In recent weeks, Vignette, the Austin, Texas-based web content management solution provider, has unveiled a slew of new products aimed at making the company's offerings more personalized and more social.

Vignette Community Services, which was released earlier this month, is a product that enables organizations to add social computing capabilities to their websites to help strengthen their brand, increase loyalty, and drive revenue. Vignette Community Servies aims to help organizations connect with and engage their audiences by offering ratings, reviews, commenting and tagging capabilities, similar to the services found on YouTube and Netflix. Vignette hopes this product will meet the demands of its users for services that allow them to share ideas and benefit from the knowledge of their peers.

Vignette's Kirsten Knipp, senior product marketing manager, draws upon the example of a travel company website to illustrate Vignette Community Services capabilities. "When you buy travel, you don't want to just buy a flight, or a hotel room, or a ticket to an amusement park. You're buying an experience. And when you do you want to have the confidence that you're buying the right thing. You want to see what other people have said, what other people have done, and what other people recommend. Those are the types of capabilities that we are trying to bring to our customers," she says.

Providing insights gleaned from peer experiences can help customers make more informed decisions, Vignette asserts. And that confidence in the decision-making process should results in increased purchases, greater brand loyalty, and higher levels of satisfaction. Vignette points to a recent study that states that 55 percent of surveyed Internet users consulted other people’s opinions online, making reviews the top resource for product research.

Another recently announced product, the forthcoming Vignette Community Applications, enables organizations to add features like blogs, wikis, and forums to any web property in order to improve transparency, to increase interaction with customers, and to build customized communities to better engage their target audiences. Additionally, these organizations can leverage user-generated content and peer influence to create valuable online communities. For example, a software company may leverage forums or blogs to solicit feedback from customers throughout each phase of a product lifecycle.

Vignette's Knipp also touts the strong personalization features in several of Vignette's other new products. "One of the key attributes for a successful web experience is making it personal, making it about 'me,' ensuring that I'm having the most personal experience possible," she says. This spate of products with a personal touch includes Vignette Recommendations, which helps organizations deliver more targeted web experiences to customers through content recommendations, product recommendations, and social search; a web analytics integration, which is powered by integration with Omniture SiteCatalyst and helps customers identify and promote high value content and ads on media sites; and an enchanged version of Vignette Rich Media Services, which features enhanced metadata capturing, right-to-left language support, and an optional desktop client that allows users to manipulate images and the associated metadata.

"Making a personal connection with users online is more than just recognizing a name or offering recommendations based on past behavior," says Mike Aviles, president and CEO at Vignette. "Today's web users are demanding dynamic web content that can recognize and adapt to persona and intent at a given time. Organizations that can recommend, deliver, and measure engaging online experiences are more likely to build brand loyalty and keep users coming back."

With its one-two punch personal and community-oriented products and technologies, Vignette is boldly forging ahead with bringing its products up to the cutting edge of online functionality. The company's intrepid, forward-thinking efforts show no sign of letting up anytime soon.

(www.vignette.com)
 

Six Apart, a blogging software and services company, debuted a host of social media services that complement its technology offerings. The company's new services provide advertising, design, implementation, custom development, and site optimization to bloggers and companies of all sizes.

To power this evolution of the company, Six Apart has also acquired Apperceptive, LLC., an agency for designing and implementing social media communities, and established an office in New York City. Apperceptive has worked with Six Apart in the past to build and expand blog-based web publishing communities for properties such as The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and Major League Baseball. Six Apart's new advertising services combine blogging with social networks to create relevant online experiences that connect advertisers with influencers and their audiences. Adify, a technology and media company focused on vertical online advertising, provides the technology that powers the advertising program.

With the acquisition of Apperceptive, Six Apart now offers design and development services for next-generation social media applications and solutions for bloggers, large media companies, and corporate customers. Six Apart Services helps organizations power custom communities, encourage user-generated content, manage web publishing from a single scalable application, and integrate social publishing platforms with existing systems for effective internal collaboration.

(www.sixapart.com)
 

Longwood Software, developer of the TagTeam marketing materials management system, has introduced Discussions, a new TagTeam capability that supports collaboration, dialogue, and user-provided content across marketing and sales operations. TagTeam Discussions provide marketing and sales professionals with an open channel for group interaction, individual input and best practices. The Discussions capability is available now, at no added charge to TagTeam customers.

