Muse will not succeed without Business Catalyst blogging integration

[rayhogge]

This is not so much a question, but rather a message which I hope Adobe will consider.

I am the managing member of a small law firm in Virginia, and am responsible for the firm's website.  I am not a web design expert or professional, but I have a reasonably good basic understanding of website design and some familiarity with html and css code.  I started the firm's website many years ago with Miscrosoft FrontPage, and then migrated to Microsoft Expression Web.  When Microsoft ended development oif Expression Web, I began looking for an alternative platform.  I tried WordPress, and found it has excellent blogging capabilities, which is a must for any modern law firm website, but found the rigidity of its layout system (unless you are a coding expert, which I am not) is incompatible with our need to be able to adopt different layouts to our various website pages.  I then tried Dreamweaver, but found that its learning curve makes it unsuited for a non-code-writing user like me.

I then discovered Muse, which seemed like a dream come true!  I can drag and drop most things, and very little knowledge of code is required, but the code is accessible if I want to tweak the site manually.  I did most of my website with Muse and was very hapy with it, but then I discovered it lacks one crucial capability - blogging.  I learned that an external blog such as Tumblr can be inserted into a website, but found that approach fails in regard to search enging optimization -  search engines do not recognize the blog content as part of the content of my website.  I then discovered that blogging is available by combining Muse with Adobe Business Catalyst.  That sounds great, until you see what actually is involved.  Bits and pieces of the website controlled by Muse, other bits and pieces controlled by Business Catalyst, and considerable coding required to put all of it together.  Totally unworkable. There are indications from Adobe that it may add blogging to Muse at some unknown time in the future, but certainly nothing someone like me can count on in choosing a website platform. 

Ultimately, I found that Weebly Pro comes closest to offering the combination of features needed by users like me.  It is easy to learn, offers extremely easy blogging, and offers considerable flexibility in page layout.  Yes, it is template based, and most of those templates are not great, but you can edit the master style sheet and achieve a satisfactory result.  In addition, many of the Weebly Pro template vendors offer reasonably good support and customization at a modest cost.  My firm is using Weebly Pro to publish our site and, while it is not everthing it could have been using Muse, at least it has a blog.  This post is not an advertisement for Weebly; I would rather use Muse.  But the lack of blogging ability in Muse makes that impossible for me and, I believe, many other users like me.

So here is my message to Adobe.  Muse is a good product, but you are killing it by selling it with no blogging ability.  It is especially hard to understand why you are doing so when one takes into account the fact that you already offfer blogging as part of your Business Catalyst platform. Can the Muse people and the Business Catalyst people not talk to each other?  Are there turf wars between the two because they are different profit centers?  What are you thinking?  I hope you are not thinking that Business Catalyst is going to make you tons of money by itself, because it is not.  I can find little in Business Catalyst that is not available from countless other sources - with the sole exception of Muse.  In summary:  Muse by itself does not offer blogging, so is not going to succeed.  Business Catalyst by itself offers nothing special, and is more expensive that comparable platforms, so is not going to succeed.  Muse and Business Catalyst, completely integrated with each other including blogging, would be perfect and unmatched for peope like me, and I think would meet with great success,provded you don't overprice it. 

I am sure Adobe does not want Muse to be compared to FrontPage, which I understand produced "ugly code" and otherwise was scorned by html purists.  But the fact is that FrontPage was wildly successful for a very long time because it was exactly what millions of drag and drop users like me needed, and still need.  Muse is in a position to be the new FrontPage (but with pretty code) if, but only if, Adobe integrates the Busines Catalyst blogging platform seamlessly into Muse. 

I would welcome a response from Adobe.

[samwan_adobe]

Hi Ray, thanks for the straightforward and detailed feedback, it's appreciated. I'm interested in hearing more about how you're using the blog, because people use blogs in all kinds of ways. Is it so you can post new content on a regular basis for current and future clients? Is it the chronological listing? Or just an easier way to update content through the browser? I'd be interested in checking out your website if you'd like to share here on the forum, or if you'd like to send the URL to me via private message.

-Sam

[rayhogge]

Sam,

Thank you for your reply.

I have two sites actually.

One is virginialaborlaw.com. There, the blog is in the home page and is to post substantive new content on a regular basis for current and future clients regarding employment law. The newest post appears at the top. Pretty much the same as a Wordpress blog.

The second site is hoggelaw.com. It currently has a blog page used for firm announcements. I plan to add at lease one more blog to this site later, which will be like virginialaborlaw.com except for elder and estate law news.

