Adobe Updates Digital Publishing Suite with Analytics, iPad Mini, Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Compatibility

Adobe is releasing the latest edition of its Digital Publishing Suite. Version 24 includes expanded device support and analytical capabilities, among other upgraded and new features.

Compatibility with New Tablets, Browsers

In recognition of the increasing popularity of tablet computing, Adobe now makes Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) apps developed for iPad2 by Single Edition, Professional and Enterprise users automatically compatible with the new iPad Mini. Adobe is also preparing for the scheduled November 20 launch of the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD by allowing DPS apps to be compatible with the device as long as developers create a 1900 x 1200 folio.

Furthermore, any DPS-created content socially shared by a reader can be viewed on Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 web browsers. And readers of DPS-created content using iOS devices can download a folio and perform other tablet-based activities outside the app while the folio downloads, as long as the app is updated to R24.

Analyze This 

App usage analytics for Site Catalyst users provide data such as number of times an app is opened, how long readers use it, number of days it is read and times of peak usage. Site Catalyst users can also analyze URL data such as how many readers click on hyperlink overlays associated with a URL and web content overlays, as well as how URLs are opened (i.e., via browser, app, etc.).

New analytical capabilities also provide insight into reader data such as type, model, OS, manufacturer and screen size of reading device, as well as the type and carrier of the device connection used.

Let It Flow 

Workflow enhancements allow designers to simultaneously update multiple articles, resume publishing after an error from the point of failure rather than the beginning and select folio orientation in advance. In addition, error messages include links to relevant Knowledge Base articles. 

Adobe ‘Leans Heavily’ on Digital Publishing 

The Next Web feels Adobe is “leaning heavily on its digital publishing efforts” with this latest update of Digital Publishing Suite, as well as other recent DPS activity such as the Single Edition which does not require coding, released earlier this year. The Next Web also endorses Adobe’s embrace of iPad mini apps with version 24 of DPS, citing observers who predict “the iPad mini will become the most popular model, leaving the larger version for more specialized use cases.”

Fending Off App Press

While an IT provider as established as Adobe doesn’t have to seriously worry about being pushed out of the way, Adobe may have the challenge posed by App Press in the back of its mind as it unveils the latest, greatest iteration of DPS. In June, App Press, the provider of a Web-based CMS designed to enable the creation of code-free iOS and Android apps, positioned itself as a direct competitor to Adobe DPS.

Promoting its platform as having no software to install and a user interface that resembles Photoshop, App Press is clearly targeting users who seek convenience and flexibility in developing iOS and Android apps. The vendor touts its signature platform as providing app developers with a “blank canvas” where they can upload content layers with touch-enabled functionality. “Hotspot layers” allow links within the app or to external sites with linear or non-linear navigation.

Ultimately, App Press will likely be used by more artistic designers while Adobe DPS will remain the favored tool of more corporate enterprise designers, but even an artist might like access to detailed analytics and streamlined workflow.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Interact Offers Analytics, Benchmarking To Identify Intranet Problems In Real-Time

Interact Internet has always managed to keep its intranet application up to speed with market trends. In June it added social capabilities to Intranet v5.1 in response to growing enterprise demands. In v5.2 which is being released today, it is adding intranet analytics.

Intranet Analytics

The release does not bring analytics to intranet platforms to analyze business trends, or customer behaviors, but uses analytics to…well to analyze itself.

That is to say that an enterprises uses it to analyze its intranet: assess intranet performance, compare it with other intranets of similar sizes, or intranets in the same verticals, identify problems, and suggest ways those problems might be fixed.

This, as far as we know, is the first tool on the market that actually does this using the Interact Analytics component, which also comes with an integrated benchmarking tool.

It enables enterprises to answer what business managers ask themselves everyday: Is our intranet being used, is it effective?

Given the amount of investment that is being put into intranets, and the fact that they are increasingly being used for enterprise collaboration on content of all kinds, this really is a fundamental question.

Without the ability to compare the performance of other intranets,  it is also a question that is being asked in a vacuum.

Interact benchmarking

Interact v5.2

In practical terms, it aims to identify and eliminate out-of-data content, poorly authored content, badly developed user profiles and encourages secure content collaboration across the intranet.

Every intranet in the world faces numerous operational challenges and for many intranet managers, it can be a mystery as to why these problems occur. So we developed Interact Analytics with powerful tools that take the guess work out of why an intranet could be failing and provide statistical, hard evidence that can be quickly acted on, to guarantee a healthy intranet,” VP of Product, Simon Dance said.

