CMS Watch

FatWire Named Leader by Forrester Wave Report

June 9, 2009 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

FatWire Software today announced that it has been named as a Leader in the Forrester Wave: Web Content Management for External Sites, Q2 2009. FatWire was cited as a vendor providing “business-user-oriented tools that enable not only the management of content, but targeted delivery, analysis, and optimization of content consumption as well.”

According to the report, “FatWire has a strong vision for supporting the next phase of the consumer-centric Web.” The report continues, “FatWire has enhanced its position with community and collaboration functionality. FatWire has augmented its persuasive support — including existing personalization and analytics capabilities — with the release of modules for community and collaboration, content integration, and delivery to mobile devices.”

The report notes that FatWire is a leader “with a rich array of WCM components” and ”remains on the forefront of the persuasive content experience, offering strong functionality in the areas of content targeting, multisite management, rich media capabilities, and social computing. In addition, [FatWire] focuses on enabling business users and marketers — rather than IT staff — to manage content and administer websites via graphical user interfaces and intuitive tool sets.”

FatWire was one of 10 vendors evaluated by Forrester for the Web Content Management for External Sites Wave report. Forrester’s comprehensive Wave methodology assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each vendor’s solution using a combination of hands-on lab evaluations, vendor surveys, product demonstrations, and client interviews. In the process, each vendor product is evaluated against 115 different criteria.

Filed Under: CMS Watch

European Web CMS vendors hitting North America

May 13, 2009 By Manoj Jasra 1 Comment

A “third wave” of European-based Web Content Management (CMS) vendors is hitting North American shores, offering buyers a greater variety of longstanding solutions, particularly in the areas of .NET support and open source platforms, according to research released today by independent evaluation firm, CMS Watch.

These conclusions stem from the most recent release of The Web CMS Report 2009, in which CMS Watch interviewed web content management customers around the globe to evaluate forty-two solutions in the marketplace. The research can be purchased online from CMS Watch (http://www.cmswatch.com/).

“European and UK web content management vendors have tried to crack the North American marketplace for the past decade, with mixed success,” notes CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne. The first wave of successful entrants included Germany-based RedDot (since acquired by Open Text) and Swiss vendor Day Software. Several years ago, a second wave of vendors – notably Denmark’s Sitecore and Netherlands-based Tridion – successfully expanded into North America, partly on the strength of their multi-site management capabilities.

Now a “third wave” of European solutions is also making headway in North America. CMS Watch notes in particular:

- CMS vendors Telerik (Bulgaria) and EpiServer (Sweden) are beginning to challenge Ektron and Sitecore at the low- to mid-range of the market that emphasizes .NET architectures. “New entrants continue to fill the enormous vacuum left by lukewarm adoption of SharePoint as a Web CMS platform in the Microsoft world,” argues CMS Watch analyst, Adriaan Bloem.

- Open source platforms eZ publish (Norway), TYPO3 (Germany), and Drupal (Belgium) have both expanded beyond their regional roots and acquired a loyal base of implementation partners in North America. “North American customers have always had a solid selection of open source alternatives, such as Plone, DotNetNuke, and Joomla,” notes CMS Watch analyst Kas Thomas, “but recently we’ve seen a substantial expansion of supported offerings, particularly in the PHP camp.”

Filed Under: CMS, CMS Watch

CMS Watch Finds Lukewarm Standards Adoption by Web Analytics Vendors

April 23, 2009 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

The first-ever study of vendor compliance with Web Analytics Association (WAA) standards finds analytics vendors slowly moving towards standardized definitions of key metrics and reporting concepts, but not all vendors fully align with each standard, according to research released today by independent evaluation firm, CMS Watch.

These findings come from the latest version of the CMS Watch Web Analytics Report 2009, which evaluates twenty web analytics platforms against twelve potential use-cases. CMS Watch today made available its WAA Compatibility matrices available as a free download at http://www.cmswatch.com/Analytics/.

WAA standards define twenty-six key metrics and reporting concepts so that customers, vendors, and other analytics professionals can speak a common language. For example, WAA defines a Single-Page Visit as “Visits that consist of one page regardless of the number of times the page was viewed.”