I should mention two major advantages Muse + Business Catalyst could have over Weebly, if there were a Muse + Business Catalyst.

First, in Weebly you only have control over a few style settings, e.g., site title, paragraph title, paragraph text, etc. One of the advantages of Muse is that you can control the style setting of any item through classes and easily editable style sheets. I could apply different styles to the text of announcements, news items, biographies, external links, etc. This could be a major selling point for Muse + Business Catalyst.

Second, the Weebly backup and restore function does not restore blog posts, and does not allow you to save them to an external location for backup; if your site is corrupted (e.g., by hacker), you are out of luck as far as your blog posts go, unless you make a pre-publication copy of each post as I do. I understand this limitation does not apply to Wordpress, and it should not apply to Muse + Business Catalyst since all the blog posts would reside at Adobe in Business Catalyst.

You are welcome to share this information on the forum.

Raymond L. Hogge, Jr.

Hogge Law

500 E. Plume Street, Suite 800

Norfolk, VA 23510

Tel: (757) 961-5400

Fax: (757) 962-5979

Mobile: (757) 650-3307

rayhogge@virginialaborlaw.com

www.HoggeLaw.com

www.VirginiaLaborLaw.com

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[SeekerFinder]

I am sorry for starting my first Abobe forum contribution on a somewhat frustrated note...

I could not agree more with Ray!

And Sam, no offence man, but Ray is talking about a blog, you know?  It's not complicated.  And while I am sure there are many purposes for why people use blogs, it essentially is a 'news' log.  Most companies need it these days - both for optimised SEO (generated by fresh content) and to stay current in the market.

I am very excited about what Muse 'represents' in terms of a dweb design tool.  But I wonder if it's suffering from the internal political currents so typical in big companies when technologies compete and a development stalemate takes place at the cost of the consumer - something like: 'Business Catalyst has a blog, why should we duplicate that function?'.  The reason is simplicity - Muse style. 

Recently, I found a company that seems to offer a product closest to that of Muse (though it's saas), called Webydo.  Their blogging function is not ground breaking but it offers at least some flexibility. They're still ironing out a lot of stuff but they seem to understand what designers need and they also seem to listen to their users.

I hope to see some 'agile' development happening but I can't help getting the feeling that we're dealing with a 'marriage counceling' situation between Catalyst and Muse.  Either get a divorce and compete for the assets (that's us!), or have kids already!

Seeker

[samwan_adobe]

Thanks for the links and the detailed response, Ray and Seeker. I'm sorry I haven't replied sooner, but your comments are noted.

Seeker, your point about "It's not complicated" is well taken! It's pretty trivial to set up a wordpress blog and choose a template. Customizing the design beyond tweaking a few theming parameters, however, requires editing the template code.

You mentioned that the way people use blogs is essentially a "news log". Would it be safe to say that you're describing a list of pages that share the same design with different content, maybe listed from another index page? (I know what a blog is, but I'm interested in what the "essense" of a news log means to you).

-Sam

[SeekerFinder]

Sam,

The essens of a blog 'to me' (and, I would presume to the rest of the connected world), is the ability to broadcast online, using primarily text, supplimented by various other media to enhance or illustrate the message, in a chronological fashion.

And by it not being complicated, I was referring to the concept of a blog, not using 3rd party tools.  Notwithstanding the ability to change the CMS, we would like to see a blog 'architecture', or simply the 'feature' of being able to create a blog within Muse.  Muse is already a great graphic interface tool, why not create the backbone for an Adobe blogging service, and let users design the interface as they please?  Other web-builders do this using 'blocks' or 'apps'.  Squarespace is a great example.  Snappages is another.

Seeker

[garethjjones]

I must support Ray in his request/statement.

I really want to be able to use Muse, as there is no other tool like it to create exciting, dynamic websites. I'm in the process of recreating a beautiful scrolling template from Musegrid to host my photgraphy site. But I need a Blog, or at least the facility of a blog.

Why, I need to announce that new galleries are avaiable, I need to announce new events, or events where I'll be photographing, I want to be able tocomment on 'things' realted to my industry. Yes, I have done this in Joomla (and before that Mambo) - I could go to Wordpress - but everywordpress site is beginning to look the same. I WANT to use Muse

So far I've embedded Tumblr - but it doesn't suport comments (a SEO requirement the marketeers tell me). I've played with Ghost, and using Disqus to get comments, and that may be a solution as a minimiist template would be reasnobly easy.

But the ideal solution would be something integrated into Muse. We've come a long way with websites, but they need to be updated often or they become outdated and underused.

