TransPerfect announced the launch of GlobalLink OneLink JS, an extension of the GlobalLink OneLink website localization platform. GlobalLink OneLink automates the process of translating and releasing websites. With nothing to install, OneLink may not require IT involvement and requires no client-side project management. Organizations can launch new multilingual websites in as few as 30 days and maintain them in sync with their source with automated change detection. Built on a new JavaScript-based architecture, OneLink JS is the next generation of the OneLink product family. As an alternative to the HTTP proxy approach, OneLink JS functions without the complex engineering typically associated with localization of sites authored in JavaScript. With OneLink JS, users can:
Localize websites built with HTML or JavaScript frameworks, including React, Angular, and Vue.js
Reduce overall costs and turnaround times to launch digital content into multiple languages
Track up-to-date global usage of translated websites with JavaScript-generated tracking metrics
Edit translations in real time with our WYSIWYG in-context review
Translate content behind the firewall or in QA/testing areas without IT involvement
Contentstack announced Translations.com, the technology division of TransPerfect, has joined Contentstack’s Catalysts program. Catalysts advance the use of a microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native SaaS, headless (MACH) architecture, bringing technology, best practices, and a methodology for delivering exceptional digital omnichannel engagement. In becoming a Catalyst, Translations.com will offer Contentstack users an all-in-one solution to initiate, automate, control, track and complete all facets of the translation process. The combination of Contentstack and the extended localization workflow capabilities of GlobalLink Connect will provide users with a comprehensive solution for global enterprise content management.
Medallia, Inc. announced it plans to integrate with Oracle CX Service to deliver real-time feedback on what customers think and feel about customer service interactions with a brand. Seamless routing of real-time feedback from Medallia gives brands an understanding of which services are effective, satisfying and driving customer loyalty, and which services are in need of improvement to increase customer retention. Medallia’s planned integration with Oracle CX Service will allow brands to proactively understand their customer’s experience by capturing a range of feedback signals that include web surveys, messaging, video, and voice analytics after a service interaction.
InVision, the digital product design platform, announced its latest update for its online whiteboard, Freehand. Freehand, which is integrated into the broader InVision platform, now includes more than a dozen templates from global enterprise organizations including American Express, Asana, Atlassian, AWS, IBM, Xbox. These templates invite customers to incorporate collaborative workflow practices developed by some of the world’s top teams to accelerate their own product development and digital transformation, all from within the InVision platform. The new templates include:
Brainstorming by Xbox, to engage design and product stakeholders in a simple, inviting ideation exercise focused on giving everyone a voice
Architecture Brainstorm Map used by Amazon Web Services (AWS) Solution Architects, to keep customer and business requirements in sight while building an architecture diagram
Marketing Project Plan by Asana, to kick off a campaign with thoughtful brainstorming for better results
Customer Journey Map by American Express, to unify business partners on the opportunities within a customer’s journey
Product Launch by LaunchDarkly, to align a product delivery team and strategize on a successful product launch
Sprint Planning by Atlassian, to run effective sprint planning meetings with product and engineering teams while remote
Affinity Diagram by UserTesting, to better synthesize UX research with a thorough understanding of data
InVision Enterprise customers can also now create custom templates for their team’s internal use.
Elastic announced new capabilities and updates across its Elastic Enterprise Search, Observability, and Security solutions that deliver new features to reduce storage costs, proactively monitor and manage digital web experiences, and easily visualize data.
With the beta launch of searchable snapshots, a new capability that provides a tiered approach to searching across data that is saved in different classes of storage, Elastic customers get a simple, integrated approach to managing data storage tiers. Customers can store and search more data and reduce costs with low-cost object stores such as Amazon S3, Azure Storage, and Google Cloud Storage.
New expanded Elastic Observability features, including user experience monitoring and synthetics, give developers new tools to test, measure, and optimize end-user website experiences. The launch of a new dedicated User Experience app in Kibana provides Elastic customers with an enhanced view and understanding of how end users experience their websites.
