Joomla, an open source content management systems (CMS), announced the immediate availability of the Joomla Framework. This new initiative enables developers to more easily combine features from the Joomla Framework with features from other open source frameworks as they custom-build their own app or CMS.

SDL, a provider of customer experience management, and North Plains Systems, announced a global strategic alliance aimed at helping organizations do a more effective job of driving digital customer experiences using rich media. Under the agreement, SDL will resell North Plains' technology with its Web Content Management (WCM) platform, SDL Tridion. The companies will also work together to develop joint sales and marketing initiatives.

RSuite CMS, a content management system for publishers, is now powered by MarkLogic 7, the Enterprise NoSQL database. RSuite CMS 4 provides an entirely new user experience through an intuitive user interface that minimizes actions required to execute complex searches across an entire set of content, globally apply metadata, dynamically organize content into collections, package and distribute content to licensing partners, and much more.

One of the main themes that emerged at the 2013 Gilbane Conference was the need to create content that can easily feed multiple channels, but while many content creators know they need to create more agile content, they aren't quite sure how to do it with the tools they already have. So one session asked "How should your CMS Fit Into Your Mobile Strategy?"

Regular Gilbane Conference attendees will know that the first day keynotes set the stage for the rest of the conference. If the 2013 keynotes are any indication, attendees can expect to be hearing a lot about context this year. As Meghan Walsh, senior director, e-commerce platform system management at Marriott International, put it, "Content is King but distribution is queen, and she wears the pants."

Purveyors of traditional electronic content often rely on content management systems (CMS) to maintain and update text, visuals, and other media on websites. But companies that offer consumer packaged goods (CPG) face more complex challenges when they want to deliver high quality e-content to consumers who trust that the information listed for a product in a brick-and-mortar or online store is accurate. Hence, they typically turn to product content management (PCM) systems and software.

Traditional web publishing won't cut it anymore--not in an age when digital experiences by users are so highly valued. That's one of the key findings of a report issued by Forrester Research. It's also a sentiment echoed by many industry experts who recognize the increased importance of creating and managing multichannel customer experiences and the transitioning of web content management (WCM) into digital experience (DX) management.

Today's consumers have ravenous appetites for econtent-enough to earn them the nickname "digital omnivores." While that moniker may already be familiar to many electronic publishers and content providers, they may be surprised to learn that, between 2011 to 2012, the digital omnivore population surged 160%, according to the results of Deloitte's recent "State of the Media Democracy" survey.

Content management tools may be getting more sophisticated, but that doesn't mean the job of web publishers is getting any easier. According to a recent Forrester report, The Forrester Wave: Web Content Management For Digital Customer Experience, Q2 2013, plain-old web publishing will not cut it any longer. These days, if you're in the business of web-publishing, you also have to be in the business of creating digital experiences.

What happens if the lights go out? It's a question that strikes fear into the hearts of content providers everywhere--especially those that have transitioned from preserving hard copies to digital storage. Decisions about how to protect content-in this case, digital content--should be based both on an assessment of the purpose and value of that content and the development of a policy that outlines what is stored and how it is stored.

Content managers used to have a relatively easy time of it-although, they likely didn't realize it then. Not that long ago, content was published on a website and accessed through page views. But a lot has changed over the past couple of years. Today, consumers of content have a wide range of devices to choose from when accessing that content-from desktops, to laptops, to iPads, iPhones, smartphones, and Kindles, etc. The experience has become far more complex-for content providers and, arguably, for consumers as well.

If you're like other publishers, you have a lot of content; a lot of great content. You also have a lot of channels on which you're pushing out that content and an equally diverse group of users to whom you're delivering it. But how do you make the most of that content? By ensuring you can reuse and repurpose it many times across multiple channels and platforms. Through its reuse, companies can get more mileage out of their, often expensive, content. Yes, there's also the cost factor that can't be ignored. "The main reason content is reused is it saves a huge amount of money," says global content strategist Scott Abel.

They say the best things in life are free: love, health, happiness--and maybe even software. Indeed, completely gratis open source software (OSS) with no licensing strings attached is all the rage today, as evidenced by the popularity and proliferation of OSS products currently in use, including the Apache HTTP Server, Linux, Android operating systems, internet browser Mozilla Firefox, and ecommerce platform osCommerce.

The World Wide Web has forever changed the way companies of all sizes do business. From the smallest mom-and-pop shop to the largest enterprise, the internet has not only made it easier for companies to grow, but it has added new concerns. To be sure, the web is the great equalizer. In the past, only a select few corporations operated on a global scale, but the web has made it possible for organizations in Peoria, Ill., to sell goods and services to those in Prague. While leveraging the web to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time may seem relatively straightforward, it is not.

Creating and disseminating content is getting easier every day. There are countless free and premium tools ready to help you get your information on the web. As the volume of web content continues to grow, however, users are becoming more selective about the sources they rely on-and engaging an audience isn't nearly as easy as putting out content.

Usually I talk about WCM on its own, but I wanted to further explore the topic of digital asset management (DAM) projects. And here is why: DAM remains one of the technologies that is most frequently integrated with WCM. Where there's text/data/info on the web, there are most likely images and videos associated with that information. DAM is prone to common implementation mistakes that can make your project seem like a complete and utter waste of money. But knowledge is power. Therefore, I'll outline some of the most common DAM project mistakes that that you can avoid them or, at least, expect them and be able to handle them gracefully.

In her annual presentation on the state of the internet, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers' analyst Mary Meeker teased out a single theme that will challenge content providers for another generation. The proliferation of devices in the last 5 or 6 years has created a massive new flow of data. But this time that data is coming more from the users than from traditional content providers. The amount of data being created and shared increased nine times in just 5 years to almost 2 zettabytes (or 2 trillion gigabytes) in 2011. That will increase to 5 zettabytes by 2015. The number of photos uploaded and shared each day has gone up from about 200 million in 2010 to more than 500 million (projected) per day this year.

There are many different kinds of analytics in today's world of technology and information management: web analytics, predictive analytics, social analytics, etc. If you work closely with a web CMS or an ECM system, you have probably run into the notion of content analytics. But chances are good that no one ever bothered to explain what it is exactly and how one uses it.

The world of enterprise content technologies has always been difficult to decipher on its own, let alone with all the acronyms flying around. Let's talk about two of them today: CXM (or CEM) and WCM (or WCXM, or WEM for some).Many organizations nowadays are paying heightened attention to the matters of CXM (Customer Experience Management), and not only because it is one of the buzziest acronyms in the industry. It is also because the crucial importance of retaining and acquiring customers in the impatient and fast-moving internet age is being realized more fully.

In Part 1, I started discussing some of the most common reasons why content management system (CMS) projects fail. We covered change management, buying the wrong CMS, and lack of implementation resources. Onward!