CMS Watch asked all twenty vendors whom it evaluates to provide a point-by-point explanation of how their solution aligns with WAA standards. Only ten vendors responded: Amethon, Bango Analytics, Coremetrics, Google, Intellitracker, Lyris, Mobilytics, Nedstat, Unica, and WebTrends. “We were disappointed that not all vendors responded,” said CMS Watch contributing analyst Phil Kemelor, citing industry giant Omniture as a notable absentee.

In some cases, vendors do not comply when a particular standard defines functionality that simply does not exist in that tool. “For example,” notes Kemelor, “Repeat Visitors is not a metric you can get in Google Analytics, Lyris ClickTracks, or Nedstat.”

In other cases, according to Kemelor, “Vendors who indicate compliance with a particular WAA standard may choose wording that’s not entirely clear or complete.” For example, most vendors remain vague about what constitutes a “Page.”

“WAA standards are important for customers,” argues CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne, “because they give us a common way of talking about metrics and reports at a time when confusion about what a tool can or can’t do creates real barriers to enterprises obtaining the analysis they need.”

“CMS Watch consistently finds that vendor adherence to industry standards is always a relative thing,” adds Byrne, “so customers need to carefully investigate themselves.” He concludes, “We hope that by making this matrix freely available we can educate the marketplace and encourage further alignment with the WAA.”

Filed Under: CMS Watch, Web Analytics

Fundamentals of Web Analytics Technology – Online Certificate

March 30, 2009 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

Last week CMS Watch announced they have launched a new web analytics training course called: “Fundamentals of Web Analytics Technology.” The 4 module course is taught by CMS Watch founder, Tony Byrne and costs $395. Check out the learning objectives of the Web Analytics Course below:

Module 1: Web Analytics Business Case & Scenarios

Define Web Analytics and distinguish among the core concepts of Web Data, Web Metrics, Web Analytics, and Web Measurement
List seven potential business benefits of Web Analytics
Account for seven potential cost items in any Web Analytics solution
Identify eight potential internal roles that your team might require for an effective solution
Articulate twelve use cases for Web Analytics, grouped according to functional requirements, website orientation, and internal resource availability

Module2: Core Architectures & Technical Services

Distinguish between two core architectural approaches
Identify the three main types of data collection, as well as the pros and cons of each
Articulate the value of data verification and sampling
Identify the tradeoffs among different approaches to tracking individual visitors, including key issues with cookie‐based tracking
Describe the two common methods for tracking mobile users and their shortcomings
Distinguish between two competing approaches to tracking video usage, including pros and cons of each
Identify workarounds for dealing with “Web 2.0” challenges like RSS and user‐generated content

Module 3: Web Analytics Business Services

List “standard reports” and cite examples
Articulate the differences among different types of “dashboards”
Describe the value of more “advanced” reporting services, like segmentation, data mining, and campaign analysis
Understand the differences among various types of auxiliary services in general, and data integration in particular
Cite key considerations when assessing the usability of a system and its reports
Describe your organization’s needs in respect to user management and report distribution services

Module 4: Selecting & Implementing Web Analytics

Articulate a standard process for documenting Web Analytics requirements
Identify five key categories of metrics requirements
Categorize two‐dozen Web Analytics vendors according to four marketplace categories
Develop a technology selection roadmap, based on organizational objectives, functional requirements, and scenario fits
Match a Web Analytics development project to a standard technology project methodology
Contrast three approaches for securing external help
Articulate at least four implementation best practices

Filed Under: CMS Watch, Web Analytics

Would You Like Free Site Search with that CMS?

March 25, 2009 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

In a shift away from recommending 3rd-party website search solutions, Web Content Management (CMS) vendors are increasingly offering site search services, with nearly 40% of major Web CMS vendors now embedding the open source Lucene engine, according to research released today by independent analyst and evaluation firm, CMS Watch.

These conclusions stem from the most recent release of The Web CMS Report 2009, in which CMS Watch interviewed web content management customers around the globe to evaluate forty-two solutions in the marketplace. The report can be purchased online from CMS Watch (http://www.cmswatch.com/).

“When we first covered Web CMS tools a decade ago, vendors typically embedded site search engines, often ones they built themselves,” notes CMS Watch Founder Tony Byrne. Then the pendulum swung the other way, as vendors who recognized the limits of their simple search tools encouraged customers to purchase “best of breed” alternatives, such as Google Search Appliance.

