Web Content Management and Personalization Software 7/2000

Today’s robust Web sites have evolved from static content delivered generically, into dynamic experiences uniquely catered to each individual user session.   E-commerce revenue continues to skyrocket, and trends predict it reaching $1.4 trillion in 2003.  Along with that revenue, grows the amount of content and sites out there.  Therefore it is important for large web sites to take steps to attract new users and ensure current customer loyalty.   Personalized user experiences, such as “MySchwab.com” have become an effective way of delivering valuable content to end- users.  Behind such a robust site lies a complex systems architecture. 

“Sites need architecture to evolve: site designers need to create and evolve a continuous commerce architecture that supports broad customer relationships in a nonstop world.  To do this they must leverage the six building blocks that serve as both the design foundation in a way to interpret today’s confused commerce software market.  Vendors that present deep functionality through rich object models and interfaces to other building blocks will win.”
– Forrester Research, Inc. 1999

The six building blocks of E-commerce architecture that Forrester has identified are as follows:

1. Resource Director: Controls and orchestrates front-end, legacy applications, and data to enable self-service integration, object level security, distributed load sessions, and fail-over redirection
   
   
2. Orders and Logistics: Taking and managing orders, shopping cart applications, secure payment capabilities, auction and bidding application support.
   
   
3. Service and Communication: Providing customer service and community, multi-language support, discussion and chat application support.
   
   
4. Administration and Analysis: Guaranteeing site performance and reliability.
   
   
5. Content Management:  Managing check-in and check-out of content, catalogs, and workflow processes, version control, and data is stored in databases.
   
   
6. Personalization: Collecting, analyzing and applying knowledge about your web sites customers.

These days the platform used for constructing Web site content and components is as important for success, as the platform that is used for the delivery of the finished pages.  This paper will further investigate the content management and personalization pieces of Web site architecture.

Content Management:

As Web site content grows dramatically and more users become involved in creating that content, the need for versatile content management (CM) systems arise. To coordinate the development and publication processes companies are turning to content management software. Robust sites include content from all areas of the business.  CM software coordinates workflow and supports versioning for page elements and templates.

Content management applications were initially developed to enable the creation, management and deployment of large amounts of content to the Web.  They have now evolved to manage the full life cycle of web content development (site management, access rights, approval process, version control, web caching, etc.), and deliver it dynamically by integrating with personalization software.  Some of the major functions performed by today’s content management systems include;

• Change management- Version control of files and pieces of content, check-in and check-out, and roll-back capabilities.
  
  
• Workflow- These functions allow components to move through different life cycles, and meet revision, approval, testing, and deployment functions as necessary.
  
  
• Security – At different time in the development cycle different people are given different permissions to content.
  
  
• Template Design- Enables the separation of templates from individual page content.
  
  
• Repositories- Web site content is usually stored in a RDBMS piece of the system.
  
  
• Deployment and Replication –  This piece of the system manages how the web content is published to production servers, and offers replication capabilities.

Personalization:

Web sites have moved well beyond static web pages, which characterized the early web, and profiling analysis and personalized content have become crucial in successful E-commerce strategies.  Personalization systems allow sites to deliver unique content/web pages to each individual user.  For example MSN’s home page can be customized to deliver local news, weather, and sports, and user selected topics of interest.  Sites such as techrepublic.com analyze user movement (clicks, articles read, preference ratings) to determine which articles to display in the “My Picks” area.  This type of user analysis is also used to create valuable marketing profiles for customers and users.

Personalization software enables web site developers to deliver specialized content depending on which articles a user clicks on. Every time a user visits there should be a reward, a new piece of information.  Personalization engines allow this to happen by rotating and updating content continuously throughout the day.  Personalization and analysis are becoming the standard among enterprise level e-commerce sites and will help to drive the new era of Internet solutions. 

Solutions:

E-Commerce initiatives are driving the convergence of content management systems and personalization systems. Previously content management solutions and personalization systems represented distinct markets. However, today’s rapidly evolving market demands that these products be tightly integrated. In some cases customers are turning to vendors that offer end-to-end solutions that enable rapid development and deployment of e-commerce sites.In other instances companies are integrating “best of breed” solutions from multiple vendors.

Vignette (www.vignette.com) is a prime example of a vendor that moved beyond the traditional CM to offer personalization in an end-to-end solution. Vignette offers a full- fledged CM and personalization solution in one.Interwoven (www.interwoven.com), a leading CM system, and ATG (www.atg.com) are an example of a best of breed solution. Interwoven is a leading CM provider that relies on integrating with personalization systems such as Art Technology Group (ATG).  It is not uncommon for these types of E-Commerce systems to reach well over a million dollars for large sites.  The following is an exhibit showing some of the leading E-commerce vendors and their strengths.

Source: Giga Information Group

It seems that in the future end-to-end solutions such as Vignette and Blue Martini will be forced to open up their proprietary standards.  Experts predict that Vignette will have to open its products up to Java standards in order to gain additional market share in the future.  Emerging Java, XML, and WAP standards are allowing the best of breed solutions to capitalize on continuously evolving technologies.  IBM and Microsoft have yet to enter these markets, but some see IBM as a likely candidate to acquire one or more of these companies.

Failures like eBay’s 22-hour outage (in which they lost millions) will continue to enforce the need for highly reliable and dynamic E-commerce architectures, in which Web Content Management and Personalization systems are two integral pieces.