CMS Weekly

Archive for October, 2009

Amazon Gets Organized, Offers Web Services Directory
Transcript From Episode CMSW2009-09-28

The Web offers a virtual ton of solutions built on top of Amazon’s infamous cloud, so now the company is attempting to make some sense of all the chaos. Their new Solution Providers Program lends accepted applicants support from Amazon Web Services business development, marketing, and technical resource teams.

The showcase is the Web Services Directory. The list is a directory of all the companies that have developed software and services based on Amazon’s offerings and is handy dandy for individuals looking for a comprehensive catalog of their options. Familiar names like Acquia, Citrix, Facebook, RedHat, Rightscale — (there are more than 60 in total), and users can search the archive based on services and geographic locations.

It doesn’t hurt to mention that this time last year the company received a patent for “Providing a marketplace for Web services.” Could this be the first step to a third party cloud services shop?

The Web Services Directory is a listing of the more than companies who have developed software and services with the Amazon Cloud. The directory can be searched by service or geography.

This Week’s Episode

Create Public or Private Forums with Zoho Discussions
Transcript From Episode CMSW2009-09-28

Continuing on the topic of social media tools, Zoho has just announced Zoho Discussions, a new social tool in their ever-growing productivity suite. While new to the public, Zoho has been using the tool internally already, so it’s strength in managing hundreds of active discussions daily has been proven. Zoho has taken on Microsoft Office and Google Docs with its productivity platform, and has been quite prolific in application releases.

Some examples are:

Zoho Creator 3.0 – for data driven applications

Zoho Marketplace – online community and marketplace for Zoho Creator Apps

Zoho Creator Partner Program

More than 100,000 applications have been created, but it’s still to be determined if the Zoho line is going to be able to stay in the game with the heavy weights Google and Microsoft in serving the small and mid-size business market. They are certainly throwing some attractive features into the mix, particularly for smaller clients. And Zoho Discussions allows businesses to remain in control of their brand and the user experience they provide to customers through custom URLs, branding options and elements, customizable look and feel, even including full rebranding (white labeling) options.

# Rich User Experience: Zoho Discussions, features:
Topic Administration where community moderators and users can manage the topics.
Integrated advanced search, RSS, and SEO for content discoverability.
Branding control for businesses.
Rich User Experience including WYSIWYG editor, threaded conversations, drafts and previews.
Administration features promising less administrator work while supporting more users.

Check out the Zoho Discussions video on cmswire.com.

This Week’s Episode

Thinking About Using Facebook as Your Company Web Page? Think Again
Transcript From Episode CMSW2009-09-28

From Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing Blog, some opinions on using social media instead of a traditional website for your business. Attractive option, particularly for really small businesses – and it is easy to get swept up into all the excitement. There’s a place for Facebook and Twitter in your marketing toolkit, but don’t make it the only tool.

Here are some of the reasons:

1. Control – You can maintain control of your own website built from scratch or with a CMS tool. And you should maintain this control. Don’t leave your important business presence to the mercy of a company like Facebook. Their rules state that accounts are only to be used to represent individuals, and they can wipe out your presence if you violate that rule.

2. Creativity limitations – There are limits to what you can do inside existing social media tools. And there’s a risk that they could also make across the board changes that would impact your business.

3. Search limitations – a custom web site is simply better for bringing in new customers

Ideas to consider instead:

1. Create your web page on a custom domain and add a blog to your site. Link these to your Facebook or Twitter pages.

2. Create a Fan Page under Facebook, where users can post pictures, comments, discussions, etc.

Don’t ignore the social media – used correctly as part of a comprehensive marketing plan it will help you understand your customers better. Find out more about inbound marketing at InboundMarketing.com.

This Week’s Episode

CMS Weekly Episode 37

CMSW2009-10-05

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SuperDome Behind the Glass

by Andrew McCaskey
This past Monday, we were able to participate in the HP Tech Day series for the SuperDome Server.

It has been almost ten years since HP introduced the award winning product, and it has worn the years well.

Complete coverage of the event will be found at SDRNews – but here is the chat and Twitter stream from our live coverage to give you an idea of the event’s scope.

<a href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&#038;task=viewaltcast&#038;altcast_code=04c84dd374″ mce_href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;altcast_code=04c84dd374″ >HP SuperDome Tech Day</a>

Twitter Stream from HP SuperDome Tech Day

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