The benchmarking works in real-time so that intranet managers can follow developments across the intranet as they happen, and target areas of weakness as soon as they are identified.

Interact problem warnings
 

On top of this, it also suggests ways of fixing the problems as they occur, and identifies areas that are likely to become problems in the future. Other functions include:

• Reporting: Daily intranet activity reports that outline data, device and problem flagging that is sent directly to the intranet manager’s inbox.
• Profile Analytics: Analysis of profile pages to ensure that they are up to date and that other users can find suitable co-workers to resolve issues, or collaborate with.
• Search Analytics: Shows what users are trying to find, what they found, and what they didn’t find.
• Document Score: All documents on the intranet are scored based on enterprise criteria. The Document Quality Score ensures that content present on the intranet is the best available in the enterprise, and that it is useful for other workers.
• Data over Time: Data analysis over time enabling enterprises to identify content trends.
• Influence Score: Shows who is really using the intranet and who is paying attention to what is being said by others in relation to specific content. It encourages users to contribute to intranet content by content scoring.

The new version of Interact Intranet is available Wednesday.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Bing Ads Report Updates Ease Online Advertising Processes

Bing has updated the reporting capabilities for Bing Ads hoping to make both the reporting tool and the overall Bing Ads system easier to use and therefore, make users more productive.

Bing Ads, which was originally called Microsoft's adCentre, is a system within the Yahoo! Bing network that helps advertisers and marketers with their digital marketing campaigns. During the name change improvements to the system included a new web interface and improved ad rotation controls.  

Better Ad Reports

The updated Bing Ads reporting feature was initially launched in late October as a test. It allowed users to choose whether or not they wanted to test the new version. At that time, Bing said they wanted to not only get feedback on the new product, but increase how quickly users could move from one campaign to another.  

Now that the feature is a permanent part of the Bing Ads, some of the updates include:

• Reports are organized through a streamline navigation, which enables users to work on and run multiple reports at one time.
• Users can not only search for reports from a few days or a week ago, but also for reports that are up to 366 days old.
• Bing has updated how the date range works, so when a user switches from one project to another the date range will appear the same from the first report to the second.
• With the Reports View tool, certain reporting reporting features such as the time and date perimeters don’t have to be manually set, as they will automatically be included in a campaign project.

A Year of Bing Updates

As was mentioned, earlier this year Microsoft changed the name of Microsoft's adCenter to Bing Ads, but that's not the only update to the Bing system.

A few months ago, Bing announced that they’d be improving their search engine by adding paid search ads, which are similar to the ads that Google runs on its search results pages. Around this time, Bing also become more connected to social media platforms by adding a sidebar. The sidebar allows users to connect other accounts, such as Facebook and Windows Live to Bing.

In August, Bing updated their Maps tool and added Quora to their search engine. By updating their Spa Spatial Data Services (SDS) in Bing Maps, Bing removed features that were slowing the system down, such as the legacy tools. In integrating Quora, a question and answer forum, with the Bing search engine the company made sure that search results are more relevant to what a user initially searched.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Google Extends Search To Add Google Drive, Calendar, To Gmail Search

In August we reported that Google had extended its search capabilities to include Gmail. It started testing the new functionality then. This week, after feedback from Google users about the new feature, Google has now decided to extend the search capability to Google Drive and Google Calendar.

At face value it probably doesn’t look like much. But keeping in mind the fact that information is only good to a user (or enterprise) if it can be found, this should be popular with everyone who uses anything at all by Google, including Drive, Google Calendar, Google on iPad/iPhone and Gmail.

Google Content

In terms of everyday working tools this is a pretty impressive list. Bram Moolenaar, a software engineer with Google Search promises in a post on the Inside Search Google blog that users will be able to find what they want without having to know where exactly it is stored.

Needless to say, in the blog post we are subjected to a lot of Google positive affirmation blah about this trial. But all PR guff aside, it really does look like this will be something very useful for private and business users.

Google: Drive, Calendar Search

One comment that Moonelar reproduced was from a participant in the August trial "wowing" the fact that all the search results appear on the same screen. If all the search results from Google Drive and Calendar also appear on the same screen, then that will be really something — a kind of instant guide to all your Google information on a single screen.

