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<hr /> Las Vegas in late November always means cool desert air, seasonally appropriate lighting, and a whole lotta tech folk. Right now, the casinos are flush with attendees from <a target="_blank" href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/top-announcements-of-aws-reinvent-2023/">AWS re:Invent</a>, the cloud computing giant's annual global conference – and odds are they're all betting on AI.It shouldn't be that surprising. Even though AWS dragged its feet by releasing its <a target="_blank" href="https://aws.amazon.com/bedrock/">Amazon Bedrock</a> GenAI well behind its competitors, the company has made recent strides, upping the ante with <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/microsoft-sharepoint">Microsoft</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/google-cloud-joins-mach-alliance-as-enabler-member">Google</a> in the race for AI dominance. This includes a much-heralded investment in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.anthropic.com/index/anthropic-amazon">Anthropic</a> as a foundational model offering.The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/20/1197958395/the-messy-human-drama-behind-openai">fresh drama with OpenAI</a> might also be delivering an early Christmas gift as companies explore alternative models for their growing AI initiatives – and look to trusted brands like Amazon to supply those services.AI has been a huge focus of re:Invent thus far, with AWS announcing its new <a target="_blank" href="https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-q-brings-generative-ai-powered-assistance-to-it-pros-and-developers-preview/">Amazon Q GenAI chatbot</a>. But along with the company's impressive cadre of machine learning services, it is also showcasing partner technologies with new offerings – including business applications like <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">content management.</a> Today, as part of its AWS Partner Network Competency program, <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/solodev">Solodev</a> – a cloud services company – announced that it had achieved the new AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency in the Digital Customer Experience category. Solodev and other technologies were highlighted during re:Invent as competency launch partners. According to the company's press release, the achievement recognizes Solodev's expertise in providing customers with professional services and software solutions. These capabilities let advertisers and marketers power workloads with advanced enterprise content management (CMS) technology, accelerating the creation of digital experiences for both web and omnichannel applications. “Solodev is proud to achieve the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency in the Digital Customer Experience category,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/techcto/">Shawn Moore</a>, Chief Technology Officer at Solodev. “Our customers have always benefited from our deep investment in AWS as the most trusted cloud infrastructure. Now, we’re building the future of digital experiences by offering serverless capabilities, omnichannel for IoT, and even generative AI to help advertisers and marketers personalize content, run experiments, optimize sites and apps, and convert more customers.”<h3>Powering digital experiences in the cloud</h3>As advertisers and marketers look to leverage the cloud to innovate and realize digital transformation, they increasingly need purpose-built solutions. AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency Partners provide these customers – including advertising agencies, marketers, publishers, advertising and marketing technology providers, and analytics service providers – with AWS-validated solutions and services, helping accelerate their transformation. While brands and integrators look for ways to host, manage, scale, and secure their customer websites and mobile applications, having a content management system that is built on AWS at a foundational level is essential to meeting modern demands. While many CMS tools exist in the market, few are built for the full potential of the AWS cloud and its service architecture.A cloud-first CMS built exclusively on AWS, Solodev provides its users with access to scalable, cutting-edge capabilities like serverless, e-commerce, Internet of Things (IoT), and AI. Solodev also provides its advertising and marketing customers – including agencies and brands – with a sandbox to create highly engaging web and mobile experiences across a wide range of industries and use cases.<h3>CMS features designed for advertising and marketing</h3>Solodev delivers end-to-end control with a rich combination of features. This includes low code/no code functionality for advertisers, marketers, and content creators to run productive content operations. At the same time, developers have full access to code for building custom experiences. As a hybrid <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/top-free-headless-cms-platforms">headless</a> platform, Solodev also provides an ecosystem for managing legacy and omnichannel strategies in a single platform, along with a marketplace of integrations that covers ad tech, advanced AWS services, and AI-powered personalization.While the features of the CMS are robust, so too are the DevOps capabilities. From the <a target="_blank" href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=8e11c912-6253-41b8-b065-bf32bd27911b">AWS Marketplace</a>, any organization can spin up and deploy Solodev in their own single-tenant AWS account. License options include Professional, Enterprise, or even a container version with <a target="_blank" href="https://kubernetes.io/">Kubernetes</a>.