Latest Web Content News & Articles

Despite my darkest fears, the villagers never came after me with torches and pitchforks last week when my article proclaimed that “top X tips lists are beyond worthless”. The biggest criticism came from what was a completely unexpected source; an oversight on my part in the headline. I boldly proclaimed that “top 10 lists suck”, forgetting to insert the word “tips”.

While it seems likely that the Stop Online Piracy Act has died in the House of Representatives a week before Congress was set to vote on it, the Internet is still not breathing a sigh of relief. The fate of the Protect-IP legislation is still in the hands of the Senate. To help Congress and other Americans who may not realize what’s at stake should these acts pass, many sites are going dark on Wednesday, January 18.

Apple's Thursday event won't be a show-stopper in the usual iDevice sense, but early chatter suggests that the company may be about to revolutionize ebook creation. It could achieve this by launching a Garageband-like app to bring content-rich, Web-enabled, digital book creation tools to everyone.

Use of mobile devices to consume information (news, books and other media) is rapidly leaving the printed word for dead. Yet, old habits die hard among advertisers who stick limpet-like to print advertising. This is something that is probably annoying mobile ad agencies, as a report by a mobile marketing (ahem) firm points out.

With mobile applications moving toward a US$ 50 billion industry, by 2014, Oracle has launched its Connected Digital Lifestyle solution that enables communications service providers to create online content stores to boost conversion rates (and revenue) with an end-to-end retailing platform solution.

Oracle calls this a unified platform for service exposure, content management and delivery, and advertising to enable new revenue streams and increase customer loyalty. The group also includes an upgrade to Gatekeeper (5.0) in the suite, which helps leverage existing network assets like billing, messaging and location to support the development effort.

 With an eye toward breaking out of the application confines of the social space, a new service, Webdoc, has launched, claiming the "…most expressive way to share your passion online." The HTML5-powered set of web tools looks to target corporate marketers, with The Guardian, EMI Music,  Nikelodeon and Playboy already on board, but is available to anyone wanting to "…grab content from across the web and express themselves in a moment" using tools as easy as a tweet, but as rich as a web page.

The promise, to mix photos, audio, video, text, drawings and the rest into an instant Webdoc that supports your passion for — well, just about anything. This toolset includes apps from the company App store, and also allows sharing and embedding on Facebook, Webdoc said. 

Ever notice how your newly installed Firefox browser would always default to the Google search site? That’s because of a lucrative deal Mozilla, owner of the Firefox brand, cut with Google back in 2006, in the pre-Chrome days. Well, the world has shifted since then and with the November expiration of the Google deal, Mozilla could stand to lose up to 80% of company revenue according to Computerworld. And while the deal has reaped a windfall for Mozilla, it also gave Google time to develop what is now a rising star in the quest for King of the Browser Hill.  

With Bright Hub cutting back, Demand Media's share price diving and Google strangling the very concept, is time up for the content farm?

Sitecore announced that Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), which is taking a large minority investment in Sitecore, has been invited to join its group of shareholders.

It’s a “corner the market strategy" in on-line ads that just might work. Today Yahoo!, Microsoft and Amazon joined in an Internet troika with hopes that ad sharing among their respective customers will boost both efficiency and revenue, creating a virtual “Maginot line” of defense against the Facebook and Google advertising onslaught. 

But can a unity and customer sharing strategy stand up against the power of social networking technology, delivering online ads on a rocket ship growth trajectory that’s gone from US$ 145 million in 2007 to a projected US$ 2.01 billion by the close of 2011, eclipsing market leader Yahoo in the process?

There is a growing resistance to traditional marketing techniques. Today's customer is more logical, less emotional.

The customer is not captive anymore. The customer is active. They are in control.

Our focus on Customer Experience drove some thought-provoking discussions this week. For example, did you know that content is the fuel for your e-Commerce engine? Or that in order to provide the best content to a user, your recommendation engines should look at real-time data?

For those looking to launch a new CXM initiative, there's no place to start like a healthy audit of what you've got today. Here's how to conduct a website content audit.

Join us next week Wednesday, October 26th for our monthly Tweet Jam. The topic is the three C's of Customer Experience: Content, Community and Commerce. Checkout the questions and panelists in advance.

Most Popular

• What is Web 3.0, and Why Do You Care
• The 5 Deadly Sins of SharePoint in the Enterprise
• Despite SharePoint's Success, The Social Intranet is Still Rare
• How To: Conducting a Website Content Audit
• New Android Nexus Prime Outpowers the iPhone 4S

Editor's Picks

• User Experience: The Single Most Important Element of a Web CMS
• Oracle Acquires Endeca, Adds to Business Intelligence Portfolio
• 4 Tips to Help Define Your Social Media ROI
• Microsoft Announces Mobile Business Intelligence Strategy
• Nuxeo's View on the Evolution of the Enterprise CMS

Around the Web

• Forrester's Paul Hagen: Evaluating Customer Experience Maturity
• Are We Building Businesses? Or Are We Building Platforms? Yes.
• Social Media Engagement is the Key to Social Selling
• Attributes of a Socially Optimized Business
• Sneak Peak Inside an Employee Social Intranet

Featured Events (all events | post your event)

• Oct 26 — e-Spirit Partner Roadshow - New York
• Nov 06 — Ektron Synergy Conference in Las Vegas
• Nov 08 — Sentiment Analysis Symposium in San Francisco
• Nov 09 — IDC Webinar: How to Future Proof your Web Content Management System
• Nov 14 — DAM LA 2011 Conference

Featured Jobs (all jobs | post your job)

• Web Content Management - Manager in San Francisco at Accenture
• Entrepreneurial Web Analytics Manager/Director in Boston at Zmags
• Business Development Manager in New York at Bridgeline Digital
• Proposal Writer Ontario at Open Text
• Solution Architect France at Sitecore

We all know that optimizing content is often the key to unlocking your company’s potential. Good content can make it easy to sell widgets and improve the customer experience as well as make it easier for others to find your content. When it comes to SEO, content is the king. But when it comes to user-generated content, how does it influence SEO and what can you do to leverage it even further?

 Support is the new marketing.

 Everyone's favorite developer-tool company Adobe is looking firmly forward with its latest version of Flash, packing in high-quality communications, multimedia and 3D gaming-focused features for all devices.

"The design of the website should be focused on top tasks. No longer should organisations aim for the most comprehensive website possible. Less is better!"

Brightcove provides the Web muscle for thousands of video content sites and recently launched its own app builder. With these two boom areas under its belt, what better time to go to the stock market?

Stop talking or writing about your new app, video, Twitter feed or Facebook page. Start making your customers’ lives simpler, faster, cheaper.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (news, site) has been busy making the web a more accessible place. In focus today is a project dubbed the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) — it aims to help software vendors make better web content authoring and management tools, including WYSIWYG editors, word processors and web content management systems.