I've spent a little time today watching the Marqui animated demo today, so that I could write a belated first February post where I addressed the actual operation of the product. In general, I hate animated demos, and this wasn't really an exception. I resent a company demanding my undivided attention for a fixed period of time, and I hate it even more when there's no way for me to pause or rewind if I'm interrupted or distracted while watching it.
That aside, the basic ideas that the Marqui demo gets across are solid--the focus is on the fact that people in a workflow process (PR, legal, company management, etc) each have a role in creating, editing, and approving content. Marqui is designed to facilitate that process, allowing writers to produce content, editors to modify it, and publishers to approve final release of content. What makes Marqui interesting to me is that it does more than simply publish content to a web sit when its done. It handles a variety of content distribution approaches, including sending properly-formatted XML files to news publishers, sending email announcements, and publishing content in different locations (an internet site, an intranet site, even a CEO's blog).
From the brief glimpse of interface that the demo showed, it looks pretty well-designed for non-technical users. I'm hoping to get a chance to play with it hands-on this week so that I can do a better job of evaluating it. In the meantime, it does seem well worth a look for companies that have a variety of distribution formats and a moderately complex or distributed workflow pattern.
Hi Liz,
Thanks so much for the comments on our demo. I wanted to let you know there's a little pause icon at the bottom of the screen next to the Marqui name. It's grey, so maybe you missed it. If you click on it, up will pop chapters you can move to.
I, too, get very frustrated (especially when the demo could take five minutes) when I feel held captive. So that's why we built in the pause.
Janet
Thanks for the clarification, Janet. I suspect the button was "below the fold" on my monitor, so I didn't see it. Putting it above or next to the flash movie would be really helpful...
Good point. As we make new movies, we'll take that into consideration. We always appreciate the feedback.
Cheers!