It’s great when hard work, a commitment to excellence, and a passion for people all pay off. Especially when you’re having fun doing it! As we look back over the past year, we can see all the ways that our company, our customers, and the Widen Collective^Ⓡ community have grown. What an exceptional year we had in 2019!

Widen was named a “Strong Performer” in The Forrester Wave™: Digital Asset Management For Customer Experience, Q4 2019. The report evaluated the 14 most significant digital asset management (DAM) vendors against 28 criteria grouped into three categories: current offering, strategy, and market presence. Widen was recognized for its solid usability, good workflow capabilities, and strong brand portal creation capabilities.

“Widen's strengths include strong brand portal creation capabilities and solid overall platform usability,” said the report. “These are key capabilities that democratize the DAM solution beyond traditional power users or creatives and make it a more meaningful system for business users.”
Forrester also cited Widen’s “good workflow capabilities” and noted that Widen’s “DAM-manager-as-a-service” offering is unique. According to Forrester, “Customer references noted that the UI was ‘great and intuitive.’” In addition to earning the highest possible score in the usability and user interface criterion, Widen scored the highest possible ranking in the delivery model criterion.

Widen believes that it has advanced its DAM offering by:

Visual aesthetics matter. Within 0.05 seconds, users have already made a decision about your website. The same goes for your digital asset management (DAM) system. That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of Widen design services. This new service offering helps organizations elevate their DAM sites with engaging design that enhances user experience and drives user adoption. 

While it’s easy to see the importance that design plays in user adoption, it can often be hard to prioritize it when you’re balancing everything else that comes with launching or relaunching a DAM system. With design services, customers partner with the Widen team to create inspiring and informative on-brand designs aimed at giving users a memorable DAM experience. 

Widen was among the select companies that Forrester invited to participate in The Forrester Wave™: Digital Asset Management For Customer Experience, Q2 2018. In this evaluation, Widen was cited as a Strong Performer among the top thirteen DAM solution providers.

Forrester’s analysts noted Widen’s “attractive UI” that “reference customers praised.” Moreover, Forrester says, “Partners we surveyed ranked Widen as one of the top DAM solutions they implement.” The analysts also note that “…Widen has made significant improvements to its capabilities since our last evaluation, especially in the areas of metadata, search, and work-in-progress functionality.”

Founded in Madison, Wisconsin, Widen recently opened its European headquarters in London to expand the company’s global presence and better support customers in different time zones. Recently, the company launched a string of innovations including:

We want to share more great examples and inspirations with all of you, so we're holding a little contest. You get to learn by doing. Everyone gets to learn by seeing new ways to share assets using Portals.

Build a new portal and share it with us at marketing@widen.com and we’ll send you a $10 Amazon.com gift card for building a complete portal. The Widen team will vote on our favorite portal and announce the winner of a new Apple TV on April 18.

Everything about the Widen Summit in 2016 will give you, our customers, an opportunity to Discover Your DAM Adventure! Over the last 5 years, we can’t believe how many discoveries we’ve made hosting the Widen Summit and we want you to feel the Widen Experience with us.

Thank you customers. The crowd has spoken!

Widen is honored to have been named a “Leader” in the G2 Crowd Grid℠ for Digital Asset Management | Spring 2016 report. Widen Media Collective and 20 other DAM vendors were ranked by customer satisfaction (based on user reviews) and market presence (based on market share, vendor size, and social impact). This was the first G2 Crowd report in which any DAM vendors earned the title “Leader.”

Last week, we launched a brand new Widen.com featuring a new look and feel. I sat down with Widen Brand Strategist, Nina Brakel-Schutt, who worked intensively on the site alongside our Web Designer, Danielle Templeton. Nina talked about what drove the site change, how our DAM system played a role in the re-design, and shared tips for selecting new marketing technology systems for your organization.

A spotlight interview with Mark Roberge, Chief Revenue Officer at Hubspot.

Meet Mark Roberge. Mark’s career began at Accenture where he used his developer background to write code. He then went on to a startup as an engagement manager for their client base. But things culminated at MIT business school, where he met Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of Hubspot. At the time, Mark had his own successful business, but he left it for the potential he saw in Hubspot.

We value attending and participating in live events because we know that face-to-face time is one of the best ways to connect our value, our culture and our vision with current and future customers. That’s why we are hitting the ground running with a 2016 event plan including three Widen customer regional meetups in New York City in May, Chicago in July and Los Angeles in November.