This is another minor point release to follow up on the Affino 6.0 release. There are a number of new features in this release as well as significant bug fixes. This is very much a maintenance release which aims to smooth out the Affino 6 experience.

  Upgrade Guidance

It is recommended that all Affino 6 users update to this release.

We’re not expecting any major issues with this release, but the scale of this release means that issues may arise. We recommend that eCommerce sites wait one to two weeks before updating and check on Comrz.com for any guidance.

It is recommended that you run through the complete update process starting with the Affino Updater, followed by the System Update, Re-Initialise Site, Design Element Update and Skin Update.

  Enhancements

Badge Highlights DE – new display options allow for better presentation

Blogs – Tags and Tag Clouds can now be displayed on Blogs; the Tag Clouds are displayed as part of the Blog Archive DE and are an option; the individual blog posts display the tags assigned to them; the Blog Archive is now always displayed, even at the top level

Comments and Ratings – greatly improved usability of Comments and Ratings so that they now work seamlessly throughout all content element;

Customer Ladder Analysis – new pop-up charts highlight the activity during the timeframe for each user and badge type; updated timeframes so that new 7 day, 30 day and 12 month timeframes can be viewed; fixed graphs to show more accurate data; improved the usability of the real-time activity tracker

Dashboard – updated Dashboard with three new Customer Ladder widgets: Customer Ladder, Customer Ladder Badges, Customer Ladder Members, still in Beta but you can experiment with the widgets

Dynamic Forms – added back button to the Form Entry screen, makes it easier to page through different form entries

Facebook Integration – completely reworked all the connections with Facebook; updated to work with OAuth 2.0 and the new Graph API

Forums – improved for... More

Affino 6 is the culmination of fifteen years effort to improve customer engagement online. It is the realisation of a key goal we have had since the outset to provide the tools to automate online sales and customer engagement. Affino 6 introduces the Automated Affino Customer Ladder and Social Gaming Engine, which not only provides great insight into your store and community but also automates online incentives in a highly effective manner.

eCommerce Hub

Affino Catalogues now integrate with two of the key eCommerce destinations namely eBay and Google Merchant Centre / Google Shopping. These provide great platforms for extending your online store and are a key milestone in Affino’s evolution as a Social Commerce Hub running at the centre of all your promotion, social and commercial initiative online. We’ve also rolled out deeper integration with PayPal to allow for onsite payments.

Over 300 Updates

In total Affino 6 follows the roll-out of over 300 enhancement projects. Some of these are minor usability fixes, but many are major projects with dozens of enhancements each. For more insight into all of these, see the headline features and detailed release notes below.

More Social Media

On the media side Affino now integrates with Ooyala and Wowza / Amazon EC2 for improved video delivery (it also now has a HTML 5 video player and supporting H.264, WebM and Ogg Theora and YouTube).  For social music, the Affino media library now integrates directly with SoundCloud which allows users to freely upload MP3 tracks and remixes.

Facebook Open Graph

The key Social integration in this release is Affino’s full embrace of the Facebook Open Graph. We’ve completely re-written the Meta Data created for each page, updating it to the latest standards for W3C Dublin Core and crucially including all the key Open Graph and Facebook Meta Data so that all Affino pages can become Facebook Pages and be listed in the Facebook search results. We’re also extended the Facebook and Twitter integration to Comments and the ability to have Facebook and Twitter connect buttons throughout Affino.

Upgrade Gui... More

The most significant development for Social Commerce will be for sites to lead and support customers up the customer ladder. Each rung takes a person through the higher engagement levels, starting with them getting to know you and your products right through to encouraging and supporting their evangelising on your behalf.

The next release of Affino will deliver on this golden standard in a way no platform has done.

The Background

Many years ago (1998) I was working with Carrera Technology, at the time the most awarded independent PC manufacturer in the UK. The main job I had was to give them an online computer sales platform which did everything that Dell and Compaq did, since these were the two market leaders. It became quickly apparent that the key to driving online sales was to surround each product with reviews, celebrity endorsements, nice images (media) and relevant content.

This realisation set me on the route to creating a single unified platform which handled all the content, commercial, media, promotion, community and analytics needs of an online business. This platform became Affino.

Years later (2004) I was invited to Norway by Semco and Innovatorium (which doesn’t exist any more, but Moon Walk does) as they were going to be using Affino to develop an innovation community. One of the principles driving the project was Kenneth Winther . Over a nice beer in Oslo I explained what I was trying to achieve with Affino in terms of building the ultimate online sales platform. He pointed out to me that what I was trying to achieve was to automate the Customer Ladder. The diagrams above and below highlight the very simple visual flow Kenneth sketched out for me on a napkin, and which very elegantly highlight the key stages a customer goes through.

Fast-forward to 2010 and we have a world where virtual goods have become a multi-billion dollar industry. Where people engage in virtual communities and online games (and gaming, i.e. gambling) and are very effectively encouraged to climb the ladder by making one small payment after another. The latest incarnation of this is the advent of the location-based check-in apps Foursquare and Gowalla , a big part of who’s success is their gaming engines.

It is also a time when Affino... More