Kapow Technologies News & Articles

When it comes to migrating your content to a new content management system, the only way to go is automated. In this article series we take a close look at several of the automated solutions on the market, starting with Kapow Tech's content migration tools.

Are you staring down the deep end of a potentially messy CMS migration? It's no enviable position, but yes, it happens. Your needs evolve, technology changes, vendors get acquired...something eventually inspires a change. And when this happens, it's time to resign.

We're kidding of course.

Old Ways Error Prone, Painful

Previous migration approaches include manual cut and paste, custom coding, utilizing generic CMS APIs and reverse engineering the content database. All these methods have inherent problems and tend to be time consuming and error prone.

New Ways More Automated, More Smiley

Extract, transform and load. ETL, as it's known, is by and large the job of machines. Kapow Technologies assert that their unique way of generating custom ETL robots is just the key to simplifying modern content migrations. We've seen demos and do admit to being impressed.

Nothing is perfect though -- this much we do know. So check the label, kick the tires and sample the sauce before writing the check. But if you've found yourself in the migration business then take the time to consider the ETL promises and the companies that offer them. Kapow Tech's A Definitive Guide to Automating Content Migration is a start.

Your needs evolve, technology changes, vendors get acquired...something eventually inspires a change of content management platforms. And when it does, you quickly find yourself staring down the business end of a content migration.

Nobody likes this. And depending on your situation, you will face any number of different challenges...and you'll need to find good ways of dealing with them.

Current migration approaches include manual cut and paste, custom coding, utilizing generic CMS APIs and reverse engineering the content database. All these methods have inherent problems and tend to be time consuming and error prone.

Has Automation Arrived?

Kapow Technologies have bent our ear, claiming that they've got the greatest thing since sliced bread for content migrations. They assert that their tools take a smarter approach, leveraging the web presentation layer of your website. With their point and click application you can create robots that crawl your website and retrieve the content -- both visible and invisible (metadata) -- and then load it directly into the content item fields of your new CMS.

They say their system works for all types of structured and unstructured content, including content such as email, calendars and blog posts.

The New Inventory, Extract, Map and Migrate Process

We admit that during our demos, the tools look impressive. But extensive testing we've not yet done. So before you drink the Kapow Tech Kool-Aid (and fork over the cash) make sure you dig into the details and run real tests. Their Definitive Guide To Automating Content Migration is a start.

Here at J Boye 2009 the Web Idol competition is about to start. In the line-up we have 23 Video, e-Spirit, Kapow Technologies, Microsoft, Sitecore and TERMINAL Four.

J Boye '09 -- Web Idol Contestants Exhibiting Pre-Contest Commencement Consternation

For those unfamiliar with the concept, Web Idol is a semi-serious but mostly humorous event loosely based on the extremely popular (with people we don’t know) American Idol TV show.

The event is a fast-paced set of competitive demos. Select vendors present short demonstrations of their products, showing-off their fanciest features -- often the stuff most recently developed. For those that prefer succinct, comparative presentations to long-winded demonstrations, this is a session for you.

The judging is done by an expert panel of judges who primarily offer pithy commentary, but it's the audience who holds voting power over the final outcome.

[UPDATE: The votes have been tallied. It was TERMINAL Four in 3rd place, 23 Video in 2nd place and Sitecore who has taken home the massively awkward 1st prize trophy. Congrats to all for an entertaining reprieve from serious thinking.]

See more J Boye 2009 coverage:

• Web Content Management: Inconvenient Truths and Industry Challenges
• Design for Behavior Change: Why Facebook and Twitter Are Winning
• Persuasion: How to Make Your Media More Persuasive
• Selecting a CMS - Pitfalls and Best Practices

Best known for content management system migration technologies, Kapow Technologies (news, site) also does web data services and feeds. In a recently announced partnership with StrikeIron, the vendor released Kapow Web Data Services v7.0, focusing on web data access for small and medium sized businesses.

Stefan Andreasen, Kapow CTO and founder, gave us a little tour around the new offering. Let's have a look.

Most websites today are data/content driven, which (happily for us) means content management systems are in demand. However, rarely do we stay with the same system forever. Business requirements and technologies evolve, life moves on and so do we.

The Dreaded Content Freeze Can be Mitigated

The trouble is, moving to a new content management system is often a hugely painful process, involving lots of manual labor. The basic truth is that machines are still no substitute for a subject matter expert, but content migration technologies have improved a bit.

One of the thorniest problems is the content freeze -- when all content production must stop. Things get especially distasteful when the freeze period goes on longer than expected. Unfreezing too quickly can mean systems get out of sync, and this is typically not an option.

A New Take on Content Migrations

But there is a better way. This new process:

• relies heavily on business rules
• is largely automated
• reduces content freeze periods, and
• delivers real time feedback as content is processed.

To learn more about how it works, check out A New Approach To Content Migration.  In this on-demand webinar, Kapow Technologies will guide you through their way of doing content migrations. They'll also discuss a recent project with Intel, where they claim they reduced migration time from 45 minutes to 5 minutes per page.

You can register now, but view the event at your leisure.

Everyone knows that web content migration projects are not a lot of fun. They are typically time consuming, tedious and costly. What's worse is that you rarely get exactly the results you want.

Traditional approaches to content migration were primarily manual. Even the QA process was manual and time consuming. In most cases one used vast resources to simply cut and paste content into the new format, dealing with transformation and formatting issues constantly.

Other approaches included database to database copying and scripting using CMS APIs to move content into the new Web Content Management System.

The demand for affordable and effective automated solutions is everywhere. And there is an answer.

Join Kapow Technologies for an on-demand webinar: A New Approach To Content Migration. 

[Note: This is an On-demand event which you can tune into at your leisure.]

Learn how automated solutions can help you:

• Automatically inventory content for migration
• Easily extract all types of assets, including text, images, video and files
• Transform and normalize your data
• Discover and remove duplicate data

Soothe business users and put less strain on developers, register now and learn about a better way to migrate your content.

This Thursday the Percussion team — proffers of the fabled Rhythmyx web content management product — will be conducting a webcast showcasing their shiniest new CM toy: the Community Marketing Solution.