EMI Music is the biggest independent record label in the world. EMI Music represents 1,000 artists from all musical genres in 50 countries. One of its focuses is to develop and promote digital services via the Web, mobile channels, and TV throughout the world, providing fans with a rich, complete musical experience.

We have interviewed them and asked about their approach to eZ Publish, new media and content management.

How has the internet transformed EMI's approach?

In order to address evolving consumer needs, EMI Music France has intensified its marketing strategy and promotional activities on the internet. It is a fast and highly competitive industry where responsiveness is crucial for developing and sustaining market share. It is essential that we have dynamic content and an engaging Web presence.

What sort of content management solutions have you implemented? What have been the challenges and difficulties?

EMI Music France has implemented a content management platform that has allowed us to standardize our site development and maintenance process – including artist, record label and event websites. A major technical challenge was to integrate dynamic, interactive Flash elements with other content. We also needed a Web 2.0 capable content management platform that could handle RSS importing and exporting across multiple sites, manage widgets, handle multiple video formats, and so on. The overall goal of the platform is to be able to quickly deploy and easily manage quality sites that can evolve over time.

In which projects have you used eZ Publish?

We use eZ Publish as part of the platform on all of our promotional, artist, and label sites. Developed by SMILE according to our technical requirements, our platform has served as the starting point for approximately fifty live websites, including http://www.etiennedaho.com and http://www.ilovem83.com.

WebDeal, which is both a world-class eZ Publish expert and an IBM Business Partner, has now brought together the best of two worlds to the benefit of its enterprise customers.

Large enterprises need to run the best, most stable software solutions, but not even top-notch solutions will work well unless they run on powerful server systems. These server systems must in turn be sustained by an excellent hosting infrastructure.

After performing a battery of quality assurance tests, WebDeal’s technical team can now attest that the combination of eZ Systems’ eZ Publish Content Management System (CMS) and IBM System z hardware is possible on WebDeal’s premium hosting environment. WebDeal’s System z users will be able to run eZ Publish without having to make any changes to their existing server platform.

This announcement further establishes the concept of “Technical Excellence” that has become WebDeal’s trademark.

eZ Publish is eZ Systems’ award-winning, Open Source CMS for web publishing, media portals, intranets, e-commerce and extranets, while System z is IBM’s mainframe platform for the enterprise. WebDeal is the world’s leading eZ Publish hosting provider, and therefore also the most qualified to unleash all the potential of eZ Publish on mainframe platforms.

eZ is proud to announce the third book from the eZ Press: eZ Publish Advanced Content Management. This book is compatible with eZ Publish 4.0. It was written to address the needs of content managers and webmasters, providing a comprehensive advanced guide to managing content with eZ Publish. It builds upon concepts from the eZ Publish Content Management Basics book. Both books were written by Bergfrid Marie Skaara, who used her experience with eZ Publish training and project development to produce this highly practical set.

Read more HERE

I know I'm a week behind about this, but I just came across the link via Gadgetopia:  Open-source PHP applications that changed the world.  The CMS related applications that were determined world changers are listed below.

• PHP-Nuke - 1999
• eZ Publish - 2000
• osCommerce - 2000
• phpBB - 2000
• Gallery - 2001
• Drupal - 2001
• MediaWiki - 2002
• WordPress - 2003
• Joomla! - 2005
• Magento eCommerce - 2007

When you split the list into three sections, you get the feeling that PHP-Nuke, ezPublish, and osCommerce have been around for a very long time.  More importantly, you begin to think that it is time for Gallery, Drupal, and MediaWiki to either be seen as mature applications or for those applications to finally grow up.

SHARE! Magazine is a monthly community newsletter. It features interviews, stories, reviews, and comments in and around the eZ Ecosystem.

This issue is dedicated to the 2008 Open Nordic Conference. We have speakers, program and the exhibition area ready, please download the issue via the url below and read more about it. http://ez.no/company/news/share_magazine...

I have to admit that when someone submits a story and I trust them...I sometimes don't read the whole article before I publish it.  So until I read Dean Barker's Gadgetopia, I didn't realize his company, Blend Interactive, was featured in eZ's SHARE! magazine.  The irony is that if I had read an article posted at my own site by one of eZ System's own people...Dean's post wouldn't have been new news to me.  Sigh, I have been just too busy...

You may not have heard of Blend Interactive, but they do sport a decent portfolio of sites they have developed and designed.  Probably the most likely well known work from the company is the home site for the instant messaging client, Pidgin.  The SHARE! magazine features Blend Interactive, in part, because it is one of the most enthusiastic users of the eZ Publish CMS in the United States.  eZ Publish's roots is in Norway and the software is more popular in Europe.  But, as the eZ article implies, there is a push to generate more users in the United States.

The April issue of the eZ Ecosystem Newsletter is out. OneZero has been so kind designing this issue and give input in how to utilize eZ Publish and design. You can also read more about...

• eZ Publish and the focus in USA
• Sun + MySQL
• Community talk with Alain Sahli
• Site of the month
• 2008 Open Nordic Conference

Download the magazine HERE

Art of Defence GmbH and xrow GmbH have performed a security analysis of eZ Publish an eZ Components during CeBIT.

In a first analysis with the source code verification suite hypersource both products did not show any security vulnerability at source code level. Art of Defense mentioned that eZ Publish has lesser security entry points as the majority of other software.

Read the whole story and download the analysis

SHARE! Magazine is a monthly newsletter about the eZ Ecosystem. It features interviews, pictures, articles, reviews and content related to Open Source software, business and development.

In this issue, you can read more about:

eZ Systems goes to Chicago
We have interviewed Graham Tillotson who is the new Managing Director of eZ Systems North America

eZ Business?
In the world of Open Source software, leading companies have evolved new business strategies in an attempt to do something that, until recently, seemed impossible - make money while giving away their products

Site of the month
CarandDriver.com is the winner

2008 Open Nordic Conference
eZ Conference is new and improved. Sign up NOW and get a 25% discount

Contributing
Bruce Morrison on the star rating extension

Download the magazine via the article below:

http://ez.no/company/news/share_magazine_for_february_is_out

The creator of eZ Publish invites you to the 6th annual eZ Conference and it will be run together with the Open Nordic Conference and the Open Nordic Mobile event. The date is set to June 19 – 20 and this is without doubt the biggest event ever held in Europe that has a primary focus on Open Source Software. All three conferences are running at the same place at the same time, but with three different areas of focus.