Since 2010 is off and running, I thought I would post some thoughts on what the Content Management industry would have in store in terms of WCM improvements and features in 2010.

1. Social support: social marketing continues to be a hot topic and proven to be a successful medium. You will see more support and integration features from WCM vendors.
2. Integration with CRM: effective web sites should drive qualified traffic. If this is so integration with a company’s CRM is key to keeping sales cycles moving along swiftly. WCM systems will be integrating with Salesforce.com out of the box to offer this closed loop process.
3. Multilingual: the world is getting smaller and businesses the size of Fortune 500 and SMBs are expanding globally. Multi-lingual websites are a must to developing business on a global scale and your WCM solution should make this process smoother.
4. Mobile: mobile websites are becoming more prevalent. WCM’s will have to ensure support for publishing content to a mobile version and integrations with mobile marketing companies are a must to ensure marketing content is pushed out.
5. Record management: more clients are looking for WCM’s to handle retention and record management for important documents. Better records management is key to handle this expectation.

These are my thoughts, let’s see what happens!

The boom of eCommerce is certainly changing the way companies conduct business. Online eCommerce sales are growing from $335 billion in 2006 to $711 billion in 2010. According to IDC Research, more than a billion consumers will spend $1.2 trillion shopping online in 2012. And B2B eCommerce will be ten times larger, totaling $12.4 trillion worldwide in 2012.

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If you weren’t able to attend our recent webinar on CMS (Content Management Systems) and their relation with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you missed an informative session on a hot topic. Hosted by Becki Dilworth and Brian Bolton, we spent an hour drilling into the important issues. For years now, businesses have understood the importance of search engines and how SEO can drive prospects to their websites. But with websites having a shelf life of one to two years, businesses often perform redesigns. Along with redesigns come new web development vendors and new Content Management Systems.

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I got an email the other day that shocked me.  In retrospect it shouldn’t have but when I first read the subject line I was a little taken aback: “Have we lost your interest?” That in and of itself isn’t all that unnerving, but the first line of copy in the body was: “We have noticed that you have not opened any of our email offers in the past 3 months and were wondering what we can do to keep you interested in our offerings.”

I don’t say this to alarm you but I’d like to remind you of one simple fact.  No matter how good you are at hiding your tracks, when it comes to being online… You Are Being Watched.

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About two months ago I was sitting in a hotel conference room being trained on a new piece of software here at Bridgeline when an interesting philosophical question was raised. When something is not true, is it necessarily false? I suppose I should provide a little more background information for this question before getting into why this question is important.

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Google has launched real-time search on their search engine result pages. In addition to typical search results, users now running a search will be exposed to real-time results from sources such as Twitter, Facebook, identi.ca, Jaiku, and MySpace. Some users already see this implemented, while most others will notice real-time results in the coming days, including mobile users!

The Inevitable is Available

Most people are saying this was an inevitable milestone. I agree. I just have a few questions and concerns.

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