Sitecore's Senior VP of Product Marketing, Darren Guarnaccia provided an updated Roadmap for Sitecore's stable of product offerings during the Sitecore Symposium 2012 North America in Las Vegas. There's quite a few interesting improvements and additions that will be of interest to both business and technical users.
Here's the highlights of the Roadmap Darren discussed.
Near Term Additions for Q4 2012
Version 6.6 of Sitecore CMS will be released
Good news for Mobile developers as this will include Sitecore's Mobile SDK and a very sophisticated system for simulation of content on many mobile device classes
Updates to Sitecore's DMS system, adding Engagement Intelligence features that will be of great use to business and marketing users
A refresh to the Foundry product based on Sitecore CMS v6.6 and an update to their Social Connected tool
First Quarter 2013
A big, much-anticipated update to Sitecore CMS with the release of Sitecore 7, which includes large scale item storage support
For business users there's some new and very powerful additions to DMS with the Visual Path Analysis tool which allows marketing folks to dig deeply into how users are reaching (or not) various content
Email Campaign Manager 2.0 will also be released
Second Quarter 2013
A lot of technical and infrastructure goodies come in Q2 2013, including:
Sitecore's DMS will integrate with Sitecore eCommerce, and DMS will become available on Microsoft's Azure Cloud Platform
The Sitecore Adaptive Print Studio will gain ability to interact directly with files produced by Adobe InDesign
Second Half of 2013
Some significant updates to the core CMS functionality with updates to Sitecore CMS workflow, new features for content reuse, and finally the beginnings of some usability improvements to the administrative interface which will accelerate in the future
Launch of Big Data for Sitecore's DMS. With all the tracking and analytic requirements of Sitecore's Customer Engagement features, the ability to manage the data requirements of the system has been a concern from Day 1. With this update the DMS system should be able to handle many terabytes of analytic data with the option of storing that data in a variety of locations both locally and in the cloud
… and Beyond
Significant enhancements to the existing Sitecore Personalization features, including the ability to personalize down to the field level within the CMS
About the Author
Ryan Bennett is a certified Sitecore developer and Principal Solutions Architect at San Francisco-based consulting firm Cylogy, Inc.
Movable Type celebrated its 11th birthday on October 8. But with the milestone came a challenge: how to regain its standing in North America, a position that has declined since 2010, when the Web CMS and web publishing software provider moved to Japan following acquisition by Six Apart.
While Movable Type continued to provide the backend for some substantial websites, questions on the future of the platform persisted in North America. The community that remained found themselves overwhelmed with demands for support and understaffed to keep up with the demand.
While the community struggled in North America, development work continued in Japan, but due to language barriers, the advancements literally and figuratively did not translate overseas. Following the release of Movable Type 5.2 in September, the release of 42 new plugins to the North American market at a community meeting on October 18, a promise to follow up with more solutions from the Japanese community and some other interesting developments, Movable Type looks to be taking the first steps towards what will be a challenging comeback.
The Plugins
The plugins range from complex to simple solutions, all of which work towards a goal of making the platform more user friendly. They include solutions built by 601am and After6 Services, two U.S. based companies, as well as 37 from the Japanese MT developer community.
Both Aaron Bailey, 601AM principal and Dave Aiello, CEO of After6 Services were on hand to demonstrate their plugins. Aaron Bailey presented first, introducing the Navigation plugin, which allows the technically challenged to edit navigation within a WYSIWYG interface, removing the need to enter such changes directly into the templates. This will be a boon for sites that update their content regularly, but don't have the dedicated developers to keep up with changes.
A CloudAssets plugin enables users to push files to both Rackspace and AWS environments, creating separate urls for local and cloud assets.
The SuperAssets trio of plugins by After6 allow simple and seamless integration of YouTube, Flickr and SoundCloud assets into Movable Type posts. Instead of needing to embed in the source code, the assets fall under the rubric of the MT asset manager, allowing a clear view of all media assets in one place.
Next Steps
Following the presentation of the After6 plugins, Dave Aiello made an impassioned call to action to the North American Movable Type community. Saying that it was time to change the way the community worked, he challenged the four North American development firms present to form a consortium of sorts, a Movable Type partner community to share resources and common knowledge to speed the creation of solutions and to avoid recreating work.
If this plan goes through, it could spell a boon to the development community and to Movable Type end users, in speeding solutions to the public and in solving problems with the combined knowledge and experience of the group.
Takeshi Osanai, product manager of Movable Type, had earlier in the day shared the following goals:
English translations of all available Japanese plugins
English translation of Japanese documents relating to MT
A renovated plugin directory
Share knowledge on github wiki with English speaking MT community.
Robert Minton, vice president of sales and marketing in North America, is tasked with seeing these goals come to fruition. Hired this past June, Minton knows the challenges ahead and is aware of mistakes made in the past. He is also aware of the level of competition that exists in today's market as opposed to when Movable Type was the only game in town. Minton acknowledged that design and customer service are two areas where Movable Type needs to step up its game in North America.