The result is this new expanded field trial that will instantly enable users to search across all their Google apps from Gmail.

Gmail, Google Apps Search

Similarly, users will also be able to search from Google.com with the results displaying relevant entries from Gmail as well as file documents, spreadsheets and all other kinds of data from Google Drive.

The current trial is only accessible in English and limited to @gmail.com addresses. It is not available from Google Apps accounts and can only be subscribed to from the field trial page.

Like the original trial in August, there are potential privacy issues, particularly for those in companies, for example, that are working off common computers. This is not the place to talk through that one, but in pure functionality terms alone this is at least worth a trial. If you want to find our more about the extended Google Search, check it the video. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

VMware's Socialcast Integration Engine Brings Social Media Benefits to Business Apps

Virtualization/cloud infrastructure provider VMware is introducing a new set of social integration capabilities known as the Socialcast Integration Engine. VMware says the engine will help users deliver social media benefits to apps and business systems.

Three Components, One Goal

The VMware Socialcast Integration Engine combines Version 3 of the Socialcast Reach integration tool, a new Community App Manager solution and a set of RESTful developer APIs. Here is a brief review of each component:

• Socialcast Reach — The Reach tool is designed to allow integration with business solutions that accept HTML/Javascript snippets. Information is shared in real time between Socialcast Reach and the external system. Version 3 includes improvements such as the ability to dynamically pull data from the host pages of integrated solutions and the ability to share into a specific Socialcast group.
• Community App Manager — The Community App Manager enables the development of Socialcast-based apps and enables management of app access and an internal app store.
• Socialcast REST API — A REST API is built into the Socialcast platform.

Social Media as Enterprise Business Network

The new Socialcast Integration Engine appears to be a continuation of a VMware strategy outlined in a June 2012 CMSWire article. Chuck Dietrich, VP of VMware Apps, said in a phone interview with CMSWire that, “Just as consumer social networks provide an 'underlying communication and collaboration framework' in the consumer world, where users can do things like share photos and videos or discuss how they spent their weekends, enterprise social networks provide the same type of framework for businesses.

“You can ask a question in an activity stream and make sure it gets to the people who might know the answer,” said Dietrich. “Every user has an ID and an algorithm knows what they’re working on. It’s an underlying network that connects people to people, apps to apps, and people to apps.”

More recently, Dietrich spoke with Information Week to explain how having contextual conversations about what were once binary tasks is one of the key benefits of enterprise social applications. Dietrich gave an example using the Socialcast Integration Engine to bring social capabilities into an expense management system. "A manager gets an expense report for approval," Dietrich said. “There are two choices (with the binary model): You either say cancel or submit. The interesting thing with enterprise social is that it gives you another choice: discuss."

The Socialcast Integration Engine is accessible via Socialcast FREE (for communities up to 50 users) or for a cost for larger numbers of users.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

IBM Connections 4 Gains New Social Capabilities

IBM is unveiling version 4.0 of its Connections social business platform, featuring new social capabilities as well as support for open standards.

Connections 4 Delves into Twitter/Facebook Territory

A new microblogging feature allows Connections users to attach files their personal status messages and also tag them with searchable Twitter-style hashtags. Status updates also can be reposted and “liked.” These features make Connections postings more like both Twitter and Facebook postings. 

Earlier this week, Web publishing platform WordPress started offering VIP users Twitter-like instant blogging functionality through its new Liveblog Add-on. The add-on is designed to make WordPress competitive with Twitter as a means of providing quick, real-time commentary and updates, and IBM appears to be gearing up Connections as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook for business users, as well.

Social Analytics, Communities Updated

Existing Connections social analytics capabilities have been strengthened with system-wide metrics that make more than 100 new reports available and trend-tracking functionality. Updates to Connections Communities include a new view called “Recent Updates” which provides a centralized place to see what is happening in a community, a community activity stream that provides access to approved third-party applications and a wall for status updates (another Facebook-like feature). 

In addition, this release introduces new support for open standards such as ActivityStrea.ms, OpenSocial and OAuth2.

Connections 4 also offers mobile support and starting September 20 will give users the ability to have access to and manage their mail and calendar content directly from IBM Connections. IBM supports IBM Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange environments.

