Lotus CMS: Widgetizing Content

What is Lotus CMS?

Lotus CMS is a highly flexible widget-based content management system that allows enterprises to centrally manage digital assets, syndicate content as reusable widgets and rapidly create keyword-targeted web pages.

Lotus CMS is a next-generation content management system that allows content to be syndicated as widgets on google, yahoo, apple and vista, and allows publishers to push content to consumers desktops and mobile phones on-demand while allowing the same content to be personalized on a dashboard with drag-and-drop functionality.

Applications of Lotus CMS?

Lotus CMS is an advanced content management solution that can be used to publish, syndicate and reuse content on a single website or over a network of portals and micro-sites.

What makes Lotus CMS different from any other CMS?

First and foremost, Lotus is a widget-based content management system that is designed on the philosophy of service oriented architectures, or SOA. Widgets are self-contained mini-applications and a basic building block in constructing pages and mashups within Lotus CMS. Widgets can be dynamic and driven by any data store, web service or RSS/Atom feed; customized and developed according to the needs of each business.

Content published using Lotus CMS can be syndicated as widgets on google, yahoo, apple and vista, and allows publishers to push content to consumers desktops and mobile phones on-demand while allowing the same content to be personalized on a portal or dashboard with drag-and-drop functionality.

Content creators can quickly construct search-engine optimized pages or mashups using a library of widgets. Simply pick and choose what content needs to be published, the template to use and the keywords related to the content. This key feature allows advertisers to match product to content very effectively.

Lotus converts customized selection algorithms to render ad widgets and can also export them as XML-based web services. The built-in Ad Manager manages and tracks online ad buys and sales, allowing companies of any size to control marketing budgets and maximize yield.

Companies paying to place ads can use Lotus to wrap a media source URI with tracking code that publishes real-time statistics to enterprise databases using a web-services API or data feed. Advertisements can be published as widgets and pushed to subscribed users as Email, SMS, Telephone, Fax, Digital Audio, Digital Video, or URI ( XML, et al.).

Companies getting paid to publish ads on online properties can offer a private-labeled Ad Management Portal that allows advertisers to manage advertisements or search and download real-time statistics via the portal or RSS, on demand. Advertisers can focus on placing only the highest yielding ads, and, Publishers can focus on developing content that is relevant for both advertisers and consumers.

An RSS feed can be imported into Lotus, manipulated, filtered, saved, and re-published after-the-fact as another RSS feed that can be consumed using any reader or Yahoo! Pipe. Lotus allows re-syndication of content to various media such as RSS or Report Widgets that put the state or the result at the user-specified URI.

Flexible API’s allow quick deployment of content push or content pull requirements as well as flexible billing scenarios. The value of advertisements or content has not yet been securitized, providing price premia for highly targeted and qualified content and consumers. An optional billing package enables flexible billing scenarios such as:

number of uses (per period)
usage per period (bandwidth, seconds, minutes, number of impressions/downloads, etc.)
consumption specific tariffs:
- pay X to push ad to consumer in area A, but pay Y when in area B (geographic pricing)
- pay X to reach consumer A whether or not in area A or area B (customer level pricing – charge different prices for the same services to different customers)
- pay X for ad regardless of area

Lotus CMS is good at URI handling. Easily migrate deployments generated from Lotus CMS across development, staging, or live environments and release updates in a controlled and testable fashion. Publishers decide when and where individual widgets should be rendered and made available.

The ability to publish relevant content on the consumer’s medium of choice, when they demand it, while maximizing advertising revenue is critical for any publisher to develop pricing premiums for ad placements.

Lotus allows print publishing activities to extend easily to the online realm via the single-sourcing of content. Digital layout files in Quark or in InDesign can be easily accessed as a widget data source. As the print files are updated, the real-time online version is updated nearly instantaneously. This feature is critical for any organization looking to remove inefficiencies that exist when publishing in both print and digital copy.

Widgets can encapsulate enterprise functionality. Easily insert an existing web application as a widget within Lotus CMS or expose it as XML or RSS. Content Services can be transparently deployed, billed, and accessed real-time by the buyer at negotiable prices.

Publishing content with Lotus reduces OPEX and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Lotus has a very flexible templating framework which allows non-technical users to create templates without requiring assistance from the IT department, thereby lowering recurring operating expenditures and IT overhead.

Lotus has an object-oriented architecture. This means it is easily extended and customized. The Lotus API allows developers to easily integrate Lotus CMS with internal and 3rd party systems.

A key factor in driving traffic to online properties is the notion of stickiness. Namely, the more time people spend on a site and the more they return to it, the greater the stickiness. A growing and loyal user base is a goal all publishers have. In addition to the strategic capabilities highlighted, Lotus CMS also allows publishers to offer personalized homepages for registered users which provide sophisticated user to pick and choose what content is most relevant. In the background, Lotus CMS tallies detailed statistics on content impressions to provide insights into how published content is being consumed and where it is being consumed.