<h3>Harnessing advanced features, from serverless to AI</h3>While its CMS products are part of its feature set, Solodev positions itself as a “cloud services company” – and for good reason. Coupled with innovation around a broader stack of its own cloud applications, Solodev provides professional consulting services for advertising and marketing customers, helping them build and support infrastructure and DevOps for their cloud services. This includes serverless strategies powered by <a target="_blank" href="https://aws.amazon.com/fargate/">AWS Fargate</a> for high-availability applications that demand significant scalability. Agencies and brands can also leverage Solodev AI to host and train their own models in the cloud and add powerful solutions to personalize experiences, recommend products and services, and harness generative AI at scale. <h3>Differentiating through the AWS competency program</h3>AWS enables scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from hundreds of partners, from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, the <a target="_blank" href="https://aws.amazon.com/partners/programs/competencies/">AWS Competency Program</a> was designed to help customers identify validated AWS Partner solutions and services for specific industry use cases.According to the press release, the <a target="_blank" href="https://aws.amazon.com/advertising-marketing/partners/">AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency</a> highlights Solodev’s technical proficiency, specific domain knowledge, and proven customer success running cloud solutions on AWS for the advertising and marketing industry. To achieve any competency in its program, AWS Partners must undergo rigorous technical validation by AWS solution architects and have verified customer references. You can explore the various AWS Partner solutions and services offered in its AWS Data Exchange, via the AWS Marketplace, or by browsing the APN Partner Network – which includes Solodev.

Solodev Achieves New AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency at AWS re:Invent 

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<hr /> If there's a bright spot in the CMS world, we have an idea where it's coming from. Earlier today, <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/87074530-61f0-11ee-bdb2-5ba82a5c1cef?preview=true">Brightspot</a>, a leading provider of <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">content management</a> solutions, announced a new version of its flagship product.With the launch of Brightspot CMS 4.7, businesses will be able to create, manage, and optimize content more quickly than ever using Brightspot’s “connect and create” integrations. These include a bevy of industry-leading connectors for <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/shopify">Shopify</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/microsoft-sharepoint">SharePoint</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onedrive/online-cloud-storage">Microsoft OneDrive</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Drive">Google Drive</a>. The upgrade also introduces a host of new and noteworthy features, such as enhanced search and collaboration tools, a new site health framework, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.infoworld.com/article/3689973/what-is-generative-ai-artificial-intelligence-that-creates.html">generative AI</a> capabilities powered by <a target="_blank" href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI.</a>“Brightspot aims to stand out as a content management system that empowers customers to easily shape their digital experiences and deliver great experiences to their users,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgang/">David Gang</a>, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer of Brightspot. “We are thrilled to launch version 4.7 of Brightspot, and to make Brightspot’s unparalleled CMS technology available to businesses looking to get on the fast track to effective content creation, optimization, and distribution." <h3>Capitalizing on continued market growth and demand</h3>Brightspot has carved a solid niche in the enterprise CMS market as a customer-focused partner. This makes sense, as the product was originally developed as part of Perfect Sense, a professional services agency founded in 2008. In August 2020, the firm fully embraced the Brightspot mantle, rebranding around the name of its core product. Now, with over 200 employees, the legacy of customer experience continues to be a key to its success. Brightspot's CMS offers extensive workflow, search, website development, and editing/publishing capabilities. The technology is designed to empower customers with simple or complex use cases to build amazing digital experiences with enterprise-grade capabilities. The new 4.7 release reflects a legacy of customer-focused features that are designed with users in mind. “Our latest innovations put flexibility and ease of use at the center of our platform,” said Gang, "and are part of our goals to continue to be leaders in redefining content management for an increasing number of use cases for our product and services.”In December 2021, Brightspot <a target="_blank" href="https://www.brightspot.com/about-us/news/brightspot-tailwind-capital-partnership">partnered with Tailwind Capital</a> to accelerate the next phase of its growth strategy. This included the continued expansion of its developer community and partner network to expand the reach and accessibility of its CMS.