April 2015

Last week, when WordPress announced that Version 4.2 was available, I planned to take my time upgrading my site. Then I saw this from theme developer Photocrati in my Google Stream:

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The Google Mobile Friendly Update was launched on April 21^st 2015. The update is designed to address the fact that more and more people are browsing and searching on the web from their mobile devices. According to Google:

Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.

As we countdown the days to the launch of the new version of Hippo CMS, I find myself having conversations about the spirit and vision behind the product just as often as I discuss new, soon to be announced features.

Whether I’m speaking with marketers, technologists, product management or sales, one topic is constantly top of mind: the importance of understanding and communicating content ROI. And, equally importantly: responding to content ROI quickly, and efficiently.

Competition in the retail world is as cutthroat as ever. With so many retailers out there, the race is on to reach as many customers as possible with the best offers possible. Businesses that go into this race expecting to use traditional methods, however, will quickly find themselves falling behind the rest of the pack. We live in a much different world now where customers are more knowledgeable and empowered than ever before. Thanks to the internet, consumers can find out all they want to know about specific products before ever deciding to purchase them. This has forced retailers to raise their game when it comes to wooing current and prospective customers.

When you look at the greatest technological advances of the past several decades, it's clear that software has taken the lead. While hardware continues to improve, get smaller and do more with less, it's software that has enabled feature-rich operating systems that can exist on an interface barely larger than your hand. Hardware has maintained a more or less consistent form. It's no wonder then that many corporations are still painfully in the dark ages when it comes to the increase in the BYOD ecosystem. As the new Apple Watch and other smart watches begin to hit the scene, it's going to become increasingly difficult for network engineers to keep company networks secure.

In times of war, you may be asked what you can do for your country. In modern times, your country may be asking you to do your part by updating your WordPress plugins.

The United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), through the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), issued a public service announcement last week recommending website administrators to update their Wordpress sites. More specifically, the bureau wants you to update your third-party WordPress plugins.

Bedrock Data Will Sync and Automatically Update Data From Services Like HubSpot, Marketo, Mailchimp, Cvent, Salesforce, SugarCRM and More

Boston, MA (April 14, 2015) - Boston-based Bedrock Data™ today announced the launch of its data integration platform for businesses, along with $3.11 million in Series A funding led by .406 Ventures. This announcement marks the official launch of the company after over a year of development, testing and customer on-boarding.

Many social media sites are trying to push back against the juggernaut known as Google and its mammoth advertising operation. Perhaps it’s no secret how important advertising revenue is to most social media platforms. After all, free services have to find money to operate from somewhere. Fully taking advantage of advertising, however, has been tricky thanks to Google AdWords and its powerful influence across the web. AdWords’ reach is impressive and plays a crucial role in Google’s growth. In fact, AdWords is the mega-corporation’s primary source of revenue.

At the beginning of 21st century, the open-source CMS started to enjoy widespread popularity, which in turn helped open web content creation to a larger group. Within this group of content creators, a variety of skillsets and end goals existed, which meant different CMSs ended up targeting and occupying different niches of the market. Drupal became a solution for websites that needed a more complex structure, so they developed their core features to satisfy the needs of complex content organisation and user roles. On the other hand, Wordpress targeted users looking to create simpler websites that could be easily developed. In addition to these main forces in the CMS market, a lot of proprietary solutions spawned.

A couple years ago, Switzerland-based Magnolia set its sights on North America as a way to increase its global growth. To continue the effort, Magnolia has redesigned its annual conference to accommodate growth, support its thriving U.S. presence and increase opportunities for clients, partners and prospective users.