Molecular Voices » Bryant Shea

Bryant Shea

Posts written by Bryant Shea

April 7

Hands on With the iPad: First Impressions

Like any diehard tech toy junkie, I have been anxiously awaiting the delivery of my iPad. When it arrived on Saturday I wasn’t sure what to expect. My initial reaction was mixed when I saw Steve Jobs’ demo of the device in January and my perceived list of pros and cons had not changed much in the past few months.

As I opened the box, I expected to see a device that would show me a glimpse of the future, but was probably two or three generations away from being ready for main stream adoption. Now that I have had an opportunity to play with it for three days, I still believe it is two or three generation away from main stream options, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with version 1. Here is a list of things I like, things I don’t and of course, things I want:

Things I Like:

Display is beautiful. Pictures and video jump off the screen. The larger size greatly enhances web browsing
Performance – applications open and respond almost instantly
Great battery life – Working on the device for 8+ hours a day on a single charge
VGA adapter: This is a big deal if I want to leave my laptop at home when I present at conferences
Camera USB
Ability to lock screen directions

(more…)

posted to: Digital Marketing, Technology | 6 Comments »

August 1

Webinar: Getting Started With Your Global Web Site Initiative

by Bryant Shea

Yesterday I had the pleasure of joining Stephen Powers from Forrester and Joel Shore of Ziff Davis for a webinar on globalization title “Getting Started With Your Global Site Initiative. The event was sponsored by SDL Tridion and is now available online at eSeminarslive.com.

Getting Started With Your Global Web Site Initiative

Many organizations face the challenge of going global, particularly when it comes to Web site strategies. While these organizations have made the decision to better manage their Web sites globally, they face many issues deploying multiple Web sites, in multiple languages.

Topics Discussed:

How to get started on a globalized Web site project, before even looking at specific technologies
What stumbling blocks to avoid, depending on organization and culture.
Tips on implementing technologies and gaining user adoption

posted to: Content Management | No Comments »

June 20

WCM Panels and Podcasts

by Bryant Shea

This past week I had the opportunity to participate in two Interwoven events directed at interactive marketers and the challenges they are facing online. The first event was a panel discussion, entitled “From Browsers to Buyers: How to Drive More Value From Your Online Marketing” that took place Tuesday night at Umbria Ristorante in Boston and was expertly moderated by Senior Editor-in-Chief at 1to1 Magazine, Ginger Conlon. Panelist Dave Churbuck, VP of Global Web Marketing at Lenvo and Ben Kiker, CMO at Interwoven both provided excellent insight into how companies are addressing the new online challenges facing their marketing departments. The discussion was very interactive and the format provided a good forum for open discussion and sharing of ideas. I was particular impressed with David’s thoughts around “The Year of the Landing Page” and enjoyed the other insights the former founder of Forbes.com and author of churbuck.com talked about during the evening.

Earlier that day I got a chance to participate with Eben Miller, Director of Product Marketing, as a guest on Interwoven’s “Intersections” podcast to discuss the topic “User Generated Content (UGC) and Its Effect On Your Brand”. The podcast was hosted by Scott Whitney and runs about 25 minutes. You can listen to the show at www.interwovenpodcasts.com.

posted to: Content Management | No Comments »

May 21

Marketing + WCM=Competitive Advantage….Just ask Alterian or MediaSurface

by Bryant Shea

Web Content Management is more than just a technology; utilized correctly, it can become the hub for all your digital content, an enabler to engage your customers in ways never before possible, if you are a marketer your WCM system could (and should) be the most valuable weapon in your arsenal for differentiation.

This has long been a belief of Molecular, but the recent acquisition of MediaSurface by Alterian is a good example of how WCM is being seen as a necessary component to any successful marketing offering

Here’s the first line of the Alterian press release, “Integrated marketing platform provider combines online and offline analytics with content and multi-channel execution to help marketers optimise customer experiences across the web”

A lot of marketing speak for sure, but I think Jason McNamara (Alterian CMO) is correct when he says “Analytics is the new measure of how well marketers understand their customers, but people react to content. And reaction and interaction with content creates new analytics. Unlike offline, these interactions are often inbound and real-time in nature, thus impossible to manage with manual processes….”

This is just one example of how technology companies are trying to combine, analytics, content management and campaign management to create offerings that speak better to marketing departments. Something they all feel they most do as they see the money (and decision making power) moving from IT to to the business.

