Explore IdeasThat Shape the Future.

Artificial Intelligence is an emerging technology and industries are leveraging its advantages to maximum. But to seek the most of it, you must be familiar to its lesser known facts. Here I am introducing you to some of the interesting factors about AI which will leave you flabbergasted-

1. MASSIVE Software: Stephen Regelous developed an AI enabled software package especially for visual effects industry. Most amazing feature of this software package is that it can create up to thousands of agents at the same time programming or animating as individual. it was originally developed for “Lord of the rings” battle scene. after the successful visual effect it has been used in many popular productions including Avatar, King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia, Mountain, Blades of Glory, Eragon, Happy Feet and the list goes on.
2. Genetic algorithm: Surviving and adapting is something evolution is based on. Similarly, AI based genetic algorithm applied to bots are used for overtime learning for avoiding obstacles. It works by simulating the Darwinian selection, by selecting best for replication. Basically, it addresses the critical problems by generating random answers to the problem and eliminating the worst fitting answers in process. Ultimately it reaches to cross-pollinating best answer to the problem and the evolutionary process is called “survival of the fittest”. ever imagined a machine working alike humans do?”
3. Open letter on AI: This fact is not a happy one as In January 2015, biggest influencers including Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and dozen of AI experts signed an open letter on Artificial intelligence. Letter basically addresses researchers and experts for attaining the potential benefits from technology and prevent developing anything which might cause trouble to human kind. AI acquires ability to eradicate poverty and diseases and experts must prevent creating something which cannot be controlled.
4. Facebook’s future plans: Facebook team is currently working hard on developing something called “deep learning”. Outcome is expected to deliver an AI enabled application which processes data similarly like humans do by making use of brain cells and simulations of network. Deep learning is being developed for determining the emotions of humans, basically Facebook will start behaving psychic by predicting the response of their users. Though it is still a work in progress.
5. Breaking records in 2048 game: Speaking about technology being better than human kind, AI placed a record of highest score in 2048 of 839,732, that too without any undo. the game lasted for about 4 hours and built a 32,768 tile. even the worst AI instance at least beat 2048 tile 35,600.

Not everything about AI is rainbows and unicorns. There are some downsides to the technology and experts are expected to keep them in mind!

Designing an eCommerce website can be a complicated process as various aspects are associated with it. We need to consider the easy usability along with flexible functions to be added in the website. There is wide range of factors which are needed to be considered while designing and developing a website. It requires to be attractive yet equipped with all the important features to target the maximum audience. Let me aware you about the various factors that need to be considered while developing eCommerce website-

1. Optimal performance of website

According to studies, 57% of users do not proceed further when the website takes longer than expected to respond. Optimal performance of the website should be the main concern of the developers. If the website is not loading faster and smoothly then chances are users will quit surfing website any further. To optimize the performance, you can remove the heavy images with smaller sized pictures. Make the loading smooth and try providing your users with rich user experience.

2. Security parameters

It is important to take your users under confidence that they are surfing a secured website. Majority of users are still afraid of divulging their personal details online. By enforcing required security parameters and complying PCI standards can help you attain more users.

3. Easy to locate website

eCommerce websites can have large variety of products. It is an advantage to the users that they can choose from a large pool of available product. But sometime it becomes difficult for the users to locate the exact product they need. You need to have all the filters and sorting arrangement to make it easy for the users to locate the exact product they are looking for.

4. Contact details

Main issue with the ecommerce websites is that they ask users to login before surfing for the product. And it is nothing but an overhead if they don’t find the product they are looking for. Do yourself a favour and allow your customers to browse your products as guests. First win their trust and then earn their loyalty for you.

5. Responsive design

Users are surfing internet on different devices with different screen sizes, mostly on the mobile phones. You are expected to develop a responsive website which works just fine with the different devices and screen sizes.

By designing your E-commerce website in a perfect manner, you can easily target your audience and increase your sales to stay ahead of your competitors.

 

Email marketing is useful to the marketers despite the hype about other marketing tools. Every business is different in nature and so it require different marketing scheme suiting its nature. Depending on the nature of business, audience respond to different channels in different ways. Here I am making you aware about the benefits you can have through email marketing-

1. Better email newsletter design

Email marketing services need to be eye-catching to grab the attention of the consumer. With the ESP templates you can make your email newsletters look beautiful with the images and buttons, it gives a sleek and tidy look to the email newsletter and tempts the customers to at least have a look at it. Also, there is diverse range of drag-and-drop elements to make your custom email newsletter. You can include audio, video, gif files to make your email marketing attractive.

