Cloud-based content platform Contentful recently announced two new apps to accelerate the development of digital experiences.
Contentful Compose and Contentful Launch were designed to allow content authors, editors, and planners to deliver and adapt content independently, without having to rely on more costly developer resources to accomplish these tasks. They also automate processes so teams can create, update, reuse, and publish content everywhere, on any platform.
“You know already that we sit in the midst of the digital-first era,” said Contentful chief executive officer Steve Sloan during a webinar announcing the apps. “One of the things that I think so many people miss right now is that this is sort of a crossing of the Rubicon moment where the companies who embrace this reality and create those compelling experiences will go on and thrive and be the leaders for the future. But the opposite is also true. The businesses that are hanging on to doing the way they’ve worked in the past, unfortunately, they’re going away right now.”
Although Contentful started out by working primarily with developers, creating APIs to allow them to build digital experiences, the company realized that the task involves other teams as well. Sloan pointed out that consumers don’t want a single digital experience, they want one that is right for the moment. To allow team members other than developers to build and modify those experiences, Contentful’s team created these apps. Compose lets editors create and modify pages and manage content, while Launch lets them group content into a release, schedule its publishing and unpublishing, and manage the associated workflows.
Customer reaction
Early access customer Huge is enthusiastic. “Not only are we a partner of Contentful’s, we are also a customer,” said Brian Fletcher, vice president, technology. “As a leading global creative agency, we have the chance to work with lots of great platforms and tools, so when it came to building our own site, we had a lot of choices. We chose Contentful to build our own site because it allows our team to push boundaries and not be constrained by technology. Compose in particular allows us to quickly make the changes we want to in a very straightforward way and it has really streamlined our process. We look forward to extending these capabilities to our customers so they too can have access to this intuitive, flexible platform.”
“We’re really inspired by everything we see our customers doing. We’re also inspired by everything we see our partners doing. We really think about our partners as sort of our cousins,” said Sloan. “That extension of our family who ensure that our customers around the world are successful as they go through either this journey where you’re taking an already amazing digital experience and adding to it or going through this for the first time.”
Pricing and availability
The new apps are available now to customers in Contentful’s two paid tiers (there’s also a free Community tier). They are included in the Enterprise plan at no extra charge, or in the Team plan for $1995 (US) per month. There’s a free 10-day trial for all tiers, although to continue using the apps after that, Community users must upgrade to a paid plan. Contentful provides video demos of Compose and Launch, and is also offering an implementation webinar tomorrow on March 25.
