Here are my AppGap posts for February. I am also writing in
another Corante blog, FastForward (see right side bar for links), The AppGap
posts began toward the end of January 2008.  Here, I am primarily doing product commentaries with a few
other things thrown in. Below are the ones for February. There will be more in
March.

Cisco Launches Its Second I-Prize Competition

Webtrends Promotes Openness in its Product and Company Strategy

Examples of Webtrends Move to Increased Openness

YoolinkPro Provides a Useful Combination of Social Media Features
Designed for Enterprise Adoption

Cubetree Moves Forward with New Features and Funding

Central Desktop Releases its 2.0 Version

There has been a lot of debate of late on Twitter about whether or not WordPress is a CMS (ignoring the “WCM v CMS v ???” issue for now).  Peter Monks is an proponent against the concept [Edit: He isn't, see comments], as is Irina Guseva, a senior editor for CMS Wire.  Ron Miller over at Fierce Content Management says that WordPress is a CMS and Tony Byrne at CMS Watch says it is for a simple reason: Many organizations are using WordPress as a CMS. That makes it a CMS.

That is a fallacious argument.  I’ll explain why in a second, but some important facts.  This blog, Word of Pie, is hosted by WordPress.com and I love it.  If I decided to host the blog personally, I would use WordPress.  For my blogging needs, it is perfect.

So do not read into any of this as an indictment against WordPress.

Why the Argument is Flawed

Let’s look at the statement.  If people use it as an X, it is an X.  I can tell you right now, through my years of creating fun solutions while out camping, traveling, and owning a house, that is not a valid argument.

• I once used a towel to fix my car.  That doesn’t make it a car part, even though without it I wouldn’t have gotten home that day.
• I recently bought some instant oatmeal to eat in my hotel room. I didn’t have a bowl, so I made it in one of the glasses provided by the hotel.  That doesn’t mean that the glass is a bowl. Don’t ask me what I used as a spoon.
• I can’t tell you how many times a mouse (mostly the older mechanical models) didn’t work on a table until I put a piece of paper under it.  That didn’t make that piece of paper a mouse pad.

Those are a few examples that I had on the tip of my tongue.  The point is that using something to solve a problem doesn’t make it designed to solve the problem.

Quick Thoughts

Looking at all of the comments, here is one that sums up my opinion.

From Irina: WP is a publishing/blogging tool. It is not a #CMS, people…

To prove to me that WordPress is a CMS, the community needs to finish working on all of the definitions out there and get terms with which people agree.  Then classify the systems because they vary quite a bit.

The fact that there is debate just reinforces that there is a lack of clarity.

Social Media is moving
into television on an increasing basis as I have covered a bit on this blog.
This is the theme of a post by Tim Dillard on TheNextWeb: Will 2010 be the Year
of Social TV?  For example, fans of
certain TV shows from different time zones are saving the latest episodes of
their favorite shows and then arranging common viewing times with their friends
to watch the shows whilst discussing the action together on Skype,

The shows themselves are
also launching efforts, sometimes with mixed results. In the UK, high profile
post-apocalypse drama, BBC's 'Survivors', launched with stream of tweets from
'survivors'. They were supposedly trying to get messages out to a world in
which most of the population had been wiped out by a mystery virus. However,
the effort did not last. In another failed case, Fox tired integrating Twitter
during reruns of sci-fi series 'Fringe' in the US. It got criticism almost
immediately from the show's fans by swamping the screen with tweets from the
cast and crew of the show, thus obscuring much of the action. Sounds like those
tweets do blast you with multiple tweets in a row, except even worse.

It seems the most
successful efforts so far are user generated. For example, with Twitter,
real-time conversations about TV shows at the shows are broadcast live are
linked together through the use of hashtags.  This is the same with online communities. The television
shows will need to move better in this direction by listening to their viewers
and being creative. 

Here is the monthly listing of my Fast Forward blog posts. I
find it helps me with an archive and hopefully is also useful to you. There is
a separate category for these summaries in my right side column on this blog.
There will be more in March.

Details on Enterprise 2.0 in Operation in Haiti Relief

Collaboration Goes Mobile in 2010

Social Media Usage in the Inc. 500 in 2009

Creating an Internal Services Market Facilitated by Enterprise 2.0
Platforms

BBC Tells Staff to Get with Social Media

The Best Connected Individuals May Not be the Most Influential

Thanks to the contestmeister Jon Marks (aka @McBoof) over at his Jon on Tech blog. Nothing like some late night wine-fueled giggles amongst some of the sharpest & funniest content management gurus.

A great bunch of people – even the competitors. Who I whomped. Twice.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.
- MR. TAMBOURINE MAN

A change is as good as a holiday, they say. Well, after ten brilliant years at the company now known as LBi, it’s time for a change. I wasn’t looking for anything, but an opportunity came along that, had I turned it down, I’d probably regret for the rest of my life. More on this here; I plan to keep this blog going strong – time and lawyers permitting.

To all my LBi colleagues, thanks for the wonderful times, the beers and the things you’ve taught me. You’ve got an awesome gig going, and the road ahead looks rosy. In particular, thanks to the exec for their vision and guidance, the technical architects for all their wisdom, and my development teams for fucking up far less projects than the industry average.