<h3>Lighting the way for content creators with a new design system</h3>One of the key updates in the 4.7 release is Brightspot’s enhanced design system. The new experience provides an easy, flexible tableau for modifying, extending, and fully customizing a pre-built presentation layer. This allows digital experiences to perfectly fit a company's brand while making them easy to change over time. The design system offers users multiple options for no-code, low-code, or fully custom front-end templates to make branded digital experiences possible – regardless of development resourcing or timeline requirements. It also boasts ready-to-use pages, modules and component templates, behaviors, interactions, and comprehensive styling options. For all content types in Brightspot CMS, there's also a complementary front-end version within the design system.<h3>Leveraging AI to auto-tag and structure content</h3>Brightspot CMS 4.7 builds on a highly extensible content management platform, enabling businesses to seamlessly integrate with their existing infrastructure based on their specific needs. The new integrations with Shopify, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, and SharePoint enable customers to enrich their existing infrastructure investments with Brightspot. Additionally, users can access externally created content while working within the platform, fostering a more streamlined and efficient content creation process. Additionally, AI-driven auto-tagging and taxonomy capabilities reduce the manual burden of content categorization, ensuring that content is appropriately tagged and organized for enhanced discoverability and user experiences.<h3>Creating content faster with generative AI</h3>One of the centerpieces of 4.7 is the new OpenAI-assisted content capabilities, enabling users to craft high-quality content more rapidly and efficiently than ever before. The new feature leverages artificial intelligence to assist content creators, helping them generate engaging and relevant content ideas, drafts, and even complete articles with just a few simple prompts. With the introduction of generative AI, Brightspot is assisting content creators to overcome the challenges of writer's block and empower businesses with a new era of creative freedom and productivity. All of the new AI tools are offered as optional features in the new 4.7 release that can be enabled by customers.<h3>Managing content with robust search and collaboration tools</h3>Brightspot’s search functionality is a powerful way for customers to manage an abundance of content within the platform. With its enhanced search features, users can quickly identify the content they’re looking for via a preview of their asset – directly from the search panel.With the addition of “watcher tools,” users can also set up personalized content monitoring, ensuring they stay updated on specific content components as they move through the workflow.<h3>Easily optimize site performance with alerts and guides</h3>Brightspot CMS 4.7’s latest features help users optimize their website’s performance with an improved alert system, which promptly notifies administrators of potential issues that might impact SEO. This includes broken links, missing metadata, or content inconsistencies – empowering them to address these concerns proactively. Moreover, the inclusion of in-system guides offers field- and widget-level assistance for various features, allowing users to navigate the platform with ease and confidence.<h3>When is the new version available?</h3>Brightspot CMS 4.7 is now shipping to all current and new customers. To learn more about the latest features, visit <a target="_blank" href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.brightspot.com%2Fbrightspot-cms%2Fbrightspot-4-7&amp;esheet=53568134&amp;newsitemid=20231003760002&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.brightspot.com%2Fbrightspot-cms%2Fbrightspot-4-7&amp;index=1&amp;md5=1a64757ba8f332f09ce7f1ad51cedb4c">https://www.brightspot.com/brightspot-cms/brightspot-4-7</a>

Brightspot Launches Next-Generation CMS, Promises Seamless Content Creation and AI Features

Like most businesses, colleges and universities rely on digital experiences to reach and serve their audiences. While many were forced to transform during Covid-19 to support remote learning requirements, they have often trailed the commercial market – following more of a public sector arc when embracing new (and often expensive) technologies. 
That's why they require deep specialization from their digital partners, and this is where <a href="https://www.zengenti.com/" target="_blank">Zengenti</a> excels. The software and consulting firm behind the <a href="https://www.contensis.com/" target="_blank">Contensis</a> CMS recently announced a partnership with <a href="https://www.hw.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Heriot-Watt University</a>, growing its enrollment of higher education customers to more than 20.
Contensis, an <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/lets-celebrate-the-winners-of-the-2022-cms-critic-peoples-choice-awards/">award-winning</a> composable CMS, has carved out a niche within the higher ed marketplace with its flexible platform offerings – which is further buoyed by Zengenti's focused expertise in the higher ed sector. According to the company's press release, Heriot-Watt plans to use the new CMS to enhance the digital experience for prospective students, alumni, and partners.
