DAM Lowdown: New Releases from Razuna, 360Works; Useful Blog Posts, More DAM Events

By Jason Campbell (@jemorycampbell) Jun 20, 2011

The DAM Lowdown is back with: New Versions of Razuna and DocuBin, Justifying ROI in DAM, a Look at Personal Digital Asset Management, More DAM Events and Quick Hits.

Open Source DAM System Razuna Revs to 1.4.5

Self-purported to be the "most-used open source digital asset management in the world," Razuna (news, site) has released a substantial point release to its cornerstone platform.

Available as a free download or in a SaaS configuration, Razuna 1.4.5 includes the following new features:

Widgets —The Razuna version of a widget enables users to publish, share and collaborate on any folder or collection on any site. Widgets allow assets to be made available outside of the Razuna platform and widgets display assets in thumbnail or slideshow view.
Browsing Subfolders — Users can now traverse through subfolders in the general folder view, the shared folders view or in an aforementioned widget.
Single Asset View — Also known as "combined" or "unified" view, the Single Asset View displays the original asset alongside all its different converted formats and versions.
Improved Perfomance — I usually don't mention performance improvements in new releases because I believe they are a given. However, in this instance, I believe it is worth mentioning that Razuna has supposedly rewritten its entire codebase and Javascript (link) libraries. Why such a rewrite would only be a point release and not a full release makes little sense to me.

360Works Unveils DocuBin Enterprise Edition

DocuBin combines document management and digital asset management into a unified platform offering one structured location for all the files an organization needs to manage.

DocuBin Enterprise Edition is a paid upgrade to the existing DocuBin offering that provides access to multiple operating systems and platforms via WebDAV. Furthermore, along with the addition of WebDAV access, DocuBin Enterprise Edition also offers a new web client that enables repository access and preview via the browser.

DocuBin Enterprise Edition is available and starts at US$ 2700 for 10 user workgroups. It is not available for single-user licenses.

What's the Return on Investing in DAM?

This week's whitepaper comes to us from MailPrint, a direct marketing and Variable Data Printing provider that enables digital asset management for its customers via its "Marketing Communications Portal."

The whitepaper, entitled "How Much Are You Really Spending on Marketing Collateral?", is intended to provide ideas and plans to justify the investment in new marketing systems — including digital asset management.

When you are approaching your senior leadership for a high six- or seven-figure budget for a new platform, it behooves you to arm yourself with as much information as possible.

Confessions of a Personal Digital Archivist

Because I spend so much time covering digital asset management within companies in this column, I thought would share some an example of managing digital assets at the personal level.

Bill LeFurgy, writing on the Library of Congress blog, describes his processes and challenges for managing his personal digital photos. While there are some good tips included in the piece, the key challenge for LeFurgy is the same that many organizations face: Humans are involved.