Clickability, Inc., is a

web content management system A web content management system (WCM or WCMS) is a software content management system (CMS) specifically for web content. It provides website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools that help users with little knowledge of web programm ...

company. Founded in 1999, it was acquired by

Limelight Networks Edgio, Inc., formerly Limelight Networks, Inc., is an American company that provides a content delivery network (CDN) service, used for delivery of digital media content and software. As of January 2023, the company's network has more than 300 ...

in 2011. Limelight Networks sold Clickability to Upland Software in December 2013.

History

In 1999, John Girard, Jeff Freund, Sean Noonan, and Timur Yarnall started Clickability in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. After the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

burst in 2000, Clickability cut its employee number from 40 to 15. Clickability raised $7.3 million in 2000. In 2008, it raised $8 million from

Shasta Ventures Shasta Ventures is an early-stage venture capital investment firm located in Silicon Valley that invests in enterprise and technology consumer startups. It is located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. Funds Shasta's second fund of US$250 milli ...

and Convergence Partners. In 2011,

purchased Clickability. In December 2013, Limelight Networks sold Clickability to Upland Software.

Products

Clickability's first product was the "save this" tool, which the company released in late 1999 or early 2000. Other initial products were Internet tools like "email this", "print this", and a "most popular" articles list. Its products were used on hundreds of

news websites An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical. Going online created more opportunities for newspa ...

such as

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

and ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''. In 2000 and 2001,

online advertising Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...

was having running into difficulties, so Clickability decided to change its strategy to focus on creating software able to distribute content widely and concurrently to hundreds of websites. The company offered a

content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content (content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

that allowed customers to administer the material on their websites. According to ''

Information Today Information Today, Inc., is an American publishing company. It publishes Internet and technology magazines, newsletters, books, directories and online products. Information Today was previously known as Learned Information, Inc. Learned Informat ...

'', the product had four components. First, Clickability acted as clients'

infrastructure as a service The first major provider of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) was Amazon in 2008. IaaS is a cloud computing service model by means of which computing resources are supplied by a cloud services provider. The IaaS vendor provides the storage, net ...

by being their

web hosting service A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web h ...

and

content repository A content repository or content store is a database of digital content with an associated set of data management, search and access methods allowing application-independent access to the content, rather like a digital library, but with the ability ...

. Second, Clickability helped move customers onto its platform. Third, it provided a

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...

by allowing customers to manage the content throughout its creation, review, and distribution. Fourth, it provided an online forum for clients to discuss how to make optimal use of the product. In 2004, ''

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

''s Mike Heck said that Clickability cmPublish Version 4 was a

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

-based software that "won't break your budget" and has "essential content creation and administration features". According to

John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in p ...

, Clickability in 2009 had 400 million

page views In web analytics and website management, a pageview or page view, abbreviated in business to PV and occasionally called page impression, is a request to load a single HTML file ( web page) of an Internet site. On the World Wide Web, a page request ...

every month.

References

{{reflist, 30em

External links

Official website
Business software companies American companies established in 1999 Companies based in San Francisco Software companies based in California Defunct software companies of the United States