The joint is jumpin’
It’s really somethin’
The beat is pumpin’
My heart is thumpin’
Spent my money on you honey
- HAD A DREAM ABOUT YOU, BABY

It’s pretty addictive watching your blog stats, isn’t it? Remember when Google Analytics came to town and instead of waiting days to see traffic reports, you could see updates in mere hours. On a good day, you could sometimes see things in 15 minutes. Well, GA, there is a new new kid on the block, he shows you data in real time, and his name is chartbeat.

I’d never heard of it until last week when I was lucky enough to meet the cool folk at betaworks (@Borthwick and @aweissman). These guys don’t mess around – they’re behind such social media hits as TweetDeck, bit.ly and twitterfeed. You heard it here first – chartbeat is going to be big.

It’s really easy to get started – you just stick a couple of JavaScript tags onto all your pages a.l.a. Google Analytics, and you are done. The reports you get are much simpler than those from GA, but it is really real time. You can see the visitors on your site within a couple of seconds of their arrival. I wrote a test link bait post (sorry), tweeted it, and saw my 17 concurrent visitors within seconds.

Visitors to your site in real time. Notice one person is writing a comment. Click for large image.

But there is more. GA simply registers a hit when a page is loaded. chartbeat has a heartbeat and chats to the server every couple of seconds. This means that it can more accurately measure time spent on the site, user actions like scrolling (giving a nice scroll depth metric), and even keypresses. In the screenshot above, you’ll see one person is writing – they were leaving a comment at the time.

Typical detail page. Gotta love the scroll depth and engagement indicators

It also comes with a nice preintegration with backtype. This searches the social media buzz of the interwebs and reports activity as part of your report. When @izahoor, @theg, @irina_guseva, @cmsreport and @kevinc2003 were kind enough to retweet my horseshit blog post, I saw my dashboard get a bit busier and saw their link love appear shortly afterwards in the backtype console. Good stuff.

Nice integration with backtype. Click for large image.

It has an API and a bucket of prebuilt widgets. I haven’t had time to play with these, but I might add a widget here soon. The downside being, of course, it would pretty much always say “1 user currently viewing this page”. And that would be you.

It gets better. chartbeat even monitors the health of your site. While I was testing, my dickhead hosting company GoDaddy had yet another embolism, and my site flatlined for about 5 minutes. But unlike the previous million times this happened, it didn’t die silenty. I got a nice email from chartbeat informing me of the tragedy. Also, it tells you how long a page took to load for each user. 20 seconds isn’t great, GoDaddy. And yes, it has a free iPhone app too.

Because I’m a social media guru who understands transparancy and douchebaggery, I’ve shared my wonderful stats with the world. So have a look at my chartbeat dashboard.

You do have to pay a small fee for all this goodness, but it is money well spent. Buy it. Finally, a huge nod to @arctictony for helping me out.

August 18, 2010 – Vancouver, BC — Intranet Connections (www.intranetconnections.com) is pleased to announce the intranet launch for BC Place, the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.  BC Place launched their Intranet Connections Intranet 2.0 CMS Software in July with goals of improving corporate communication, increasing employee involvement, and enhancing information sharing within the organization.

After the 2010 Winter Games, BC Place was scheduled major construction to revitalize and modernize the facilities, including the largest retractable roof of its kind in the world.  When the Administration team at BC Place learned that half of all full-time staff would be moving to temporary offices at the Vancouver Convention Centre and the other half would remain at BC Place, they immediately became aware that a corporate communication tool was needed to unify the two locations.  The IT team spearheaded the project, identifying an intranet site as the best means to facilitate internal communication and provide a central repository for staff information.

In evaluating intranet solutions, BC Place knew they wanted to find a turnkey product that did not require any programming or custom development in order to get their site up and running. 

“We ultimately selected Intranet Connections as an intranet solution because it was out-of the box and it required minimal administration overhead.  Intranet Connections also came highly recommended, was proven in the market place and was developed by a Canadian company.  We really liked the fact that Intranet Connections was a local organization.”  says Winnie Mok, Information Services Manager at BC Place.

