Widen drives a social collaboration revolution in Digital Asset Management

Feb. 22, 2013 - PRLog -- MADISON, Wis. -- Widen Enterprises, the industry innovator in Digital Asset Management (DAM) technology and the DAM partner of some of the world’s most recognized global brands, is taking a leadership role in bringing social collaboration to its industry.

The Widen Media Collective is Widen’s cloud-based digital asset management software platform.  It enables marketing organizations to easily manage, share and distribute their marketing media – from video footage to marketing collateral. The enterprise-caliber version of repositories such as DropBox, DAM software houses assets that are the lifeblood of a brand.

Widen’s transformative strategy incorporates many of the ubiquitous social collaboration and  knowledge sharing of the online consumer world.

“Our tools have always been about simplifying access, sharing and management of valuable marketing assets – and we’re now making it even more user-centric,” says Jake Athey, marketing product manager at Widen. “The knowledge sharing practices of social collaboration align perfectly with what organizations need from DAM, so we’re applying the approach across our platform.”

The platform uses a familiar five-star rating and comments system to enable users to share feedback on use cases, asset history and quality. Institutional knowledge is now packaged with the asset – leading to faster and more informed searching and selection

Collaboration is another pillar of the strategy. The Widen solution incorporates details and history view to its "Collections” (similar to lightboxes in the stock photo world). Assets can now be grouped for specific campaigns, product launches, promotions or events and shared with approved users. In addition, users with administrative permission can make individual collections globally searchable and viewable. Also available are in-app alerts to new messages and user-configurable email notifications on anything new or changed with the asset library

“By leveraging collective intelligence through proven and familiar social tools, we minimize the learning curve for our users,” adds Al Falaschi, Widen’s customer marketing manager. “This model helps marketers get more value from their investments, improve brand consistency, and access the best asset for each application in the least amount of time.”

About Widen Enterprises, Inc.
Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Widen has honed its more than 60 years of experience in premedia services and color management specifically for assisting customers with building brand equity and supporting consistent brand representation across print and Web communications. Through its inventive suite of Web-based digital asset management applications, Widen software services provide marketing networks with real-time, Web-based access to clients' digital asset libraries, subsequently eliminating manual search and file preparation time, costs related to replacing images and videos that cannot be located, and added costs for hardware, software and upgrades. For more information, visit: http://www.widen.com.