<h2>A CMS built for a world-class university</h2>
If you're unfamiliar, Heriot-Watt is considered one of Scotland’s most international universities, with more than 27,000 registered students, five campuses, and over 100 learning partners worldwide.
The school's previous on-premise CMS powered a website serving thousands of users, including students from over 150 unique countries. By moving to Contensis, the legacy system will be replaced with a modern API-first and cloud-hosted CMS, enabling the school with greater flexibility and scalability to manage its digital experience.
“We’re excited to be working with Zengenti as our partner for this major transformation project,” said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmajaneleech/" target="_blank">Emma Leech</a>, Global Marketing Director at Heriot-Watt. “Their market understanding, wide-ranging expertise and track record of delivery will be pivotal in allowing us to rethink our global digital presence.”
<h2>A lesson for serving the higher education market</h2>
On its website, Contensis emphasizes the importance of content modeling, editing, and governance tools for helping content teams and developers – specifically those working in modern universities. Not only does Contensis deliver on these features, but its API-first approach makes connecting and managing content easier across websites, apps, and omnichannel experiences.
In addition to Heriot-Watt, Zengenti supports a multitude of notable higher ed customers in the UK, including <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/" target="_blank">King’s College London</a>, <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/" target="_blank">The London School of Economics and Political Science</a>, and the <a href="https://uwaterloo.ca/" target="_blank">University of Waterloo</a>.
“We’re delighted to be working with the Heriot-Watt University team,” said <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/contensis-cms-writes-new-script-for-composable-and-headless-interview-with-ceo-rich-chivers/">Richard Chivers</a>, CEO of Zengenti. “This is an exciting and evolving period for the education industry, as leaders in the space continue to look for innovative new ways in which they can adapt to learning practices, hybrid working models and meeting the needs of its digital-savvy students who expect a seamless journey online.”
Chivers also mentioned a new Contensis feature called <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/contensis-launches-blocks-new-container-first-website-builder-qa-with-richard-chivers/">Blocks,</a> which was released earlier this year and covered by CMS Critic. 
“For developers, working with Blocks and React enables more of the team to work remotely in Contensis with a lower risk of change failure,” Chivers said. “For content editors and marketing teams, roles and permissions allow more changes to be pushed out, and its roll-back function can undo changes if needed.”
To learn more about Contensis CMS and its work with leading higher education institutions, visit <a href="https://www.contensis.com/" target="_blank">https://www.contensis.com/</a>.
<h2>About Contensis</h2>
UK-based Zengenti is the creator of Contensis, a headless Content Management System (CMS) with an integrated deployment platform. Contensis provides a single place to create, maintain and deliver content. Its content modeling, authoring, and governance features help teams create and keep top of well-structured content. Open APIs make integrating with leading platforms and products easy to deliver immersive digital experiences for audiences. Contensis powers websites for world-leading organizations across various industries, such as higher education, local government, and the private sector.

Zengenti Expands Focus on Higher Education, Brings Contensis CMS to Heriot-Watt University

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Heriot-Watt University and Zengenti logo icon again a wall of books

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin" target="_blank">Benjamin Franklin</a>, the revolutionary American statesman who helped architect the fledgling U.S. republic (and flew a kite during a thunderstorm), once said, "Look before, or you'll find yourself behind."
When it comes to the future of CMS, that same observation applies – but with another Franklin that dared to look ahead.
Recently, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-cloud-adds-new-headless-cms-capabilities-updates-to-commerce-integration/">Adobe</a> – the <a href="https://business.adobe.com/blog/the-latest/adobe-named-a-leader-in-2023-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms#:~:text=The%20Latest-,Adobe%20named%20a%20Leader%20in%202023%20Gartner%C2%AE,%E2%84%A2%20for%20Digital%20Experience%20Platforms&amp;text=Gartner%20published%20the%20latest%20Magic,has%20been%20named%20a%20Leader." target="_blank">Gartner MQ Leader</a> for DXPs –  introduced a new feature in its <a href="https://www.adobe.com/?clickref=1101lwIXbvhb&amp;mv=affiliate&amp;mv2=pz&amp;as_camptype=277929&amp;as_channel=affiliate&amp;as_source=partnerize&amp;as_campaign=chelen" target="_blank">Experience Manager</a> suite called <a href="https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/forms/forms-overview/latest-innovations.html?lang=en" target="_blank">Next-Gen Composability</a>, the new mantle for its AEM "<a href="https://www.hlx.live/home" target="_blank">Project Franklin</a>" initiative.