Will all of this add up to Movable Type regaining market share in North America? Only time will tell for sure, but if the company and the community deliver on all of the plans they have for the future, it might just have a chance.
If he didn't resemble Steve Martin, know how to pronounce "gigawatts," and speak his mind, Bill Nye might not have become America's smartest, most beloved bow-tie enthusiast.
When Bill Nye tells a story about getting hit in the head, he stops to remind you about inertia, “a property of matter.” He’ll ask you how many electric switches are in your iPhone and casually chat about SpaceShipOne.
It seems as though Nye were born to play the role for which he is best known: “the science guy,” an amusing, bow-tie wearing teacher with an entertaining experiment to go with every scientific phenomena.
But his career trajectory reads much more like a delicate string of happenstance than a born destiny. Looking a bit like Steve Martin started his career as a comic. Calling a DJ to correct his pronunciation of “gigawatts” got him a regular radio appearance, and a volunteer gig writing jokes led to his first T.V. appearance.
But listen for a fair length of time to Nye talk about his string of happy accidents, and you'll realize he's wired for disruption--personal and otherwise.
Nye has a knack for embracing chance opportunities. When he met a ballet company for a Bill Nye Science Guy show about bones and muscles, it wasn't long before he had patented a new type of toe shoe that is kinder to their feet (he also holds patents for a device that guides a baseball throw, a magnifying glass made by filling a plastic bag with water and a digital abacus). His current position as the CEO of The Planetary Society is the drawn-out result of a meeting with his former professor Carl Sagan at his ten-year Cornell reunion.
A video clip of an interview Nye gave in February went viral this month, attracting more than 4.6 million views (at the time of this post) and national media attention. In it, he argues that teaching creationism is a disservice to children. Did he plan to become a spokesperson for the issue? Not really. But like the rest of his career, he’s rolling with it.
His reaction: “Bring it on, as we say."
Nye stopped by the Fast Company offices this week while promoting education startup Sophia. He talked politics, big breaks and unexpected uses for liquid nitrogen. Here’s an excerpt of our conversation.
FAST COMPANY: What did you think you be doing when you started college?
BILL NYE: I thought I’d be working on airplanes for a long time.
You did work on airplanes for a while.
I was very well-supervised, don’t worry.
How did you become The Science Guy from there?
The guy who had been my freshman roommate, Senior year, we lived behind each other in two different houses. He came hurrying to my house. You have to see this guy, he’s just like you. And it was Steve Martin at The Boarding House.
So then I got a job at Boeing on the other side of North America, and then a whole new separate set of new friends said, you’re just like Steve Martin, what’s wrong with you? Then Warner Brothers Records sponsored a Steve Martin lookalike contest. And I won, in the Seattle area.
After that, people wanted me to be Steve Martin at parties. Steve Martin was so huge. So that led to me doing stand-up comedy. And then I would meet guys at stand-up mic nights at comedy clubs, and I met the guy who was the head of the NBC affiliate in Seattle. Seattle is in King county.
The head of [the station] wanted to have his own comedy show--because it’s the 13th market and you can kind of do whatever you want. So he hired the guy who won that competition, his name was Ross, and then Ross hired me to write jokes, because I would meet him at comedy clubs. I say "hired." He would “accept” some jokes.”
At this point in our story I was working on business jet navigation systems, laser gyroscope systems during the day, and I’d take a nap and go go do stand up comedy by night. I quit my job October 3, 1986, roughly, approximately. Every year on October 3 I try to take a moment.
Was it that bad?
No, I was a young guy. It was, if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it.
The host of the comedy show was also, at that time, the host of the hottest radio show in Seattle.
Time to time, he’d have questions, and you could answer to win free tickets or what you. One of them was a question that refers to the Back to the Future movie. And in the answer, he says“jigawatts.” So I called him, and I said, "Ross, you can say jigawatts, but really, we prefer gigawatts.”
[From then on] I called him every day at 4:45 and answered a listener question. And that went on for a few months. And then in January of 1987, we needed six minutes on the comedy show [because a guest cancelled].
I did this bit, "The household uses of liquid nitrogen." Because we all have liquid nitrogen around. So this was just reminder of some tips. I know normally you use it by fitting up your close-fitting machine parts, by getting one part really cold, but you can also use it for straightening out limp celery. You can slice onions with it, when you hit them with a knife, it’s really satisfying. It sounds like breaking glass. It’s a really striking sound. Striking, ah! Hilarious pun. Now the payoff, what I spent a lot of time doing, is you cook or roast marshmallows in liquid nitrogen and then you chew them and steam comes out of your nose. It’s really good.
And yea, you can burn your tongue, but we’re artists.
I became a regular guy, doing goofball science demonstrations. Bubbles full of hydrogen that explode and jumping off a ladder into a paper bag that was nothing but an air bag made of paper, and you don’t get killed. It was good.
These were all things you had accumulated throughout an education in science?