Meeting Market Expectations

With its new version of Connections, IBM may overcome criticism of the platform leveled by industry observers such as Josh Dormont of the Collaboration for Good blog, who in a post earlier this year opined about what he saw as shortcomings of Connections. Although Dormont said “only organizations with heavy-handed IT departments were going to love (Connections),” he added that Connections benefits from “agile, constant improvement and a deep focus on building tools to meet business needs.” 

Dormont went on to say that considering its resources IBM should deliver a better social intranet solution out of the box and negatively commented on Connections as a “networking platform first and a collaboration platform second,” compared to Salesforce, which created its CRM collaboration platform before launching its Chatter networking platform.

The latest version of Connections includes significant upgrades to both networking and collaboration functionality, so it will be interesting to see how the blogosphere — and customers — react.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Ingeniux Unveils Version 8 of Its Web CMS, Focus is Mobile, ASP.NET

Ingeniux has released its CMS 8, with such features as a new deployment server technology, improved mobile optimization and new ASP.NET developer capabilities.

The .NET-based Dynamic Site Server (DSS) has been completely revised in the new version. Enhancements include content delivery and rendering performance, and default support for ASP.NET MVC3, the new Razor view engine and ASPX templates.

Mobile Optimization

DSS also has a new authentication and authorization system, mobile device detection that uses the 51Degrees.mobi library and support for XSLT templates. The .mobi library contains display specs for thousands of mobile devices, which enables the DSS to automatically redirect page requests to device-optimized pages.

Version 8 also provides a preview of how pages will look on specific mobile devices, using a library of device skins. Within the mobile device preview, which includes iPhone, iPad, and Android products, users can change content inline and can switch between portrait and landscape modes.

Also new is SiteSync, a replication system that increases granular control and monitoring, provides support for a variety of replication methods, enables configuration of replication rules for a particular site or publishing target, and allows replication to be scheduled as an automated task.

And a new Schema Designer, for creating and updating XML schemas, provides a drag-and-drop editor that allows schemas to be created without coding. The company said the new Designer simplifies the process of editing schemas, reviewing previous versions and syncing changes to existing content.

Web Experience Management

Ingeniux CMS is a web experience management system for sites. It offers web-based AJAX clients, in-context XML editing, integrated analytics, options for dynamic delivery and an App Store.

Founded in 1999 and based in Seattle, Ingeniux’s products provide management for websites, content and collaboration.

The company said its approach is different than other vendors, because it offers “a complete set of services that include quarterly site audits, on-call developer support, and community source website solutions like event calendars, newsletters, and slideshows.” Other services/products include SEO, analytics, site planning and development. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Webtrends Updates Analytics on Demand, Adds New Social Measurement Solutions

Webtrends has added new social measurement capabilities to its Analytics on Demand offering,as well as packaged some new social analytics solutions.

The Portland, Oregon-based company said that these new additions, which combine social strategy, implementation, analysis and optimization, will allow marketers to better achieve success with social marketing.

Social Updates to Analytics On Demand

Steve Earl, Webtrends director of product marketing for analytics, said in a statement that marketers are increasingly “focusing on social channels, particularly Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to meaningfully and profitably engage with customers.” He added that the new solutions help in the “extremely challenging” task of measuring customer engagement and understanding social marketing success.

The updates for Analytics on Demand include enhancements to the existing Webtrends’ Facebook reporting, which now include the nature, influence and success of Facebook Page posts.

There is also now a capability to measure engagement of YouTube and Twitter channels. The new YouTube tools offer measurements of customer engagement, content viewership and campaign performance, for videos that are on that site or on a brand’s website.

Twitter metrics are intended to offer a better understanding of which content generates more engagement, and which tactics are successful enough to bear repeating. The Twitter analytics measure the reach of Tweets, reTweets and followers.

New Social Measurement Bundle

Analytics on Demand is the company’s unified platform for digital measurement of social, mobile and site traffic and trends. The new FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube measurements, which are bundled as Social Measurement solutions, are available to Analytics customers at an additional fee to the base subscription.

Webtrends said that its social measurement tools answer a need articulated in an August 2012 report by Forrester Research.

In that report, entitled The State of Customer Analytics 2012, the research firm noted that many organizations lack the expertise or experience to measure social media campaigns, although such analytics were a priority. Accordingly, the report said, companies will need to look for vendors that specialize in analytics and data mining to assess customer behavior.

Webtrends said that its measurement tools for digital marketing relevance and customer engagement management are used by more than 3500 global brands, including the New York Times, Microsoft, Hitachi, the Associated Press and BMW.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com