A bit of background on the skunkworks: Franklin was introduced in January as a lightweight CMS architecture designed to launch new sites faster and accelerate page performance. It also provided a more intuitive way to create and publish content using simple tools like <a href="https://www.google.com/docs/about/" target="_blank">Google Docs</a> or <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/word" target="_blank">Microsoft Word</a> for authoring. 
The news was officially announced last month at <a href="https://business.adobe.com/summit/adobe-summit.html" target="_blank">Adobe Summit 2023</a>, but Adobe is already experiencing success with a pilot customer (keep reading for more details). 
<h2>What is Next-Gen Composability?</h2>
Content management jargon can take on many forms, with enough variations to make any head spin. With Next-Gen Composability, Adobe is attempting to make things simple. Really simple.
When implementing Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) in the past, developers and marketers would be tasked with learning new publishing tools, workflows, and more – often requiring several different learned processes across multiple channels. With Next-Gen Composability, AEM can now leverage commonly used tools like Microsoft Office 365 or Google Workspace and implement content built from those tools directly into the experience manager.
Producing and editing content in channels that marketers are already familiar with can reduce the back and forth that plagues many enterprise CMSes. With these hurdles now removed from the equation, building websites and producing content should become faster and more reliable – and further reduce dependence on technical support teams. It should also reduce the overall friction with implementing AEM. 
<h2>Lightning-fast pages with high Google Lighthouse scores</h2>
The cloud-native infrastructure behind Next-Gen Composability is designed for speed. The tools built into the program require each web page to render a <a href="https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/overview/" target="_blank">Google Lighthouse</a> score of 100 on live pages – made possible by fast caching and an edge delivery engine.
Along with enhanced page performance, content can be built quickly with Next-Gen composability because teams can use tools they already know – and all with a few clicks. For content creators, this should eliminate many obstacles throughout the publishing workflow, giving them greater speed and agility. 
<h2>Supercharged forms</h2>
Forms continue to be one of a website's most important engagement tools. They're also a huge pain for content creators.
According to Adobe's website, with Next Gen Composability, users across an enterprise can create forms using their preferred tools, such as Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets – without extensive training on new UI workflows.
What’s more, Next Gen Composability is designed to load forms with unmatched speed, achieving a near-perfect Google Lighthouse score on live pages, practically guaranteeing top performance and user experience.
<h2>Tried, Tested, and Approved</h2>
The first to implement Next-Gen Composability within AEM was Adobe partner <a href="https://www.netcentric.biz/insights/2023/04/next-gen-composability-reimagines-content-management" target="_blank">Cognizant Netcentric</a>. They used the new feature to produce <a href="https://www.netcentric.biz/" target="_blank">cognizantnetcentric.com</a> – drafting their content in Google Workspace.
In a blog article reflecting the project’s success, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrin-weissenborn/" target="_blank">Katrin Weissenborn</a>, a commercial marketing manager at Cognizant Netcentric, commented on the ease of use and overall satisfaction with Next-Gen Composability:
“Next-Gen Composability has completely transformed the way we work, our web publishing has never been that fast and easy before. Whenever I spot something on the website that I want to change, I just do it myself in record time, no need to brief content editors. As soon as the change is live, I just tag my content editing colleagues directly in the content repository so the change will also be done in other languages to ensure a consistent user experience throughout.”
<h2>About Adobe</h2>
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Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit <a href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.adobe.com&amp;esheet=52479752&amp;newsitemid=20210819005739&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=www.adobe.com&amp;index=3&amp;md5=16bfbb09ccdd811085bcdfd56783339b" target="_blank">www.adobe.com</a>.
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Adobe Experience Manager Evolves Franklin, Launches Next-Gen Composability Feature

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