I suspect blogging is the first step, as Muse currently creates static websites (If not tell me). It will become a dynamic tool in time.....

[aldisney_alltrades]

Sam--

Not to pile on here, because I love Muse, but integrating Business Catalyst's CMS really needs to be a top priority for your team/Adobe. While the in-context editor works okay for minor site editing (if you set it up right, and if you spend a lot of time working with your client, and if you do each and every thing just this way or that), it's kind of a cumbersome mess. Most importantly, it's not really an actual blog.

Business Catalyt's blogging functionality actually is pretty good, and if you're willing to take the time to set it up, and manually rewrite all the styles using your Muse styles, you can come out with a pretty good blog. But, there's an awful lot of time that has to go into getting all of that right (I clocked about 20h working all the tweaks out of the blog at the link).

The problem is that the same goes for all of Business Catalyst's features. I've really struggled with understanding why Muse would encourage publishing to Business Catalyst, but fail to include the ability to use it's full features.

And, not to pile on more, but this isn't a new discussion...

[senjoim]

I am so very happy I discovered this forum today while looking for a way to intergrat a blog into my personal portfolio. I had read numerous articles suggesting such a thing was not possible for absolute optimization, which is very disappointing. But I am excited to hear what may be in store, Sam.

rayhogge and others -- thank you for the post and getting Adobe staff involved!

Happy Holidays!

Steve

[janepell]

I, too, am desperate for a blogging function in Muse. I had such high hopes. As a designer with multiple businesses, I poured through tutorials and built simple stop-gap sites to add to later. I can't afford to hire a developer for several custom sites but I need to be able to blog.

Sam asked what a blog meant to the original poster: SEO, comment function, reverse chronological order content. Blog content feels and looks different from other site content and visitors sense that.

Very few businesses can survive without some form of a blog. Yes, our businesses could survive before without blogs but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has put sites on hold awaiting a solution to blogging. That's not good for business.

Fingers crossed.

Jane

[taikajim]

Hi Friends!

Visit MuseGrid site and there you will find solution for your issues.

http://www.musegrid.com/blog

Best Regards

TaikaJim

[Chuck_Braman]

It's frustrating to read through this thread and see that Sam never once addressed the straightfoward question that was raised. Is Muse going to integrate Business Catalyst's blogging engine in the future or not? If yes, please let us know. If not, please let us know. If you have no idea, well, that's not a very helpful answer, but it would be better than nothing.

I'm in agreement with everyone else who would like to see integration between BC & Muse, and am also of the opinion that the whole could be greater than the sum of its parts. But no one at Adobe seems willing to provide a straightforward answer as to whether it's coming, or whether it's even possible.

In the meantime, thank you for your great work on Muse, apart from lacking CMS integration, it is a brilliant product and indispensible for designers.

[taikajim]

Hi Chuck!

Here is a little bit information about CMS

link to that page http://forums.adobe.com/message/5999789#5999789

Best Regards

TaikaJim

[Chuck_Braman]

Thanks a lot, Jim.

That thread seems to deal only or mostly with the ICE Eding feature, which doesn't concern me all that much. The blogging integration on your MuseGrid templates is exciting, and would seem to suggest that an overall integration between Muse and Business Catalyst is something that is possible. It would be great if MuseGrid could offer the BC blogging (and other future BC integration modules) separately from the templates as well, for those of us who generally like to design from scratch.

Since Nathan's tantelizing reply from October is all we have to go on right now regarding the Muse team's intentions, it would be great if perhaps he could give us a current update of what is in store for us this year. Between his statement and MuseGrid's achievement, I'm becoming hopeful and excited!

[aldisney_alltrades]

I think that, at least for me, having real responsive features in Muse is going to be just as important as having the Business Catalyst features. Right now, Muse is becoming less of an actual website design tool, and more of a wireframing tool. It's just too difficult and time-consuming to have to go through and do everything by hand for the BC modules and build everything three times for three different layouts (then, if something changes, having to update in all three); if I'm going to have to do that, there are less-expensive hosting platforms to choose from.

[Barbara Mills]

I have really been enjoying Muse and find little to complain about.

I can see where a blogging feature would be useful, but it also seems to me that it would be pretty easy to just create a template, add a menu item "My Blog"  and pretend you had a blogging feature. That's why the Adobe person was asking what features you were looking for. For example, do you need to be away from your desk when you blog and submit by phone? Or is it just that you don't think the look and feel would be the same? Are you looking for the sidebar functions - Keywords, List of posts by date?