Since this was BC Place’s first intranet implementation, Intranet Connections’ suite of ready-to-use applications allowed the intranet development committee to focus efforts on the key success factors for a well received rollout.  Priorities for the launch included: educating users about the role of an intranet, developing dynamic and relevant content and establishing site usage guidelines.

The new intranet has become a central part of BC Place’s multi-location communications and information management strategy.  Construction news, press updates, updated policies and information about their upcoming road show are all posted on the intranet to keep employees at different facilities up to date and in the know.

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BOSTON, Mass. – Webiva, an open source Ruby on Rails content management system (CMS) designed to compete with the likes of Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress, today launched a new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) hosting platform. Webiva.com allows web professionals to build websites on a load-balanced, backed-up and replicated cloud without the hassle of installing and maintaining a Ruby on Rails installation.

“Webiva has been absolutely critical to the growth of our business. We reviewed dozens of platforms to adopt, and have found nothing that compares in quality to Webiva,” said Jonathan Karush, CEO of Liberty Concepts, the nation’s largest provider of campaign websites to U.S. congressional candidates. “It has powered some of the nation’s most recognizable advocacy campaigns over the past two years.”

Built from the ground up with a designer’s and a developer’s needs in mind, Webiva is a web 2.0 open-source website building system (WBS) that allows web professionals to build custom websites that look and operate the way they want them to. Based on a Ruby on Rails framework from a software perspective, Webiva does its best to build on the concepts and methodologies that Rails creates. It has an extensible module system that allows additional functionality to easily be dropped into the system. Webiva offers support for forums, e-commerce, social networking other mediums needed by web professionals building top-of-the-line websites.

“Until recently there were two CMS options: a blog engine that’s user-friendly but limited, or a full-stack CMS that’s powerful, but complex to manage,” said Webiva Partner and Developer Pascal Rettig. “Webiva offers the best of both, a Rails-based system with the accessibility of a blog engine and all the features of a big CMS on the back-end.”

With 18 years of combined web development experience, Pascal and Martha Rettig are the inventive developer-designer team behind Webiva’s creation. They have been using the system for more than four years. Every feature available on Webiva was added in response to a specific requirement that arose during its use. Key benefits to web professionals using Webiva include:

• Easy-to-Use – A user-friendly interface similar to a blog engine with all the features of a powerful open-source CMS
• Non-CMS Aesthetic Appeal – Webiva is transparent from a site’s front end, giving designers full control and easy access to site HTML and CSS with built in editors.
• Quick Click Site Creation – Build and deploy dozens of sites from a singe install- no need to FTP templates and assets.
• Well documented, Open-source Platform – Built-on and extensible with Ruby on Rails, web professionals can use core modules (including e-commerce, social networking, forums, etc.) or write their own.

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A few days ago I read Deane Barker’s excellent post Editors Live in the Holes (go ahead and read the post and then come back) and I have been thinking about it ever since. I have had the same experience several times and it is a good reminder for developers to pay special attention [...]

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The Solution Exchange Platform (beta)
Not perfect – but you can help and make it better!

Open Text introduces a new community platform called “Solution Exchange”

Over the last few months I was part of a not so secret mission. I have been in regular contact over the last 10 months with Danny Baggs who up until recently worked as a Solutions Architect for Open Text and has close ties with the core team located in Oldenburg, Germany. We talked about plugins, the innovation within the community, and how users could participate and share their ideas with each other better. Over the course of these discussions, the “Solution Exchange” project was born! Initially named “SolutionsExchange”, the platform’s primary purpose was to be an extension repository come app store, providing a single point for those in the community to find out about the different plugins and solutions that exist across the web today.
At some point we had to remove the “s” in the middle of the project name due to x-rated obvious, subtle, ..well double meaning reasons..
Starting as a base for plugins and extensions to the just CMS it was soon clear that this platform could provide a whole lot more than an extension repository.

