All things Contribute

web2expo,corporate blogging,contribute

The larger corporates are now recognizing blogs as a new channel for reaching their customer. It is not just another internet site to advertise on.

At the web2.0 expo today, Jeanette (Corp Comm @ Cisco) spoke of how Cisco has recognized blogs as a new (and very effective!) channel for reaching their target customer base. Having multiple blogs which can be controlled by corp marketing, and having these cross-link to the corp message/ website, would ensure that the search engines display the right message in the top results for a query related to your company. She gave examples of how this was done during the i-Phone suit, etc.

Hmmmmm.....

Are the corporates going to use blogs as a medium to communicate at a more personal level or do they now see this as an effective method to blot out the 'counter views'?

Posted by Shameer Ayyappan at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

contribute cs3,web publishing,wcms

Contribute is still one of those well guarded secrets in Adobe's product catalogue. Our marketing team is currently working on documenting some of the Contribute success stories. I think the plan is to publish one per quarter. But I would like to do my bit and put up some of the use cases captured in people's blogs, and when I'm not too lazy, I shall even write up the case studies I've heard in my conversations with our clients.

Dave has a great case on how he used Contribute to set-up a website for his client on a turnkey basis. A snippet of what he liked about Contribute:

• Mind-numbingly easy for non-techies to manage their web site. I don't have to be "on call" to update the site when they want to publish a new Word document or PDF.
• Administration is a snap. A very intuitive wizard walks you through the process of creating a connection key for the various editors, including the ability to assign Roles so that a particular user doesn't overstep their bounds.
• My friend can edit a page and create links (and do everything that I would normally do) with a simple click of a button in the Contribute IDE. Kudos to the designers of the IDE, as it's extremely intuitive for technical and non-technical people alike.

In issues he faced with Contribute- he talks about some snags in DW rendering. Fixing this has been a key focus for our latest edition- Contribute CS3.

Posted by Shameer Ayyappan at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Contribute CS3,web publishing,wysiwyg editor

You might already know this- but I still have to announce this on my blog :)

Contribute CS3 is in the box! And I'm very excited. I believe you will find Contribute's tight integration with the Adobe CS3 products very useful (Improved CSS rendering, compatible with Dreamweaver CS3; integrated with Acrobat for inserting documents as PDFs within your website or blog; ability to drag and drop flash videos and other rich media). Also, we've responded to our customers' requests to boost performance, support the latest platforms, and offer more features to help create and manage rich website content.

The 'publish from Office' functionality has been revamped- to allow a user to publish to a web template of his choice. Issues we had with blog support in CT 4 have been resolved. Now it is even more easier to set up and manage your blogs. Ct Blogging supports RSD, tagging, trackbacks, categorization, scheduling and more.

In the coming days I shall elaborate on the detailed feature set in CT CS3. Till then, write in with your comments and reviews.

Posted by Shameer Ayyappan at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Contribute,Blog publishing,blogging tools,corporate blogging

We've considered Contribute to be an indispensable tool for the corporate blogger. In brainstorming features for Contribute Next , there is one gray area that I've been struggling- Is there value in providing more administrative control (enforcing worflows, etc.) over the corporate blogs? Today, Contribute provides the administrator high level control over what type (and size) of content can be included in a blog (ex. allow images, video, audio, etc.). Should Contribute provide more fine grained admin control on blog publishing? For example, "for regular sites, a site admin can require that some users send pages for review by a supervisor, who then has publishing privileges. Can that be done with blogs?"

Does this go against the grain of blogging?

I subscribe to the thought that blogs are the personal voice of the individual- rather than corporate marketing shill that's been approved by legal. Good blogs have a distinctive voice and personality. It's the focused and author-led content, ownership and, of course, personality that tends to make good reading and to invite a real "conversation" with readers.
Then, does it make sense to endorse tight administrative control by providing these features in Contribute?

PS. In trying to find answers I came across this Wired magazine article on who introduced the term 'Corporate Blogging'!

Posted by Shameer Ayyappan at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Adobe,Contribute,Blogging tools,web publishing

Recent Reviews for Contribute 4:

Small Business Technology Magazine (SBTM) has named Contribute 4 as one of the top 10 products of 2006. SBTM's Staff summaries the key features that motivated them to name Contribute 4:

[Contribute] is easy to set up and use and inexpensive enough to provide for all the content providers in your small business.

• Enables Web content authors to update and edit multiple websites and weblogs from a single application
• Gives users the ability to post and publish content from familiar Microsoft Office applications
• Includes tools to help small business users get started with blogging, an increasingly important customer contact tool
• Maintains website integrity and look-and-feel through integration with Adobe Dreamweaver templates
• Provides a secure way to update content by controlling website authoring permissions and different levels of access

Also, Contribute is heavily discussed in the blogosphere.  Straight to the Point's Maria Ford writes a brief blog highly recommending Contribute stating that it is "easy to use and is quite good at preventing the user from compromising the website's design/template."  Kinetic Ideas: A Marketing Blog's Wendy Maynard lists eight tips "to get people into your Internet funnel.” Maynard mentions that she uses Adobe Contribute in her second tip, "Have a clean, simple website designed and learn to update it yourself."  Also, The Switch's staff posts a test blog using Contribute 4, noting that it is "cool" to see a Web page "grow with the update[s] that you make."  The blog also states that Contribute is not a universal binary program, “so it runs kinda slow and eats an awful lot of memory." Finally, Cornerstone Coding's Karen Morrill-McClure mentions how clients can use Contribute to easily update a Web page's content themselves, “without destroying important things like the navigation."

Posted by Shameer Ayyappan at 04:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)