To the Dream Team (@mislip, @laurajaybee, @dacrumb, @skinnybouffant and @shakster), congrats on a job well done and I’ll be watching a certain site with eager anticipation. And a huge huge thanks to my boss, Mark, for keeping me honest for the last few years.

To end my Paltrow-esque blubbering – to all my wonderful, well-informed clients that read this blog, thanks for letting me go near your projects, and for making most of the work a pleasure.

We’ll always have The Pride. It’s been real.

P.S. If anyone wants my old job (the best job at the best agency in London), mail careers@lbi.com for the attention of Mark Agar and the subject “I want Jon’s old job”. I’m serious.

Last week I attended the Webtrends Engage 2010 event in New Orleans. See this weekend for my reports on eating and live music in New Orleans. I covered some of the sessions on this blog. While there I had a
chance to speak with their CEO, Alex
Yoder, on an individual basis.  We
went over some of the major directions for the company.  Alex started by saying their core
principle was openness.  They are
culturally open as a company. They provide direct access to everyone, including
himself.

As part of this directive of
openness they recently provided access to their knowledge base to the general
public. This included how-to-dos for their products, bugs, fixes and other
company information that had been behind a firewall and only previously
accessible to customers. Now it is available to anyone on the Webtrends site.

They are also sharing the
lessons that they have learned inside their company. Alex said that they deal
with many of the same issues that their clients face so they can learn from
each other. This sharing also helps to build a stronger sense of community with
their clients.

On the technology side they
partner with a number of providers to round out their capabilities. These
include Radian 6 on the front end and Teradata on the back end. Alex said that
things are moving too fast for one firm to say that they can do everything. It
is often better to partner than to build.

They are also open from a
technology perspective. They provide open APIs for both data extraction and
data collection, one of the few firms to do both. On the data extraction side they
allow for integration of their data into other tools within the enterprise.
This helps Web analytics to get out of silos and into executive dashboards for
greater visibility. Their data on customer activity can also go into CRM
systems to allow for more complete customer records. Their findings can also
trigger action-based emails to employees to promote proper responses.

On the data collection side
Webtrends can incorporate data where Javascript cannot go. They can look at
anything that is digital, such as the records of in-store transactions, to
provide a complete record of customer activity.  They can also work with certain mobile devices.

Looking in the future Alex
said that Webtrends will continue to further optimize customer interactions.
There is a lot of marketing money flowing from traditional media into social
media. Webtrends wants to expand its support in this growing space. Mobile
devices is another growth area where they are working to enhance their
offerings. As marketing people need to work across a broader array of channels,
Webtrends wants to provide for better campaign management and coordination
across all of these channels.

Alex brought up gaming
consoles as another device where there is both marketing and analytic
possibilities. He recently received a Playstation3 for Christmas. It has a
large hard drive and an Internet browser. He can do email and chat and play
games remotely with others. Communities are developing around these games and
these communities will be fruitful targets for related marketing activities.

Alex said that his gaming
console has also taken away the need for cable TV as he can get what he wants
online. I have many friends who have also dropped cable and use their laptop
for TV through services such as Hulu.  When people watch TV through an online device there is much
greater opportunity to collect data and interact with viewers than the
traditional TV set. Alex said that the gaming console will likely become a channel
for direct response ads in the near future. It already has some ads and related
product information.

The same injection of
intelligence is occurring as people switch to Kindles and other online readers
such as the new Apple iPad. When you drop a print newspaper on a front door you
have no way of tracking what people do with it. With online readers there is a
whole range of data collection opportunities.

Alex closed by saying that
Webtrends is defined by its relationships. These include customer
relationships, relationships with the broader community, and the relationships
that its customers establish with their customers. Having grown up in New
Orleans I added that people here really appreciate the help that comes through
bringing events like Engage to their city. Alex said that this event is also
part of their plan to better support communities.  They have moved a number of the Engage activities out of the
hotel and into the city. 

Here is the
monthly listing of my Fast Forward blog posts. I find it helps me with an
archive and hopefully is also useful to you. There is a separate category for
these summaries in my right side column on this blog. There will be more in
February.

Forrester Research faces a deeper problem than blog policy; in the conversation economy, “prestige” isn’t what it used to be.

Here are my App Gap posts for January. In addition to the Fast Forward
blog (see side bar for links), I am writing in another Corante blog, the App
Gap, The posts began toward the end of January 2008.  In this case, I am primarily doing product commentaries with
a few other things thrown in. Below are the ones for January 2010. There will be
more in February.

Clienteq Provides Collaboration
Platform for Professional Services Firms

Alterian Upgrades SM2 to Enhance
Social Media Monitoring Performance and Capabilities with Release 4.3

Webtrends Provides Comprehensive
Customer Intelligence Data Collection, Integration, Analysis, Optimization and
Visualization

Monster.com Employs Semantic Search
to Speed and Enhance the Job-Candidate Matching Process

Alpha Five v10 Now Provides AJAX
Development Without Having to Code

Alterian Study Finds Increasing
Focus on Social Media Marketing