The Solution Exchange launched into an early beta in March 2010 and was on horribly slow temporary hardware. It has since been moved to Open Text’s dedicated and managed data center in Waterloo, Canada, which not only shows the support that Open Text are giving this platform but also provides a stable foundation from which the platform can evolve.

Beta and the mix of RedDot & Vignette

The site is still currently in beta, which makes perfect sense whilst it gains momentum and issues are worked through. I also now know that Open Text has re-structured its business somewhat recently with Danny moving into a dedicated Community Manager role for the platform. This is again great news and shows Open Text’s intentions to help support us, the community, better. The site itself is made up of the core Web Site Management products (the RedDot Management and Delivery Server) but is also complimented with technology made available through Open Text’s acquisition of Vignette. The product to be called “Open Text Social Communities” fits well in this setup and provides those handy little tagging, rating, commenting features as well as full blown social applications like the classic blogs, forums, and wikis. The point here being, that these once competing technologies are working collaboratively in this environment instead of continuing to compete under the Open Text umbrella.
And why, yes! I know I sound like Mr. RedDot Marketing Masterchef myself, but it actually looks like not only has Open Text has decided to eat it’s own dog food, no no no, they also seem to have reasoned and actually listened to their customer base.
The RedDot CMS is alive and gaining traction again!

So it’s beta? But what does it do at the moment?
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 Here is the third part of my
notes from the TEDxBoston that occurred a few days ago. I have heard a lot
about TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) but have not attended before so I
was pleased to see how it worked. Here are my notes from the third group of
sessions. These
are live notes, only slightly edited, so please excuse typos, etc. After lunch
Muhan came back with two other musicians to perform another moving piece.

Next, Bill Staby covered how
to harvest ocean waves for usable energy. Their initial application is using
ocean waves to take the salt out of ocean water to produce usable drinking
water.  There is a lot of wave
energy available and globally 50% of the population lives within 100 miles of
the shore. Ocean waves are also consistent and predictable. Wind energy creates
waves but waves continue after the wind stops. Waves are stored wind energy and
available in many locations. However, the cost is still high compared to other
forms of natural renewable energy such as wind.  There are also a lot of regulations to deal with as the ocean
is not owned by anyone.  The wave
energy converters cannot be seen from the shore, unlike the issues with wind. They
are doing pilot programs in South Africa.

Sapir Ng showed how his
group is working to convert an abandoned subway tunnel in Boston into a cultural
center and many other things. Susan Rodgerson discussed how she has involved
kids in large-scale art efforts through Artists for Humanity.  Her group employs high school students
who come to their center and make art for businesses. They pay the kids and
also hope to generate over 40% of their operating budget through this work.

Scott Kirsner, discussed how
we need a cultural revolution.  He
began with the example of the art deco district in Miami Beach. I have been
there several times and appreciate this effort. Scott next talked about how
many New England college students leave the area after school or after they
become successful. He wants to connect students with startups who stay here. He
listed many successful examples of firms that stayed and grew, including the
most successful IPO of 2009.

Scott listed several groups
that support this concept of linking students with startups in the Boston area.
One group he started links students with innovative companies. It is called
Innovation Open Houses. Scott wants other companies to participate. He listed
efforts at a wiki – neinnovation.com/students – to compile a list of
participating companies. The site says, “We have a pretty simple job description here in New England: attract the
smartest young people from around the world, and create opportunities for them
to solve important problems and build big businesses here. It's just what we
do.”

Connor White-Sullivan now provided
a session on how the revolution will not be televised. Connor is a recent collage
graduate from UMass Amherst. He conveyed how watching a TED session showed him
how the Web has changed everything. So he wants to help use the Web for good. He
showed a graphic that showed the separation of political values in the US into
extremes. The political middle is very lonely place now. Connor, working with
others, built a group to support greater interaction between people and the
government and allow both sides of an issue hear each other. This site is
called localocracy.org.

