of established competitors such as Akamai, Limelight and Cachefly. 

I've personally used Cachefly and can attest to its excellent service. 

And it will be very interesting to see how Amazon will compete.  Certainly from the initial pricing on the web site - it would seem to be inexpensive.  A quick check on a medium sized web site (no extraordinary traffic) indicated that my charges would be about $30 per month.

Content Management Is Set To Grow - Whew...

So, with all the bad news going around, it was refreshing that Wintergreen Research (forgive me for the pun) has just put out a new report and it forecasts significant growth for web content management over the next few years.  It supports this with arguments saying that as companies shift to more online marketing, web 2.0 and other technologies the need for a common look and feel, management of disparate teams and brand management will really fuel the need for web content management.

Additionally, as marketing departments really become much more international, as well as other trends as more mobile - a common solution to manage the central web site becomes more of a need.

You can see the summary of the report and also purchase it here.

Will The Economic Downturn Mean A Rise In SaaS

Another interesting article in Infoworld about how "cloud computing" or Software-as-a-Service is poised for growth due to the economic downturn.

I certainly agree in terms of web content management.  As companies really hunker down and start trying to build value - their marketing departments will be challenged to do even more with less.  That means no huge outlay of cash in a capital expenditure and a way to "grow into" a solution when you want to stick your toe into the water first.

Somebody I really respect, Phil Wainright of ZDNet also discussed this in some detail on his blog.  Good reading for those of you beginning to consider a SaaS based web content management solution.

SaaS The Next Big Thing in ECM?

Interesting article just released on AIIM talking about SaaS - where they talk about the main benefits of Software-as-a-Service.  In that AIIM is almost exclusively focused on ECM vs. Web Content Management, this seems like an interesting mile marker - moving toward the move to SaaS more generally.

The article quotes customers who have moved to a SaaS model for ECM:

 “We did it in less than two weeks with one person who wasn’t working at it full time.” Training was a breeze. “Since our sales force was familiar with the CRM application, it was a minimal effort to get it up and running and to get people using it.”

It seems to me that as SaaS vendors like Salesforce.com, and Spring CM begin to gain more traction - and eat into the traditional, installed market for ECM - we'll start see some of what we've seen in the Web Content Management Space; installed vendors claiming a SaaS offering.

As always, beware the installed software offering as a software service. That is the worst of both worlds. 

Content Management On DM Radio

DMREview is one of the better web sites out there delivering news and insight about business intelligence, performance management, analytics, integration and enterprise data warehousing.

I was made aware of their DMRadio recently when I was lucky enough to have a brief chat with Eric Kavanagh.  It's a very interesting podcast, and their recent release is a subject near and dear to my heart...

They talked about the differences between enterprise content management and web content management.  The guests included Day Software Senior Vice President Santi Pierini, Baynote CEO and Co-Founder Jack Jia; Loren Weinberg, VP of Product Management for FatWire Software; and Tony Byrne, Founder of CMS Watch.

Definitely worth a listen.

When clicking "Publish" Costs $500 Million

One of the things that, at CrownPeak, we provide to our customers is the ongoing services and support that rarely comes with an installed solution.   I'm not talking about tech support. Many of our customers have fantastic internal Information Technology to depend upon.   No, rather what I'm talking about is specific content management expertise (developing workflows, working with approval processes, translation workflow management etc..) that our customers simply don't (and arguably shouldn't) have the bandwidth to provide.

A simple example, is when an end-user accidentally puts content live that they didn't mean to - but then were never trained on how to "undo".  Or, when somebody accidentally publishes a 5 meg image to the home page - when they're using the Admin's account because they're the only one who's allowed to publish and they're out sick.  Who is available to fix those mistakes - and to help the end-users out.

Perhaps nothing illustrated this concept better than yesterday's accidental re-publishing of a six year old article at The Sun Sentinel.  about United Airlines.  Someone accidentally republished the article, which detailed the 2002 bankrupcy - and when Google's spider "found" it - it was displayed as a "new" article on Google News.  This, of course, put Wall Street into a panic, and the stock dropped by 76% - taking about $500 million of value with it.

Oops...

From Wired's Blog:

    ...the article in the Sun Sentinel's archive had no date on it. But when Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s spider grabbed it, it assigned a current date to the piece, which then resulted in the article being placed in the top results of Google News. When the employee from Income Securities Advisor ran a Google search on "2008 bankruptcies," the old United Airlines story appeared as the top link in the results, with a September 6, 2008 date on it.

The lesson learned here is of course that good workflow with checks and balances before content goes live is a good best practice to start from.  And, perhaps, an underlying lesson here is that no matter what kind of content management system you employ - make sure that you have excellent support services (as opposed to tech support) so that you can "undo" quickly any mistake that might happen.