2. Correct Display of Email

Email templates are not just about looks but also follows effective coding to keep the display correct and careful. To do so, you’re required to code it carefully. If you’re developing email template over your own platform, you’re required to be proficient in coding but with ESP email templates, you can keep everything lined up correctly. With the diverse range of available devices, each customer has their own choice of device. Never forget that most of the emails are opened over email which means it must be compatible to the screen layout of the mobile devices for correct display. Acquitting email marketing services can assure that your email will render correctly on every device instance.

3. Gives time to organize contacts

Collecting customer contact details and managing it in different spreadsheets can be chaotic as it goes beyond keeping names and email addresses. Also at some point it becomes time consuming and cumbersome. Email marketing comes in picture here as it offers the automatic management of your contacts and organizing their data so that you can gain access to it faster and save yourself the trouble of sorting out the contacts.

4. In-build Analytics

Everybody likes faster and real-time based results. You won’t be doing something if you’re not aware where it is going. So you have an advantage here because email marketing also offer in-build analytics. You can have the insights regarding how many of your emails reached the recipient’s inbox, how many of those emails were actually opened, and how many links were clicked in the body of your email.

5. Avoids the risk of getting blacklisted

ISPs can mark you IP address as spam and can block your email to reach the inbox folder of your prospects. It means even if you are not sending marketing email, it will still make to spam folder of the recipient. Email marketing service avoid making your address from blacklisted by protecting it over the checksums.  And make sure that it reaches the inbox of the recipient.

Business enterprises are always keen to make the best out of what they have and this obsession is getting even stronger. Entrepreneurs are trying everything including 6 am meditation to reading hundreds of books to trying make through it. Improving the performance can have massive impact over the organization. Let me make you aware about some exceptional tool which can have severe impact over your productivity.

1. Automation

Sometimes, when you’re running a small business, it can feel like you have a lot on your plate. There is always so much to do with very few people and resources. But every single time you avoid writing same email, or manually completing same task, there you save some of your little time and information as well. Creativity requires time and space to grow and implementing automation can offer what you need. It doesn’t only save your time and money but also offers you room for grow your creativity. Automation can handle cash flow inconsistency, can eliminate the hassle of sorting through hundreds of emails every week.

2. Conditional Logic

Remembers if-else conditions from computer classes. We got deeper into that but it becomes complex for us when there are a lot of variables to take care of. This head scratching complexity often triggers down the sales staff. Then let me aware you what can we do about this particular situation right here! We can have a web form that supports conditional logic to solve this problem. It keeps the variable sorted and updates the team about the information they need and customers appreciate the streamlined information.

3. Customization

When you have a small business, it can be difficult to represent a consistent and recognizable image of the company. When customer interacts with your company, they sure consider every single touch-point. You might think it as only marketing trick but there is more to that, which is building trust. No customer would want to think that their financial information is at risk just because they are doing business with you. To solve this issue, you can use “white label” functionality which represent a unified brand experience to customers by removing the logos from the forms. Also, it’s the quickest customization process which is capable of cloning the previous version and adapt it newer events.

4. Payment Integration

Let me remind you about the most time-consuming process, and that is payments. You know it involve multiple procedures including requesting, receiving and distributing payments. And besides there are numerous online systems available for making payments but there can be less sophisticated clients who don’t digital payment system for making financial transaction. Let me propose you a solution to this issue, i.e. integrating payment module. A simply designed payment integration system will make your customer happier and your firm is playing productive in the meanwhile.

With the trends changing traditions, we can see major changes in the customer acquisition. Take the instance of Netflix, the way it changed the way we watch TV. With the digitization, abundance of services and products are made available to the users. Video and audio files are streamed online and CDs are something used in the past. Readers now don’t have to buy books and can have access to eBooks in instant. Remote access allows users to hop on to any device, network setting or access service, regardless of the time. Companies can now interact with their customers regularly using Chatbots and can acquire real-time data. Based on real-time data, now their decisions are data-driven and helpful in acquiring lifelong relation with customers.

Utilizing abundant data

Take the instance of companies like Netflix, Amazon, Spotify etc which uses data as an asset to personalize their content and building lifelong relations with their consumers. Netflix, in fact, was the first ever platform to utilize the recommendation engine. Whereas, Amazon generates enormous amount of data every minute and uses it to create adaptive and personalized customer journeys. Moreover, Amazon has a most genuine customer-base which trust Amazon. But to earn this loyalty from their consumers, there are genuine efforts and services offered. They deliver the product we want, intact and on time, safely packaged and offer after-delivery consumer-assistant with easy exchange and return policy.