TagTeam's Discussions facility is similar to blogs and forums, but designed for increased flexibility and ease of administration. For example, users can submit comments, answer questions online, request input on topics, provide online review of documents, and share experiences and expertise. The Discussions capability can be added to all items, or to selected items in the TagTeam marketing/sales asset repository. The "Discuss" link appears with other actions that can be taken on items, which include viewing the items, linking to the items, downloading, emailing, and ordering. Comments can be attributed or anonymous, as the user chooses.

TagTeam Administrators create a company's own branded name for their Discussions function: For instance, Cafe, Water Cooler, or Chatter. They also configure the Discussions options they want enabled, receive a daily email summary of all Discussions taking place, oversee active Discussions with Administrator tools, and assign one or more Moderators. Designated Moderators can respond in-line to each comment or post. Based on comments made via Discussions, adjustments and modifications can be made as needed to marketing/sales materials to reflect the actual experiences and needs of contributors, including those in the field. Discussions can also be enabled for customers on a company's public website so prospects can comment on products or topics.

(www.tagteam.com)

Thunderstone Software LLC, has announced the availability of new Thunderstone Search Appliance Connectors. Developed in partnership with Persistent Systems. the Connectors are designed to help Thunderstone's Search Appliance customers create search-based applications across a broad array of enterprise content.

Connectors are now available for the following repositories: Microsoft SharePoint 2003, 2007; EMC Documentum Content Server; EMC Documentum eRoom; IBM Lotus Notes/Domino 5.x, 6.x, 7.x; IBM Websphere Portal 6.0 WCM; IBM Websphere Portal 6.0 DM; BEA Weblogic Portal 10.0; Hummingbird Document Manager 5.1; SAP KM Portal; and Interwoven WorkSite.

(www.thunderstone.com, www.persistentsys.com)
 

Nirvanix, "Cloud Storage" platform provider, announced that it has received funding from European Founders Fund, a German venture capital firm. Nirvanix plans to use the investment money to fund its European expansion, leveraging its Storage Delivery Network (SDN) platform. The SDN stores, delivers, and processes storage requests in the network location, aiming to provide the best user experience in the marketplace. With the ability to store multiple file copies in multiple geographic nodes, the SDN enables data availability for developers, businesses, and enterprises.

(www.nirvanix.com)

Truviso, a provider of next-generation business intelligence solutions, announced that it has completed an enhancement to the PostgreSQL open source database system that extends its suitability for streaming data analysis. Truviso also announced it will contribute this enhancement to the PostgreSQL community, reinforcing the company's goal of building upon and sharing mutually beneficial improvements to open source code with the PostgreSQL community. Truviso's solution leverages PostgreSQL technology to provide high-performance, ultra-low-latency continuous data analysis. The new feature enhances PostgreSQL's performance for long-running queries and transactions. Truviso-sponsored improvements are expected to be included in the next release of PostgreSQL, scheduled for early 2009.

(www.truviso.com)
 

Ingram Digital, an Ingram Content company, announced that Greenwood Publishing Group, a publisher of reference titles, academic and general interest books, has signed an agreement for digital asset management and distribution services.
 
Under the terms of the agreement, Greenwood will use the CoreSource platform to ensure that all newly-published titles are immediately available for the digital supply chain and for marketing and promotional purposes. Greenwood will use CoreSource to store, manage and repurpose Greenwood’s digital content, metadata and promotional materials. In addition, Greenwood will be able to syndicate this content to all of its business partners. This can include the capability for mass distribution of individual titles as well as custom content creation. Title promotion will come from using the full suite of Search and Discover solutions that CoreSource powers, which enables publishers or third parties to offer see inside the book and find inside the book features to customers. This platform provides full-text discoverability, helping drive print sales and long tail revenue opportunities. The Search and Discover service includes a widget that enables the placement of content on social networking sites, blogs, and author’s websites, giving the Publisher the tools to develop exciting viral marketing strategies.
  
(www.greenwood.com, www.ingramdigital.com)
 

Quality Associates, Inc., a provider of services and solutions for document management, imaging, and archiving, announced the formation of a new subsidiary called DocPoint Solutions. DocPoint Solutions will provide a full range of consultative services, support and software for electronic content management (ECM), with a specific focus on providing Microsoft SharePoint to organizations that are looking to expand employee collaboration efforts and increase information exchange across the enterprise. Like its parent company, Quality Associates, DocPoint Solutions is based in Fulton, Maryland and will focus on providing services to government agencies and private companies in regulated industries such as accounting, legal, healthcare and finance. The new company will leverage Quality Associates' standing as a GSA Federal Supply Service (FSS) contract holder.

(www.qualityassociatesinc.com)