In September's CMS-Connected show, I once again had the privilege of being a guest reviewer for their "CMS In the Spotlight" segment. This time around I reviewed e-Spirit's FirstSpirit CMS. Never heard of it? Honestly, I hadn't either until CMS-Connected Producer Gary Eisenstein assigned me the gig. Come to find out, FirstSpirit CMS helps run a number of international sites from companies like Bosch, KLM, Speedo, Sterling Jewelers, and Nintendo of Europe. While doing my homework, I walked away from the demo impressed with the amount of effort e-Spirit had done to improve usability for authors and editors. 

Google has already rolled out its fiber-optic technology for residents in specific areas of Kansas City – on both sides of the state line. High-speed Internet and TV services have come to many of the city’s “fiberhoods” – a neighborhood which has pre-registered for Google’s network in order to get its service.

The fiber has been installed in twelve areas of Kansas City, Kansas and in two areas of Kansas City, Missouri. The installation is in progress in many more areas of the Kansas City metropolitan.

There was a time when marketing firms had to treat everyone like generic off-brand mac & cheese. Sure, they could make certain assumptions based upon average consumers, but real, personalized customer offers and promotions just weren't possible. That time, however, has passed. These days, brands are able to gather data about individual customers from before any sort of interaction even begins to take place. Through information sources such as web browsers, social media, surveys, customer reward programs, transaction data, etc., it is possible to gather massive amounts of data regarding the personal preferences of millions of potential customers.

Businesses have seen the value of data for years. Thus, businesses have collected survey, transaction and marketing data all with the hope that by analysing it they can improve their business processes and become more profitable. The problem is that some companies end up paying more than the data is actually worth, due to poor business practices or relying on a data warehouse that simply can't keep up with today’s influx of data. For business leaders who find the following five signs familiar, it may be time to switch to big data as a service, such as Qubole, to get the most out of the data they collect and the money they spend.

Telerik has announced the availability of Salesforce.com and Marketo connectors for the 70,000 users of its web content management solution, Sitefinity. The release of these connectors come at a time when software vendors and service providers are increasingly supporting the development of websites that offer features in web experience management and visitor personalization. Telerik hopes that with these two products, Sitefinity customers can provide more exacting and personalized customer experiences to their website visitors with "ease, creating more targeted product, messaging and revenue possibilities".

Integrating third party applications into Documentum has become easy with the CARA Hub.  Integrate information or UI components of external systems (including data updates) using a mixture of ExtGWT components, RESTful Web Services or simply JSP - enabling users to use CARA as the single UI to access multiple applications which form part of a business process.  Also leverage full CARA customization through the same mechanisms.

"There's no right way to do it, but there are wrong ways, trust me, I know, I've done them all. Doing it wrong can harm people and it can really hurt the community. What you all have built together is remarkable and it's worth considering how you extend it further and find ways to continue to collaborate, both as Drupal, and maybe even more importantly as a broader PHP community."

- Amy Stephen, Molajo Developer and Consultant, Comment to "Backdrop: Forking Drupal" by Laura Scott, Pingv.com, September 11, 2013