Internet World

Following in the great web 2.0 tradition of having a cute name and throwing some awesome launch parties, New York based Drop.Io has started to make a splash on the scene after receiving their second round of funding in March and opening themselves up to the public. The question remains however, what exactly is the site and why should we sign up for yet another 2.0 service?

Joomla, one of the foremost names in open source web content management is upping the bar for the competition. The early release of Joomla v1.5.3 comes on the tail of one of their major competitors, Drupal, having been named in Webware’s Top 100 last week. Is Joomla responding to being left out?

Remember when you were a kid and you spent the summer at camp, lying in the sun, hiking, grilling and just plain having fun? Or maybe you just wished you were one of those kids.

Here’s a camp that doesn’t have the sunbathing, hiking or grilling. No, this camp is nothing like that at all. This is WordCamp. And the fun? Well, that’s completely up to you.

Not only do many websites have unreliable metrics; they’re usually measuring the wrong things.

SDL Tridion, a Dutch provider of Web Content Management software solutions is strengthening its market presence in the Asia Pacific with a new office in Tokyo and a new VP of Sales Asia Pacific and Middle East to help spearhead regional growth.

EMC Corporation has announced a new set of OEM software products that will help developers include rich content management, capture and information rights management into their software solutions. Whether they are developing products or SaaS services, the EMC OEM product portfolio has everything a developer needs to build content rich software.

There were no fireworks, no fanfare or screams of “It’s Here!, come and get it!”. Last week, Alfresco very quietly released the newest version of their enterprise content management system. We here at CMSWire thought that was strange for such a well-known popular ECM.

So we contacted the folks over there. They told us that in a few weeks, Alfresco will officially, formally launch the release of Alfresco Enterprise Edition 2.2. Then they allowed us to grace the presence of their Chief Marketing Officer, Ian Howells, who taught us a few things about the impetus behind the release.

Google Analytics is one of the most popular web analytics tools in use today; partly because it’s free, partly because it’s fairly straightforward to use. Now Google ratcheting up the analytics game with their latest feature set in the analytics tool shed: Google Analytics for Bloggers.

Drupal, recent winner of a Webware Top 100 place is at it again. The open source Web Content Management powerhouse has created a new addition to their framework. It’s going to mean either more frequent releases or (ideally) better releases.

Remember when WordPress fans held fast to 2.0.x after the release of 2.1.x? Was it just an reluctance to change? Well, hopefully this is not the case with the newest version of the prolific publishing platform. WordPress v2.5 offers better functionality and continues the ease of use tradition — all in a more aesthetically pleasing packaging that works better for you…at least that’s the idea. Read on for the details.

It was late January when Systems Alliance released version 4 of their web content management suite SiteExecutive. At the time, we noted the lack of the social networking capabilities.

Well, they were either listening very closely to us or to their own customers because only three months later they have announced their Enhancement Pack 1 for SiteExecutive 4.1 - and it looks packed with “facebook for the enterprise” like features — well sort of.

It’s a rare organization that does not track at least a minimum set of web analytics for their customer facing websites. The problem is rarely that there’s no data. Rather it’s what to do with that information once you have it in your hands. More often than not, it’s under utilized and probably finds it’s home in that virtual pile on your desktop.

It doesn’t have to be that way. There’s an upcoming Webinar co-hosted by Bridgeline Software and the Gilbane Group that will show you how to better use your analytics data to make decisions and improve the customer experience, and in the end improve your bottom line.

Acquia, Drupal founder Dries Buytaert’s new company, took to the stage last Thursday at the Launch Pad session at the web 2.0 Expo in SF. Although they didn’t win the people’s choice for best startup (this honor went to Triggit), their soon to be released Carbon and Spokes programs are still plenty enticing.

Webware has announced its top 100 list. Some of the results were shocking…some surprise winners, some surprise non-winners and some that we all knew would make the list — can you say WordPress?

Too often we associate content management systems with boring, mundane industries. But even the exciting, impulsive side of things needs a CMS. Such is the glamorous life for Modera.

The multinational-based CMS specialists are gearing up to reveal their new line of products at this week’s Internet World 2008. Included in the unveiling is the new Web 2.0 e-commerce fan site for the popular British band, Jamiroquai, which was produced in conjunction with Modera’s partner, and the band’s digital marketing agency, Million Media.

The Web is showing us that in a great many areas of human endeavor the best intelligence lies in the network as a whole, rather than any one element.

Clearly Microsoft saw this same shortcoming (both in SharePoint and it's overall search offerings) and announced that they were going to acquire enterprise search vendor Fast Search and Transfer (more information on FAST can be found in our Enterprise Search Report 2008).

