February 2021 Summaries

Google is introducing Core Web Vitals, a new ranking signal that will evaluate page load time, interactivity readiness, and visual stability, starting May 2021. These metrics are part of the existing page experience ranking signal and include mobile-friendliness, intrusive pop-ups, and HTTPS security. The three Core Web Vitals are Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). To improve these metrics, website owners can check their site's performance in Google Search Console, use tools like Page Speed Insights or the Google Chrome Developer tools, and prioritize optimization of images, JavaScript execution, and layout shifts. By improving Core Web Vitals, website owners may see a slight edge over competitors, increased traffic, and even access to Top Stories.

Contentful has been named a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave: Agile Content Management Systems (CMSes), Q1 2021, earning the highest possible score in six criteria, including Vision, Delivery Model, Partner Ecosystem, Back-End Extensibility, Customer Analytics, and Metadata and Taxonomy. This validation supports Contentful's mission to be the leading content platform for digital-first businesses, which are required to rapidly create meaningful engagements across digital touchpoints due to changing consumer demands. Contentful's API-first approach sets it apart, especially for brands with enterprise-scale applications, and its cloud-native architecture and portfolio of cloud deployment options meet high governance and regulatory standards. The company has a strong network of global partners and customers who consider Contentful a mission-critical content platform that enables digital agility and innovation.

Beagle, a chatbot developed by People's Law School in British Columbia, Canada, uses the Contentful content platform to manage its vast amount of content and integrate it seamlessly into both its website and chatbot features. The team created over 3,000 replies across 71 topics, which are now used on both the Beagle chatbot and the People's Law School website. To handle this content, they chose a "headless" content management system, but ultimately found Contentful to be mature enough for their project needs. With Rasa, an open-source chatbot engine, they analyze input and retrieve relevant content from Contentful, which is then delivered directly to the chatbot. This integration enables Beagle's responses to work perfectly as website headings, subheadings, and paragraphs, while also allowing for more flexibility in formatting and presentation. The team appreciates Contentful's ease of use, flexibility, and ability to manage a single set of content across multiple platforms, streamlining their content management process and enabling them to focus on other aspects of the project.

To help plan for the year ahead, companies are focusing on personalization, enabling customers to control their experience and using data to surface relevant information. Live streaming and synchronous virtual events are becoming increasingly popular, offering more meaningful engagement than videos and asynchronous virtual events. Marketers are adopting a more informal tone and edgy copy to create an authentic brand voice, while also navigating a volatile political environment where consumers expect brands to stand up for their values. The use of AR/VR is expanding beyond gaming into practical applications, such as virtual showrooms and apps that let users try on makeup and clothing. Companies are turning to API-first platforms to build custom stacks from composable microservices, and IT teams will focus on API security and Zero Trust Security to ensure network security. There will be more emphasis on providing lasting value through digital experiences rather than one-off entertainment.

A headless CMS is a backend-only system that allows the presentation of content through multiple front-end delivery systems, enabling flexibility and autonomy in choosing front-end frameworks for presenting content on any device. This approach provides a more extensible and editable platform compared to traditional monolithic CMSes, which are designed with one purpose in mind: to send content to web pages. A headless CMS like Contentful offers capabilities for effective team orchestration, eliminating bottlenecks for non-technical users, and provides deeply custom workflows, making it worthwhile to switch from a legacy CMS. The platform also enables navigation through the site without getting lost, locating content, and previewing changes before publishing, while maintaining control over layout and presentation.

Digital personalization and optimization are two related but distinct approaches to improving digital experiences, aiming to create more relevant interactions between individuals and brands. Personalization tailors experiences based on behavioral data, while optimization presents the best version of content to customers for conversions and loyalty. As technology advances, physical spaces will be digitized, facial recognition and biometric sensors will be used, and empathetic personalization will emerge, allowing marketers to gauge customer moods and offer suggestions accordingly. Both processes rely on behavioral data and require agile management, cross-functional teams, and a commitment to rapid content creation, with the solution being to operate as a content factory and work with structured, modular content. With Contentful as a content platform, companies can adopt microservices approaches and add tools and services for personalization and optimization, ensuring they can meet changing customer expectations.

Today, Contentful announced the addition of Christine Heckart as its first independent board member. Christine brings a breadth of accomplishments and experience from global companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Juniper Networks. She has also served on the board of Lam Research and is currently the CEO of Scalyr, a company that serves developers. Contentful looks for new leaders with great ideas and perspectives to complement its existing board members. The company connected with Christine through their partnership with All Raise, an organization dedicated to elevating diversity in tech. This partnership led to Contentful participating in the inaugural round of Board Xcelerate, a program that introduces tech companies to highly qualified diverse leaders. Creativity and diversity are at the core of Contentful's DNA, reflecting its multicultural origins in Berlin. The company aims to build an inclusive culture where everyone can be their full self and create opportunities for growth and leadership. By prioritizing diversity and inclusion, Contentful hopes to set a standard for the industry as a whole.

This article discusses the author's experience building a simple microblogging platform using Contentful, a headless CMS. The author aimed to keep things simple and focused on learning the basics of Contentful without getting bogged down by other front-end frameworks. They created a content type for their microblog post with fields such as text, image, external link, and panther emotes, which represent their mood. The author used vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build the application, and opted for the GraphQL API to fetch data from Contentful. They provided a quick-start guide and a tutorial on how to set up the content type and fetch data using the GraphQL API. The goal of this project is to create a lightweight microblogging site that can be easily built and customized by developers.

Paolo Negri, co-founder and CTO of Contentful, has witnessed the company's growth from a handful of people to its current global team of over 450 employees serving thousands of customers, including 28% of Fortune 500 companies. He attributes some of Contentful's success to his keen eye on tech trends, such as GraphQL. Negri now focuses on building platforms that enable connected digital experiences, where customers expect an integrated interface with businesses or enterprises. Silos are a problem as they make assembling information and presenting it to customers impossible. Negri emphasizes the importance of extensibility in core platforms, customization, and scalability. He recommends focusing on specific business needs, building custom solutions, and ensuring foundational tools are extensible. Paolo also stresses the need for a safe environment, clear interfaces, and a community of professionals supporting the technology. With digital channels taking over more customer journeys, highly available infrastructure is crucial to serve customers in unforeseen events. The rate of change is accelerating, and designing a stack that can adapt to this requires cultivating trust between customers and businesses, built on transparency and information sharing.