I'm sitting in a CMS Expo session on search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the descriptive term used by marketers to describe the process of luring traffic to your site by improving your position in search engine indexes.

I'm sitting on a session that is geared toward content users working with SilverStripe. John Gregg, SilverStripe Training and Quality Manager, is heading this session. There isn't much new for me in this session, but it has been awhile since I looked at the SilverStripe author user interface. At times, I have considered SilverStripe's UI better than WordPress and thought this session would be a good chance to take a fresh look at the interface/workflow.

This session explains how simple it is to create content for your SilverStripe site. Learn how easy it is for content authors to create various page types, add structure, and upload files or images.

I'm sitting here in the first session of CMS Expo. I've chosen the track that included the TYPO3 Overview session because TYPO3 is one of the few content management systems at the conference I know little about. Yes, I've heard the name TYPO3 but that is about the CMS. Benni Mack, Release Manager for TYPO3 version 4.4, is speaking. I don't know if you can consider this blogging "live" but I'll update the past as the session goes on.

TYPO3 is a mature, enterprise-level, open-source content management system that has been actively developed for ten years. There are currently over 500,000 installations of TYPO3 worldwide. TYPO3 has over 4000 freely available extensions, has been translated into over 30 languages, and is actively being developed in a community of over 100,000 users. The TYPO3 package has been downloaded more than 1.2 million times from Sourceforge and is used by enterprise-level organizations worldwide.

Notable remarks presented in this session:

• TYPO3 is marketed as "THE enterprise CMS in Europe". Forty percent of municipalities in the Netherlands use TYPO3. This CMS is really big in Europe. I hope to ask why they are having a difficult time breaking into the United States market.
• Element-based CMS that sits on PHP and runs on mySQL (and other databases).. Effective Image Manipulation, Flexible Content Elements (Drupal and other CMS users may know this as CCK).
• TYPO3 is completely community driven with backing. TYPO3 released under GPLv2 in 2003 and TYPO3 Association in Switzerland in 2004.
• TYPO3 has a core...with an extension system. Benni has a sign on his slide with "Warning: It's real open source". However, core is definately stable and most extensions work. Extensions can also be installed by one click from typoe3.org. Something we're finally seeing more and more in other open source CMS.
• Media assets handled in some in core, but there is a host of extensions that can handle the variety of multimedia as well as manage it.
• TYPO3 is good in "complicated setups" found in the enterprise. TYPO3 is good for long life cycles found in the enterprise. 

I asked the question on there thought about the limited size of the TYPO3 community here in the United States. Both speaker and an audience member says TYPO3 has started to really push their presence in the US in the past couple years. This CMS is just waiting for its moment to be seen as the platform choice for a larger Web site.

"Help 2.0 is about letting go of old-school, preconceived notions about our role as content providers. Help 2.0 forces us to realize that by leveraging the knowledge of the crowd we can help users find the right information quickly and easily, whether we created the content ourselves or not. And perhaps most importantly, Help 2.0 is about creating support experiences in which users can help us learn what they want and need, while also allowing them to assist one another, in ways that are meaningful to them."

-Scott Abel, The Future of Technical Communication Is Socially Enabled: Understanding the Help 2.0 Revolution, Intercom.STC.org, April 2011.

Newly released Bitrix Intranet 10.0 introduces simple and powerful Task&Time management, CRM, Mobile interfaces and integration with Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

It was five years ago that I posted in programmer tradition at CMS Report, "hello world". At the time, I expected CMSReport.com to be around for only a couple years which was more than enough time for it to fulfill my purpose. At the time, I had an academic interest in information systems and found that Web-based content management systems were a nice way to put theoretical ideas into practical know-how. This site focused on content management systems in hopes of meeting the few other people out there that shared my interests in CMS.

In that first post, I actually wrote more than "hello world". The full title of the article was "Hello World, New Version". The phrase "new version" was in reference to CMSReport.com not being the first site I created to focus on the CMS.  A couple years earlier, I had tried to start up a website called WebCMS Forum. The online forum was intended to be a "place for those with a passion for web-based applications such as portals, blogs, and forums". I spent a lot of time and money on that site, but in the end few visitors joined in as members to talk about content management systems with me. If Twitter had existed back then I would have easily tweeted "WebCMS Forum RIP #failed".

Looking back at it now, I'm convinced CMS Report is a success because of my experience from failing so miserably with WebCMS Forum. Previously, I had tried to build a site for others to express their passion and obsession for their favorite content management systems. Here at CMSReport.com, I took the opposite approach and built the site for the sole purpose to talk about my passion for content management systems. It was a crazy idea to put my opinions at the center of CMS discussions as even now I do not consider myself an expert in content management systems. It was only by circumstance that I later realized people are attracted to other passionate people that ask questions and are willing to go at great lengths to find the answers. If you're looking for the facts you go to Wikipedia but if you're also looking for great discussion from people asking the same questions as you are; it is the blogs you seek.

Platform-as-a-service model shortens time to “clicks” for online marketers, digital agencies and developers

London, UK - 26th April 2011: EPiServer, the world’s fastest growing provider of platforms that drive online engagement, has launched a cloud version of the company’s innovative content management solution. Packaged and hosted on EPiServer’s Everweb service, the web-based solution combines EPiServer CMS and EPiServer Composer to allow interactive marketers and web developers to quickly create key components of their online presence and operate them in a cost effective way.

EPiServer CMS is already reputed as a flexible, dynamic system for managing online properties, and EPiServer Cloud delivers the same comprehensive functionality that is easy for developers, simple for marketers and engaging for visitors. The offering’s platform-as-a-service model allows developers to configure, customize, and integrate websites to meet marketing and communication requirements.  The cloud version enables marketers to move at the pace their global business dictates while allowing IT professionals to focus on their priorities. 

EPiServer Cloud is an ideal solution for creating websites when time-to-market is a factor or when the lifecycle of the site is uncertain.  The solution is cost effective because you only pay for the services you use. AssociaDirect, an EPiServer partner and association marketing agency, benefits from the online platform’s ease of implementation and streamlined deployment capability when building and managing websites for association tradeshows.

CHICAGO, IL — SpringCM® announced the latest release of its award-winning cloud enterprise content management platform. This latest release, featuring new dynamic case management capabilities, helps SpringCM customers deliver more consistent execution, enhance team productivity and increase management visibility of key business processes.

The new release of the SpringCM platform makes it easy and affordable to quickly and securely organize teams, tasks and content by using a simple but powerful checklist metaphor to drive such applications as new account openings, vendor on-boarding and audits. In addition, the new release helps executives and mobile workers perform their jobs more efficiently with new mobile support for iPad that not only leverages an intuitive-gesture interface, but also gives access to powerful cloud capabilities such as full-text search of corporate-content repositories.

As organizations increasingly look to address the gaps left by standard ERP and CRM applications, industry analysts note that these organizations see the need to provide more consistency, visibility and decision-making for knowledge workers. Traditional ECM and BPM approaches are described as too complex and expensive to meet the ease-of-use and responsiveness needed for knowledge workers who accomplish a variety of tasks with fewer and fewer resources while possessing unique organizational knowledge that can’t be explicitly mapped in workflows or business rules.