Widen 2013 Year in Review and 2014 Preview

 

Hello and Happy New Year! We had a very exciting 2013 at Widen Enterprises and we look forward to sharing a strong 2014 with you.

 

 

Now serving over 250 customers worldwide, we welcomed another 66 new customers to the Widen digital asset management family. We’re delighted to be the go-to point for digital content by 200,000 users across the globe. The wide array of vertical markets turning to Widen include manufacturing (with notable niches in furniture, kitchen & bath, and apparel), electronics, sporting goods, tourism, hospitality, engineering & construction, energy, high tech, non-profits, government, education and more. Check out some of the press releases about the organizations who chose Widen in 2013.

 

For the fourth year in a row, we released our annual customer satisfaction ratings and again challenged the industry to follow suit. As we strive to deliver the best value in an overall customer experience, we’re not shy about putting our money where our mouth is. Want to learn more? Check out the blog post: We have the happiest DAM customers and we can prove it – Again or check out our “Words from our customers” Pinterest board.

 

Widen had notable coverage in the media throughout 2013. The Wisconsin State Journal celebrated our 65 years in business, and Forbes published a piece about Widen’s remarkable transition from print to digital and more about our high-tech focus and midwestern culture. Visit our news & press page to get all the latest press coverage, thought-leadership articles and press releases.

 

2013 included three major releases of the Widen Media Collective cloud-based digital asset management solution with version 6.3 in February, 6.4 in June and the SUPER 7.0 release in November. Product advancements included new features for social collaboration with comments, ratings, collection updates, read/write metadata, InDesign previews, attached docs, UI improvements, global infrastructure updates and more. We integrated Collective with other tools like Dropbox, Wordpress, Drupal, S4 Marketing Builder and launched a new asset archive extension of DAM using Amazon Glacier cold storage. All of the additions to the Widen Collective are driven by customer ideas, internal innovations and market research. Check out this bundle of links to see the press releases, blog posts and webinars for each release.

 

Our marketing and customer-facing teams consistently strive to deliver educational and informational content our customers and prospects can use. Some of the most popular resources from the year included the Admin Playbook, DAM Decision Toolkit, “lessons learned” article, white papers for creating a successful metadata schema, managing licensed assets, and DAM and your business strategy. Get direct links to many of our popular resources here or browse the entire Widen resource library. 

 

The second annual Widen User Summit was another huge success and valuable educational time for everyone involved. Over 100 customers joined us for three days of learning, networking and fun while “Inspiring Harmony” at the Monona Terrace in downtown Madison. Check out all the videos, slide decks and photos from the conference at WidenUserSummit.com.

 

We also enjoyed some quality face-time at Henry Stewart New York and Chicago, High Ed Web, HOW Interactive, An Event Apart, and a number of AMA and BMA events. Plus, we were honored to host Funk Out Cancer raising over $40,000 for cancer research. Check out these links for more details about our events and webinars in 2013.

 

We launched another new product in 2013 with Smartimage – a simple image management tool for small workgroups and organizations of all sizes. Smartimage leverages much of what we’ve learned over 15 years of developing digital media management tools and provides a simple, visual content management solution for as low as $10 per month. Learn more at Smartimage.com.

 

We also acquired the rights to Fine Uploader, the javascript uploader code library used in the Widen Media Collective and Smartimage. We’ve advanced this open source technology to serve the needs of over 500 website and application developers who’ve integrated Fine Uploader into their technologies in 2013. Learn more at FineUploader.com.

 

 

Our next release will bring more significant updates helping to empower marketing and creative people to do more of what they do best. Coming in 7.1, we’ll be adding:

Other themes in the year ahead include advancements to metadata, video, mobile, API and integrations upstream and downstream from DAM supporting Widen’s position as the best-in-class SaaS DAM solution.

 

Beyond providing world-class brand and digital asset management solutions and premedia services, Widen continues to offer more new services assisting marketing, creative and IT pros with their digital media needs. From upfront strategy development to ongoing administrative services and user engagement programs, our team of experts are in your corner to give you the confidence you need to grow or take care of the things you don’t have time to do.

 

We look forward to bringing hundreds of Widen customers together for the third annual Widen User Summit October 13-15, 2014 in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. After two incredibly worthwhile digital asset management user conferences in 2012 and 2013, we aim to create an even more meaningful Summit for DAM newbies and veterans alike. Stay tuned for more details about the venue, program and focus for the 2014 event at WidenUserSummit.com.

 

Contact us to talk more about how we can help you make the most of the your digital media investments in 2014.