For SharePoint users, this brings up a few opportunities and issues. In a previous blog post about the SharePoint conference, I highlighted the presentation that FAST employees gave. This presentation showed nifty new Silverlight-enabled search Web Parts. These Web Parts demonstrated several capabilities that FAST brings to the SharePoint world, like: content spotlighting, multimedia search, and taxonomy management.

The last capability is one that I believe would be particularly interesting for SharePoint users, since taxonomy management represents a challenging area for most SharePoint implementations -- SharePoint taxonomies are very rigidly based on physical structure of the SharePoint sites and leave little flexibility for a more logical taxonomic structure (Redmond folks would argue that the content query Web Part might help, but it's not a solution). That said, what Microsoft hasn't really provided is good guidance on what users can expect to see and any migration path between SharePoint search and FAST. Unfortunately, that really hasn't changed: Microsoft has not release any roadmap for Fast's integration, though you could argue it's still early.

That aside, what could the FAST acquisition mean to SharePoint customers? Here are a few of my thoughts:

• The FAST acquisition was officially completed today. This is a good thing, since Microsoft can now get down to the business of integrating the company's technology with the rest of Microsoft's products. However, it's not clear what, if any, impact this acquisition will have in the very short term. Judging by the Groove acquisition, which preceded the SharePoint 2007 release by some months, an acquisition after the release will not yield any updates in the core product until SharePoint vNext (probably around 2010 or so) and beyond. However, I'd be willing to bet that some elements of the demo given at the SharePoint conference make their way to sites like Codeplex or as free downloads on Microsoft's site.
• The former CEO of FAST will assume the role of VP of Enterprise Search. His responsibility will include all search products: SharePoint search, Search Server Express and Fast ESP. So I guess the "Enterprise Search" moniker might need to be removed or rewritten on the SharePoint search page; FAST is, by far, the new "enterprise" search product at Microsoft. What's interesting here is that Microsoft has historically brought Office-related technologies under one roof; just look at what happened to SharePoint specifically -- that product was once it's own product group. As they integrate FAST, it would appear that this announcement suggests Microsoft might break out search into its own dedicated team and make SharePoint a "customer." This opens up the possibility of decoupling SharePoint from any particular search technology -- perhaps a pipe dream, but we can always hope.
• In a blog entry on the Enterprise Search blog, Microsoft stated that the FAST offering will continue its Linux and Unix support. The blog entry was quick to reinforce the message that Microsoft does not want to support or wish to invest in Linux or Unix solutions. While they would like to "delight a core part of Fast's customer base," they are openly hoping those customers will convert to Windows and .NET. This does call into question whether this Linux/Unix support will be long for the world. In the short term, however, Microsoft can boast a better product from which to launch a play to be a real contender in the enterprise search space; see our related blog entries and article on FAST here. In the long term, Microsoft will have to come to grips with the fact that enterprises will continue to leverage non-Windows technology and if Microsoft wants to benefit from that revenue, they should consider continuing Fast's support for those technologies (their recent earnings announcement, and the subdued guidance for the year, may reinforce that message).
• Microsoft won't support SharePoint on Linux . This is probably not a surprise to anyone who is even vaguely familiar with Microsoft. However, the fact that FAST (currently) is supported on Linux may introduce greater content aggregation and, certainly, search capabilities within SharePoint. Let's hope that Microsoft sees it that way.

In general, the FAST acquisition, for SharePoint, will likely have little impact short term. Over the longer term, it's clear that the Office 14 version of SharePoint will be substantially improved in the search area (depending on the SharePoint product team's willingness to implement the new technology). I would personally like to see some add-ons in the near term, since that would improve search within organizations that may have both tools.

Stay tuned for more on this topic as the integration progresses.

Drupal is a big business in its own right, but it’s also spawned a formidable industry of its own — template and theme retailers. The newest addition to the fold is TopNotchThemes, which has just launched its first all-Drupal high-end theme store. From what we’ve seen so far, it looks pretty promising.

After having discussed the basics of microblogging, we here at CMSWire decided it would be a good idea to cover some general practices that will enhance your microblogging experience, increase your results, and create more enjoyment for you.

Not only will these practices aid you in your quest for followers and friends, they will help make your microblog into a marketing tool that is usable in a variety of ways.

Blogging has been around for some time now, but there is a new aspect of blogging that is on the rise across the web. That aspect is microblogging. Much like the advent of text messaging, microblogging is taking the idea of being connected to the next level and sweeping the world over.