Real Story Group. Make Better Technology Decisions.

Marketo gets ready for an IPO - should customers care?

Added By Kashyap Kompella on 6-May-2013

Last month, marketing automation software company Marketo, one of the vendors we evaluate in our Digital Marketing Technology stream, filed an S-1 registration, which is one of the first major steps towards an IPO. Along the way, many details about Marketo's business have emerged publicly for the first time. Here are some key things for enterprise marketing technology buyers to note ... Continue Reading

Salesforce adds Social Advertising to Marketing Cloud

Added By Apoorv Durga on 25-Apr-2013

Salesforce launched a new service called "Social.com" as part of its Marketing Cloud offering. Social.com allows you to create ad campaigns for Facebook and Twitter. It actually came to Salesforce via its Buddy Media acquisition but Salesforce has re-launched it as a separately-branded produc ... Continue Reading

Deconstructing Oracle's Social Relationship Management Suite

Added By Apoorv Durga on 12-Apr-2013

In 2012 Oracle acquired four companies relevant to our Digital Marketing Technology evaluations – Eloqua, Vitrue, Involver, and Collective Intellect. Of these ... Continue Reading

New Buyer's Guide to Innovation Management Software

Added By Kashyap Kompella on 14-Mar-2013

Innovation champions often wonder whether and why they need additional tools for managing innovation, when they have already invested in collaboration and social software. That's a valid question ... Continue Reading

Oracle Social Relationship Management Suite integrates Collective Intellect, Vitrue, and Involver - sort of...

Added By Apoorv Durga on 11-Mar-2013

Last week Oracle announced integration of multiple social media services that it has acquired in recent times. Oracle calls it Social Relationship Management Suite and it consists of Collective Intellect, Involver and Vitrue ... Continue Reading

Is social marketing vendor Awareness headed off into the sunset?

Added By Kashyap Kompella on 6-Mar-2013

Most recently, Awareness focused on “Social Marketing Hub” software to help enterprises manage their presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

However, of late, we’ve noticed a few strange things that should set off warning bells for potential customers ... Continue Reading

Why Salesforce uses Oracle's digital marketing platform

Added By Apoorv Durga on 27-Feb-2013

Salesforce.com has a gap in their marketing cloud in the key area of Marketing Automation (MA). In general this is not a bad thing, since they integrate with several other MA vendors instead ... Continue Reading

What should you make of vendor market share leadership claims?

Added By Kashyap Kompella on 21-Feb-2013

Where's the fine print? You can creatively define a category that eliminates everyone else and preside over a parallel universe in which only you reside. ... Continue Reading

Salesforce Acquires EntropySoft

Added By Apoorv Durga on 6-Feb-2013

Salesforce.com has acquired EntropySoft, a French content integration and migration vendor. Some observers have speculated this is a way for Salesforce to enter the Enterprise Content Management marketplace. I think a closer look will reveal a different rationale ... Continue Reading

Flirting with enterprise technology - Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now?

Added By Irina Guseva on 6-Feb-2013

In a recent advisory call, a Real Story Group client posed her incumbent Web CMS replacement dilemma in a slightly unconventional way: “Do you think I should settle for Mr. Right Now, or should I wait for Mr. Right?” she asked me ... Continue Reading

How social software can enable consumer-led marketing

Added By Kashyap Kompella on 1-Feb-2013

Savvy marketers are adding co-creation and crowdsourcing to their toolkits as consumers are tired of one-way marketing monologues ... Continue Reading

Vendor Subway Map - 2013

Added By Tony Byrne on 29-Jan-2013

Here's the latest edition of our famous vendor subway map. With this latest iteration, we add the Cloud File Sharing marketplace, a.k.a., the beige line.

We also account for other vendor additions and subtractions -- typically via mergers and acquisitions, such as the ones that finally put Oracle firmly on the purple line ... Continue Reading

Digital Marketing Technology Evaluations - Version Two

Added By Apoorv Durga on 11-Jan-2013

We're in the process of updating our research to reflect implications of all these acquisitions and what it means for you the customer. Thus far, the products themselves haven't changed too much, but acquisitions always have an impact on roadmaps, implementation partnerships, and customer support ... Continue Reading

The Challenge of Scale Part 5 - Marketing Automation

Added By Tony Byrne on 10-Jan-2013

As Marketing Automation tools become more sophisticated, enterprises acquire the confidence to use them for increasingly larger and more frequent campaigns. Yet, we know from talking to customers that many Marketing Automation platforms will groan a bit at scale ... Continue Reading

Assessing Eloqua and Oracle

Added By Tony Byrne on 21-Dec-2012

Along with previous acquisitions in adjacent technologies, the vendor can now check off a variety of functional boxes. Enterprisey Oracle has become a (modest) force in Digital Marketing technology.

That's nice for their salespeople, who will come to your office with more goodies to ply, but what does it really offer you the customer? ... Continue Reading

How Did Our Predictions Fare in 2012?

Added By Tony Byrne on 18-Dec-2012

Every year we make predictions about the coming annum, and every year, we go back and see how our predictions actually fared. See, for example, our assessment of our 2011 predictions.

Below I'll evaluate how our 2012 predictions (from December, 2011) held up ... Continue Reading

How to handle product demos gone wrong

Added By Irina Guseva on 7-Dec-2012

If you're undertaking a selection of a WCXM or a DAM system, or any other piece of enterprise technology for that matter, you'll want to see a demo, to witness first-hand all the bells and whistles ... Continue Reading

Twelve Predictions for 2013

Added By Theresa Regli on 4-Dec-2012

Each year around this time, all the Real Story Group analysts get together to partake in some crystal-ball gazing about where the content technology market will head in the next year.

Here are our collective predictions for 2013: ... Continue Reading

What Are Your Big Challenges for 2013?

Added By Jarrod Gingras on 21-Nov-2012

This is the time of year when we start to look back and reflect on the past twelve months and begin to look forward to what's next. As some you know, in addition to our premium research and associated advisory sessions, some of our subscribers ask us to assist them in a more hands-on consultative engagement ... Continue Reading

Who's buying your analyst's dinner?

Added By Theresa Regli on 19-Nov-2012

The whole affaire, as well as a recent request I received from a Digital Asset Management vendor, reminded me that the world of technology analysis is no less shifty -- it's just that the attempted manipulation of the system for personal and business gain is of a different nature ... Continue Reading

Coke wants to tell you a story

Added By Kashyap Kompella on 15-Nov-2012

The Coca-Cola company has refashioned its corporate website as an online consumer magazine. ... Continue Reading

Coming soon - Gamification technology review, and a complimentary webinar

Added By Kashyap Kompella on 8-Nov-2012

Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), we found scant information about the practical implementation and technical aspects of gamification software for enterprise buyers. To plug this information gap, we've readied just such a guide for you ... Continue Reading