In addition, Elastic customers can use the new user experience monitoring feature to review Core Web Vitals, helping website developers interpret digital experience signals. Elastic users can also leverage a dev preview release of synthetic monitoring in Elastic Uptime to simulate complex user flows, measure performance, and optimize new interaction paths without impact to a website’s end users.
Says Tim Berners-Lee in his announcement of “the first enterprise-ready version of a Solid Server, Inrupt’s ESS”. Solid (Socialized Linked Data). Solid is a standards based open source project Berners-Lee and others from MIT started around 2015, and Inrupt is a company created to build a commercial ecosystem for decentralized Solid applications that allow for personal control of online data access and use. The question since then has been whether his vision of the future of the web, which was certainly appealing, would work commercially. What’s important about this announcement are working implementations of Solid at media, financial, and government organizations, and its availability for any organization.
That ad tech and microtargeting are a mess is probably not news to you, and you (advertiser, publisher, and consumer) may be looking forward to a reckoning, especially for the smiling ad salespeople, faceless middlemen, fraudsters taking cuts, and ad-filled tracking websites. But it is worth paying attention to the various repercussions, including worst case scenarios. Gilad Edelman mentions one such outcome in the title of his post and points to the same cause in his subtitle, “The scariest thing about microtargeted ads is that they just don’t work.”
Stephen O’Grady’s (1,827 word) piece is an excellent read for anybody interested in developer productivity, as well as for developers.
Fragmentation makes it impossible for vendors to natively supply the requisite components for a fully integrated toolchain. That does not change the reality, however, that developers are forced to borrow time from writing code and redirect it towards managing the issues associated with highly complex, multi-factor developer toolchains held together in places by duct tape and baling wire. This, then, is the developer experience gap. The same market that offers developers any infrastructure primitive they could possibly want is simultaneously telling them that piecing them together is a developer’s problem. The technology landscape today is a Scrooge McDuck-level embarrassment of riches.
Many of today’s beliefs about cloud are based on misconceptions fed by stories of adoptions gone wrong or fears of significant change. These beliefs get in the way of deeply understanding the positive business, operational, and economic impacts of cloud and must be addressed to enable organizations to capture cloud’s full value.
The Gilbane Advisor is curated by Frank Gilbane for content technology, computing, and digital experience professionals. The focus is on strategic technologies. We publish more or less twice a month except for August and December. We do not sell or share personal data.
BigCommerce, a SaaS ecommerce platform announced it has joined the MACH Alliance, a newly-formed group of independent tech companies dedicated to advocating for an open technology ecosystem for enterprise ecommerce solutions. As part of this group, BigCommerce will work in collaboration with members to enhance education, development and adoption of composable infrastructures through microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native SaaS and headless technology and digital experiences. BigCommerce has been enabling merchants to build scalable, content- and experience-driven digital commerce experiences through headless deployments. APIs allow for full access to the data and business logic of the BigCommerce platform, so merchants can connect third-party integrations, mobile applications or a front-end CMS or DXP to create a headless storefront. Participation in the MACH Alliance will create additional opportunities for BigCommerce to advance MACH principles as the modern standard.
Adobe announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Workfront, a work management platform for marketers, for $1.5 billion, subject to customary purchase price adjustments. With more than 3,000 customers and one million users, Workfront is a solution marketers use to manage content, plan and track marketing campaigns, and execute complex workflows across teams.
The combination of Adobe Experience Cloud and Workfront will help bring efficiency, collaboration, and productivity gains to marketing teams and operations managers currently challenged with siloed work management solutions. Workfront has deep experience in orchestrating marketing workflows and has APIs that enable a seamless connection to Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Experience Cloud. Workfront’s platform is architected for the enterprise, with integration capabilities that can be configured to meet the varied needs of companies of all sizes. Adobe and Workfront are already partners with over 1,000 shared customers.
Workfront CEO Alex Shootman will continue to lead the Workfront team, reporting to Anil Chakravarthy, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Experience Business and Worldwide Field Operations. The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of Adobe’s 2021 fiscal year. Until the transaction closes, each company will continue to operate independently.