Other recent examples include Interwoven’s acquisition of Optimost (A/B testing) and Vignette’s acquisition of Vidavee (video and analytics).

Will all this activity enable these companies to make the jump from selling technology to IT to selling solutions to marketing? In the future, maybe, but right now it’s just a good story with little “real” integration and few success stories. And as is always the case with technology, it’s usually not the product itself that makes you successful, it’s HOW your organization uses that technology that gives you the competitive advantage. If you don’t understand what you need the technology to do, just buying an integrated platform isn’t going to make you a success.

posted to: Content Management, Industry Trends | 1 Comment »

May 15

WCMS, Recession, What Recession?

by Bryant Shea

No matter how you get your news these days you can’t help being bombarded by the talk of a recession. With all the talk I thought I’d take a quick look at some of the WCM vendors and see how they were doing.

This is not an in depth financial analysis, but I think it is safe to say the WCM market is still strong and shows few signs of slowing down. The vast majoriy of vendors has posted records numbers, with (Vignette and MediaSurface being key exceptions, and seem to have positive outlooks for 2008.

Here’s is a summary of the most recent releases.

Interwoven
Interwoven reported total revenues of $61.5 million for the first quarter of 2008, an increase of 17% from total revenues of $52.7 million for the first quarter of 2007.

“Our first quarter performance provided an excellent start to 2008″, said Joe Cowan, CEO of Interwoven. “We posted a revenue increase of 17% over last year, while increasing earnings and cash flows. These results are a direct result of a strategy that is tuned to the needs of our customers.” Full Story (Interwoven)

OpenText
Total revenue for the third quarter was US$178.8 million, up 15% compared to US$156.1 million for the same period in the prior fiscal year. License revenue in the third quarter was US$51.5 million, up 20% compared to US$43.0 million in the third quarter of the prior fiscal year. Full Story (CIO)

Tridion
“SDL Tridion’s revenues hit a record USD 42M in 2007 driven by strong expansion in the US and UK markets as well as market share growth across Europe. With year-on-year revenuegrowth of 58% and license revenuegrowth of 67%, ….. Net profit also reached record levels in 2007 and net margin was a class leading 16% of revenues in spite of heavy investments in global expansion and incidental costs related to the acquisition by SDL” Full Story (Tridion)

Fatwire
Web Content Management Provider Achieves 21 Percent Increase in Year-Over-Year RevenueGrowth

FatWire Software…., announced that the company delivered its strongest year ever with record-breaking fourth quarter fiscal year 2007 results. FatWire achieved an exceptional 35 percent growth in total revenuefor the quarter which ended on December 31st, 2007, driven by a strong demand worldwide for its products and services.” Full Story (Fatwire)

Day Software
The Company reported a record first quarter, achieving a 15% growth in total revenue over the same period in 2007. Revenues for the first quarter totaled CHF 7.4 million, compared with revenues of CHF 6.4 million for the first quarter of 2007. License revenues increased by 39% over last year, totaling CHF 4.3 million, compared with license revenues of CHF 3.1 million for the same period last year.” Full Story (Day)

Clickability
Clickability, …… today announced the closing of $8 million in its second round of venture funding. Shasta Ventures led the round, with additional investment from Convergence Partners, which financed Clickability’s initial venture capital round. Full Story (Clickability)

Vignette Corporation
Vignette Corporation (NASDAQ: VIGN) today announced that total revenue for the first quarter 2008 was $44.8 million, a decrease of 6.0% from the first quarter of 2007.

“Our business remains volatile on a quarter by quarter basis,” said Mike Aviles, president and CEO of Vignette. “We need stronger focus and more consistent results from our sales and marketing efforts. License revenue in North America was particularly challenging for us in the first quarter; however, services were strong, and we continue to make good progress around our technology. Customer satisfaction and renewal rates are up. We announced several new products during the quarter and added integrated video content management capabilities with the acquisition of Vidavee.” Full Story (Vignette)

MediaSurface
“In recent years Mediasurface has grown — a bit haphazardly we thought — via acquisition, but evidently failed to control costs, and a surprise announcement (pdf) of losses late last year sent the stock tumbling from around 25p to languish at about 5p per share, at least until this latest courtship. You can track the stock price here.” Full Story (CMSWatch)

posted to: Content Management, Industry Trends, Technology | No Comments »