Yes, but also, there was a guy, Don Herbert, Mr. Wizard. I was a little too young for the first Mr. Wizard. But then he did Mr. Wizard’s World. And I just studied it. I really studied it. I met him years later. He said, "Now I can pass the torch."
The guy changed the world. He sent this country to the moon.
When did you have time to invent a new type of ballet shoe?
That was not my fault. One of the shows we did was "Bones and Muscles."
We went to the Pacific Northwest Ballet. The Seattle ballet. These women, they’re 22 years old, and they have three or four surgeries already. They're covering up their scars with makeup. I just got to thinking about it. The toe shoe has not changed in centuries. So I just got to thinking about it.
In my mind you’re a character that pops up in my fourth-grade classroom to teach me about volcanoes.
That was a good show.
It was. But what I'm saying is, in my fourth-grade mind, you’re the least political figure I can think of. How did science become politics?
Last February, I was being interviewed about science education, and somebody asked me about creationism. Then it languished on the Internet for months. Then I guess, due to the nature of exponential growth--two becomes four becomes eight becomes 16—It just took off here the last three weeks. There’s been 5 million views. I pointed out that the earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old. It’s not. We know this through scientific inquiry. Our brains. Wherever they came from, we have learned the Earth is somewhat more that that: 4.5 billion years old.
Did you make a decision that this would be something you’d be outspoken about, or has it just happened that way?
It's a little bit out of context, what you see most of the time on YouTube. I was being asked about science education. And the funding of science education.
Do you have any worries that this bubbling up on the internet has an impact on your ability to be thought of as a teacher for a broad population?
It’s been all to the good. And the other thing is, you can’t go back. This is the route I’m going to take. It’s an important time. And maybe everybody thinks he or she is an important time.
I’ll stand by it, I’ll take on anybody. The earth is not 6,000 years old. I’m sorry. We have radioactivity. Maybe you’ve been to the museum of natural history and noticed some fossil dinosaur bones, and maybe that would pique your interest.
That’s the other sort of tragedy. I mean that in the real sense of the word. If you have children exposed to ancient fossils of creatures, and you try to convince them that there's some extraordinary conspiracy by a deity to dupe you--that you can’t trust anything you think, you can’t trust your own common sense--that is not in our best interest for our society.
All these experiences--from accidentally going to Cornell, to working on airplanes, to doing comedy--have all come together seemingly intentionally.
I’m glad you feel that way.
Was it intentional?
You see parachutes. Any one of those shroud lines is not enough, it just wouldn’t do it. But somehow, if you have enough of them, they’ll hold you up.
I just remember as a kid, thinking, "Really? Those are like threads, man!" But if you have enough of them, [it works.] So I say to everyone, there no big breaks, there are just breaks.
I’m finding my way, you guys, it was not a master plan. So as I said, I made a remark consistent with my beliefs in February, and it took off six months later.
Or you can say that you made a remark on the radio and that sort of took off.
When you go to engineering school you’re exposed to math and science. So when someone says "jigawatts," you say "gigawatts."
Having proved a success in the U.K., Zeebox is coming to America, partnering with Comcast and other broadcasters. The Zeebox app helps friends use their phone or tablet as a second social screen while enjoying their TV viewing, and creating a potential goldmine in the interactive link between the viewer and content providers and advertisers.
When Boxes Collide
Zeebox launched as an iOS app last year for British users and created a clever link between those watching a show, your social networks and other folks viewing. It helps people to discuss the show, follow various tweet streams related to it, find news about the cast, teams in sports events and so on.
You can also download apps, films, episodes and other content related to that show or channel, and even use Zeebox as a remote control if you have a connected TV set. You can find shows by navigating the channels, checking out what is popular at the time or creating your own "My TV" favorites.
The app now runs on all iOS and Android devices and is available as a web service if you're on the couch with a laptop. Linking to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, it makes for an engaging link between TV and the web.
TV Isn't Dead
Some stats from the U.K. side show that the old tube is still a mighty force in media. 30% of all Internet usage happens while watching TV, 59% of the population now regularly chat through email, Facebook, or Twitter while watching TV, and 57% regularly check out news or shop online while in front of the TV.
Having proved the concept in Britain, Zeebox is now launching in America, with support from Comcast, NBC/Universal and HBO. With heavy promotion coming on NBC it will be hard to miss and if the user base rises as expected, it could become a de-facto standard to rule over any dedicated-service apps that focus on just one set of channels.
With the stickiness of social interaction, the ultimate aim will be clickable adverts that match the content shown on TV and during ad breaks, allowing for interactive breaks and greater chance of a sale, or improved awareness. Why just show a product, when you can offer instant discount vouchers for a there-and-then purchase, or instant links to an app that better shows a product?
Having proved a success in the U.K., Zeebox is coming to America, partnering with Comcast and other broadcasters. The Zeebox app helps friends use their phone or tablet as a second social screen while enjoying their TV viewing, and creating a potential goldmine in the interactive link between the viewer and content providers and advertisers. 