“Web CMS vendors are now integrating site search again,” notes CMS Watch analyst Kas Thomas, “and the driver is really Lucene.” Lucene is an open source Apache project. Of the forty-two Web CMS vendors evaluated by CMS Watch, nearly 40% (sixteen) have OEMed Lucene, and several others are considering it for future versions.

Successfully embedding a search engine like Lucene into a Web CMS package can bring several potential benefits:

By understanding the structure of the Web CMS repository, the search engine can access more relevant data, and deliver richer results, more easily than a 3rd-party solution
Direct access to metadata can support faceted search (a typically expensive feature sometimes called “guided navigation”), where users can drill down through results
If the Web CMS vendor integrates various optional Lucene modules, the search engine can support the kind of advanced features that Google has trained users to expect, such as stemming, spell-checking, and file filters

To be sure, customers may face potential downsides. “There are different flavors of Lucene, some more productized than others,” cautions CMS Watch analyst Adriaan Bloem. “Integrating advanced features, like file filters for Office documents, takes work, and not all Web CMS vendors embedding Lucene have taken the necessary steps to put their solution on par with Google’s appliance.”

Therefore, customers need to test the maturity and integration of any Lucene OEM. “Make sure your Web CMS vendor didn’t just slap in Lucene — or any other search tool — just because it’s free,” concludes Byrne.

Filed Under: CMS, CMS Watch

Mobile Analytics Vendors Rising Despite Technical Hurdles

March 18, 2009 By Manoj Jasra Leave a Comment

Growing enterprise demand to measure mobile-based web traffic and video usage has spawned a promising new set of tools and methods which nonetheless remain fairly immature, according to new research by independent analyst firm, CMS Watch.

Traditional web analytics firms can typically analyze video starts, but cannot perform more advanced tracking — such as capturing pauses, stops, rewinds, and duration of view — without a significant amount of invasive coding within the videos themselves. New vendors, including Visible Measures and GlanceGuide, have developed systems to capture these events at the video player.

New analytics vendors focused on mobile metrics include AdMob, Amethon, Bango, and Mobilytics. However, established vendors such as Omniture, Coremetrics, and WebTrends all jumped into the mobile fray in the past year.

These suppliers can provide useful reports such as percentage of mobile visitors by screen size, handset manufacturer, and browser type.

However, like video, mobile metrics remains a very young and inexact practice. The biggest challenges revolve around data collection, since JavaScript and cookies (used heavily to measure web traffic today) are not accepted by a high percentage of existing phones.

Mobile device header data can provide useful information, but will vary according to manufacturer, device, carrier, personal preferences, and national regulations. “In particular, ‘unique’ visitor behavior remains an uncertain exercise,” notes Kemelor.

The Web Analytics Report 2009 is available for purchase online from CMS Watch (http://www.cmswatch.com/Analytics/). Next week, CMS Watch will debut a four-hour online certificate course in Web Analytics Technology, including a section on mobile and video tracking.

Filed Under: CMS Watch, Mobile Analytics, Web Analytics

Enterprise Search Marketplace Stabilizing

February 26, 2009 By Manoj Jasra 1 Comment

Enterprise search vendors have spent much of the past year digesting acquisitions and stabilizing their offerings, according to new research from CMS Watch, an independent analyst firm that evaluates content technologies. While in the past, search and information access technology buyers faced vendors and technology both undergoing rapid change, the choices are now more stable.

“Stability in the search technology market hasn’t brought about serious consolidation, but we’ve finally arrived at a point where there’s plenty of easy-to-install and relatively well-performing solutions,” points out Adriaan Bloem, Analyst for The Search & Information Access Report 2009. “In our 2009 Cross-Check(tm) chart, many vendors moved into the ‘Balance’ sector or migrated to the quieter, bottom-left of the chart. But enterprises in need of search technology still have a wealth of choices — in some cases, several from the same vendor.”

Some signs of the stabilizing search market include:

Microsoft spent much of the past year honing and recently debuting a new strategy for its multiple search offerings, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Search and FAST ESP, while the products themselves changed little
Many vendors’ “new features” added in the last year are well-tested and licensed content type filters, connectors, or natural language processing components from 3rd parties
Few search vendors debuted major releases in the last 6 months, instead choosing to focus on refining existing offerings and improving marketing

The Search & Information Access Report 2009 provides a comprehensive overview of 23 search technology products and identifies current best practices. The Report is available for purchase online from CMS Watch.

Filed Under: CMS Watch