Frank Reynolds discussed the
changing face of neuroscience. Frank taught himself how to walk after he was
paralyzed when he realized there were no medical answers.  The doctors told him there was no
recovery from his condition. So he studied neuroscience and spinal cord
injuries. He got himself to walking again through his own research. Now he
wants to provide this for others. 
Frank discovered there were silos of information in his area. Scar
tissue often covers over healthy tissue. With the right work, this healthy tissue
can be recovered and people can recover. 
They have been successful with monkeys and now hope to get FDA approval
to work with humans.

As I wrote at the end of my
part two notes, this TEDxBoston session provided access to a diverse set of
themes, some are not directly related to the major themes of this blog but I
wanted to share with you how a TEDx session flows.  The common theme is thinking outside the normal and creating
innovation. I felt that the message across most of the sessions was that innovation
becomes effective when it involves innovative way people are engaged with new
ideas and technology. I think this is very related to this blog.  I was pleased to attend and will be
looking at the TED site for more. 

ocProducts are proud to announce the launch of the first release candidate for ocPortal 5.0, our highly advanced web content management system. This version introduces a number of bug fixes, new features, usability improvements, and a wide-sweeping design overhaul.

There are a number of key changes and additions within this version of the software; The Admin zone has been given an overhaul including new drop down menus and a much more useful front page. Design change highlights include :

• A complete redesign of the Gallery system (we know this is going to make a lot of people very happy)

• The member profile screen has been completely redesigned

• A restructuring of the member points screen, making the points system far more intuitive.

• The quiz screen has been redesigned

• Just about every side block has been revised

• A brand new commenting interface

We have given an overhaul to commenting, RSS and ratings features. These include allowing guests to choose a display name and improving the previewing of reviews. ocPortal version 5 has been thoroughly tested with IE6 and should display properly on this browser. We do however expect to drop support for IE6 once IE9 is released.

We have put a great deal of work into the ocPortal themeing system, with the aim of making it much easier for users to make their site look just how they want it to. Users can now preview all of the templates they are working on without needing switch between several screens. Other themeing features include making it easier to edit the site logo across all zones & themes, alongside new CSS styled buttons. In addition to the aforementioned template screen preview system, you can methodically work through all the screens in the system in order to ensure your theme looks good.

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During the month of July, CMS Report continued to sell out all the banner space we made available through BuySellAds. Sponsorship helps CMSReport.com pay for the bills we receive from our host provider, internet service provider, and any software or hardware needed to support this site. Without sponsorship, niche sites like this one simply wouldn’t be able to run debt free.

CMS Report provides great content on a wide variety of CMS related topics. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, you can purchase banner space at this site either through Google’s ad services or through BuySellAds. For those times that we have sold out on our banner space, BuySellAds does offer sponsors the ability to put themselves on a waiting list to advertise on our site.

We’ve been holding the price of sponsoring CMS Report below market value so at times you might find the waiting a little long. We plan to increase our advertising rates this Fall which might not be a bad thing as the increased rates should help reduce the waiting list of potential sponsors.

CMS Report wants to thank our current sponsors for their support.

Acquia’s Drupal Gardens – Building Drupal websites just got easier with Acquia and Drupal Gardens. Launch a product, promote an event, engage a community – You can create socially smart websites and microsites that accelerate your business with Drupal Gardens.

Open Source Training – Open Source Training provides training across North America on Joomla!, Drupal, and WordPress. They have worked with Fortune 500 companies, state and local government, plus universities and colleges.

CMS themer – CMS themer is a professional theming service catered to designers, developers and web companies who do not have the time or expertise to theme a CMS based on an existing website or design.

Jahia – Jahia delivers Open Source Web Content Integration Software by combining Enterprise Web Content Management with Document Management and Portal features. Jahia offers a complete solution for developing, integrating, delivering, and managing content across Intranets, Extranets, and the Internet.

Mollom – Mollom is a free web service that helps you stops spam and profanity on your site. And best of all? It is free!

Sitecore – Sitecore provides web content management (CMS) and portal software for organizations to create compelling website experiences.

Sourcecoast: Joomla plus Facebook - Monetize your Joomla site.

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What does an orange have to do with WordPress? Michael Fields uses the metaphor to explain how taxonomies work in WordPress and what that means for your site. Video via WordPress.TV.