AEM Implementation

Google provides an easy to use REST API for label identification (detecting individual objects on an image), landmarks detection, sentiment analysis, logo detection and amazing optical character recognition (OCR).  These services can be used within any application with access to images.

Into the details …

Google requires registration with the Vision Services and establishing an authentication scheme for authentication and/or authorization.  The simplest authentication scheme is an “API Key”.   This scheme provides a JSON file which can be referenced in the code for authentication.

We have created an AEM service to invoke Google’s API.  This service can be referenced by any component, service, or workflow process.  We extended the OOTB workflow “Update DAM Asset” to include the additional process of calling this service for every asset added to the DAM.

Our process determines the type of annotation coming back from Google (label, landmark, sentiment, or logo) and creates a tag in the corresponding taxonomy (see screenshots above).  The process also includes an OCR Vision call, which when made extracts the text identified on the image and populates the metafield “dc:description” on the DAM asset.

AEM “Smart Tags”

Adobe has also announced a native auto asset tagging feature called “Smart Tags” in its AEM 6.2 beta version which was received very well at the Adobe Summit—The Digital Marketing Conference 2016.  Though it is not available for public yet, it would be very interesting to compare it with Google Cloud Vision API’s once available. The Google Vision / AEM integration will work in any version of AEM, not just 6.2.

Conclusion

We are very excited to see what machine learning and AI are contributing to asset repositories in terms of classification. As we keep testing, we are amazed at the great results and disappointed with few misses (It seems to always fail to recognize the Nike logo). As Chad pointed out, the results are not always accurate and for a beta release of Cloud API, we are very impressed. We would now like to see how they compare with Adobe “Smart Tagging” native feature.

First, DAM in Adobe is now called Adobe Experience Manager Assets.

Managing digital assets can be a tedious process and the time lag involved delays web site launch. Too often assets are not integrated into social media channels consistently.

Assets range from the Creative Cloud to the Marketing Cloud, so from creating assets to managing and sharing assets to multichannel delivery.

How can we shorten the time to delivery? In the Marketing Cloud, we now have Projects that allows us to manage the life cycle of a project. Inside the Project there is a dashboard that shows the assets, tasks, people, experiences, brand guidelines and workflows associated with the project.

AEM and Marketing Cloud are now connected so assets in AEM are available in both places. Since Creative Cloud and Marketing Cloud are connected, you share assets among AEM, Marketing and Creative Clouds.

Within the asset system, you can now collaborate right from within the asset. This includes annotating video, images and addressing other users in the comment. The annotation notice will take the user directly to the spot in the video where the comment is located.

The workflow process integrates directly with the asset. So while looking at the asset, you can see the workflow. The workflow also shows up in the project dashboard. In the review process, the system will collect the images associated with the project – a photo shoot for example – and you can approve all of the images at one time.

When it comes time to build the experience, the system can create different renditions, including a 360 degree view. You can assign a category to an asset and then rollout the images to your product catalog. If this is a commerce site, the images are then available right on the site.

What about reusing images in social media sites? You don’t want to just send them over to the social team without being able to continue to manage the assets. When assets are shared with the Marketing Cloud, they are available beyond AEM.

Within Adobe Social, there is a Publisher tool that can publish content to Facebook. Hopefully you have guessed that Publisher integrates with Marketing Cloud and can use assets right from there. Unfortunately, those assets get uploaded to Facebook, so they still have to be managed through Publisher.

Here are the presenter’s top 5 new features in Adobe Experience Manager 6:
– Creative and Marketing Cloud connection
– dynamic imaging or automatic renditions
– advanced video that works across devices
– meta data and search
– task and workflow management