I'm betting these widgets will be out soon if not already.

BTW I am uploading content for some clients who are using services other than Business Catalyst and it is working pretty well with FTP upload (The FTP upload is a little tempermental)

[STONESITES]

Sam,

This is the annoying work around I came up with. I am embedding a google blog. My customers appreciate it, but I doubt it is doing much for SEO... not to mention it is a janky user experience.

http://www.sacramentocountertops.com/news-blog.html

How about putting a stop to this maddness already, and make some kinda super simple white blog. No bells or whisltes, nothing special, just a plan ole' blog. I don't think anyone is asking for the stars and moon. This really does seem like a no brainer.

[AT_Sports]

I feel late to this party, but I want to add my voice of support for better blog integration.  I too have moved sites to BC specifically for the blogging engine.  I've embedded Blogger in the past, but it is both aesthetically unpleasing and SEO useless.  The only reason my clients want to blog is for SEO.  Now that I have the sites on BC ... I'm surprised at the learning curve to integrate and style the blog.  It shouldn't be this difficult, should it?

I love Muse.  Please help me love BC!

[Nine_Design]

A blogging feature / widget would be great - but if Muse continues to be critically dependent on BC hosting for features, it is shooting itself in the foot. A lot of clients buy their own domain name and hosting (or already own it) which means we pay FULL subscription for a partial product.

[janepell]

I'm in the process of abandoning a Muse site I created because I need a blog and, furthermore, need to do it easily. The bizarre process of adding a blog through BC even if I have to pay more just isn't worth it.

After looking around at the pros and cons of all the other tools, I settled on Virb.com, which doesn't have nearly the design control I need but it's only $10/mo to host and build a site and they make blogging easy.

But I agree with you aldisney_alltrades, I am thinking of Muse more as a way to give clients a quick sense of what their site will look and feel like rather than show a paper prototype.

[STONESITES]

Truth!

[junoseven]

Adding the blogging module in BC is pretty straightforward. Don't know what the problem is. Search for one of the many helpful walkthrough videos.

Good luck.

[rlmilton]

Build this into the Muse application and move the Blogging functionality into the WebBasics+ plan and you will have LOTS of designers and developers all over this thing.  Marketing an expandable system to clients as they grow and offering the blog piece on a lower price plan would appeal to many people and it's really the baseline of any website.  Adobe, you have to know that anyone wanting a website to actually be seen (and compete for good organic search results) MUST have a blog. We are just talking about sorting the BC template default and setting the proper CSS on the Muse side so it works in BC.  Really not hard for Adobe to do for us... the customer.

[rayhogge]

I just never cease to be amazed when I see questions asking what I am looking for in a blog function.  There are not a lot of different meanings of the word "blog."

I suppose I could spend a lot of time building a "pretend" blog.  I could develope a master page, and for every faux-blog article I could make a child page for the article content.  Then I could go onto my home page and insert a new item above the old items, linked to the faux-blog article page.  Of course, navigating around would not be very much fun after I had about a couple hundred faux-blog pages.  I guess I would manually create a sidebar with the months of the faux-blog posts, and evert time I added a new faux-blog article I could edit the list and link the faux-blog page to the applicable month.  And for topical catagories I guess I could do the same.  Not quite sure how I would handle the RSS feed issue; I guess I would just manually send out a new RSS link every time I added a faux-blog article.  Bottom line is I guess I could spend several hours updating my faux-blog website every time I wanted to post an article.  OR I could use WordPress, Weebly, or some other true blog, and post the new article in 5 minutes.  It's just so hard to choose which to do!

I am happy for those who are enjoying Muse.  It's great for static websites.  But not for blogs (see definition of "blog" above).

[Barbara Mills]

So, you want topical categories, back index of months, RSS feed. You want Muse to be able to handle a couple of hundred pages, all linked chronologically. Now they know what you want.

I need that linking feature, too - I want Muse to be able to link pages automatically in a series. I have 41 pages in the site I'm working on now that I need to link in sequence.

I want Muse to be able to handle lots of pages, too.

And keywords are cool. If we post it here maybe the widget writers will come.

After having used Blogger and Wordpress and wasting lots of time sizing pictures to my liking and trying to get captions to work and converting pictures to formats that Blogger and Wordpress accept and uploading to their picture "systems", and not being able to control type well, making an extra page and linking some stuff on the sidebar seems an alternative that I cannot dismiss out of hand. I think I could do it pretty quick in Muse. Quicker than getting a nice looking caption in Blogger.

Cheers,

Barb