Long Term Subscription: New Trend

In this era, consumer want to feel connected, recognized and treated as individuals. To seek this, consumers are highly reliable over service providers and digital retailers . As a result they seek consistency, value and convenience from them. Selling of the product is a past thing, now consumers trust subscription and memberships. They want to make commitment only if they are happy with the services. If you’re offering quality services, then you just got number of loyal customers lined up for a long time. Subscription and membership model is highly acquired business model which is said be to be the disruptive model. However, it also allows companies too establish direct relations with consumers. Nonetheless, it's possible with the help of disrupting technologies which makes this business model trustworthy.

Building brand image in the industry is not a one-time transaction but rather a continuous procedure which takes a lot of efforts and dedication. A brand is never just about talent or personality but rather is strategically laid perception within the consumers. It’s up to you, how you let your client perceive your company. If you want let yourself known to people in a good manner, try offering great and quality services with full satisfaction.

Building a brand reputation can be overwhelming and you might not be sure about where to start. Here I am about to spill some beans about building a great brand reputation from my personal experience-

1. Add value to your products/services

When it comes to building a reputation, who do think is on the receiving end? If you’re thinking about audience then you’re absolutely right! You are ultimately targeting your audience to attract maximum of them to engage with you for business transaction. Make certain that the services, products and content you are delivering to your audience provide them a unique value. It will not only set you apart but will also keep them begging for more.

2. Establish a strong online presence

Build a dedicated website and create a profile on every social media platform. Try every possible way to communicate with your clients so that they can have variety of communication mediums and can reach out to you easily when needed. Just make sure your clients are aware how to reach you out when they need your products or services. And there is nothing better than having a strong online presence to communicate with your end-users.

3. Remain engaged with your audience

Respond to every feedback, message, comment or anything your consumers leaves. Try to blend with them as much as possible. Create Facebook events and other forums to let your clients that to value their opinion and respond to them quickly.

4. Stand with your words, not the size of audience

As mentioned above, building your brand is a long-term process; so, you don’t need to worry if there are not much audience. No doubt having a small audience size seems daunting but still you need to continue your efforts as results will take time. So, instead of worrying about the small number of followers, focus on your words. Utilize this opportunity to establish one-to-one connections with your audience. Talk to them as you are talking to thousands because the post can be shared by them and can go beyond your existing circles.

5. Be yourself

While building your brand, keep it in mind what is it which makes your business unique and attracts customers. If everything is generic and you offer nothing unique then its not long that your business will come to halt. Be yourself, and make sure your brand reputation reflects your personality and your mission & vision and makes your business unique.

 

PHP language is the most preferred language by developers when they need to develop a dynamic application with amazing features and outstanding support. Not only this, PHP is known to power about 20 million web domains across the globe. Plus it’s solid framework allows great product delivery in terms of web application. Laravel framework is one such technology which is revolutionizing the PHP web app development. It is fully packed up with standardized approach and flexible features for both small as well as large business enterprizes with high-end functioning web application. Let me tell you about some unique features it offers-

Security

When you go live, security is the main concern because yours and your end-users’ data security is at stake. But Laravel framework take great care of security standards. For instance, when any password is saved into the database, it is encrypted by salting and hashing it. It increases the security of the data as it eliminates the issue of passwords being saved as plain text.

Unit Testing

Unit testing feature in Laravel allows pre-existing line for testing of the code prior to its release. It is another exciting feature which makes it  popular. Technically, it allows stable releases of new websites running web apps based on Laravel framework.

Architectural support to MVC

The MVC in the framework is architecturally brilliant with a clear logic and is presented fairly clearly. This, in turn, improves performance and allows documentation to be easily done.

Interactive ORM

Laravel makes Object-relational mapping or ORM easier by allowing developers to write database queries using PHP syntax rather than writing independent SQL queries. Tables in database is used for making it happen which corresponding to the PHP syntax to generate even more expressive ORM.

Wide Range of Template Availability

Best part about Laravel is developers can find high relevant and useful ready to use template. There is a wide range of templates available which makes it easier for the developers to seed content within the beautiful layout without having to create it from scratch. Moreover, it also contains widgets that easily incorporate with JS and CSS codes.

With the aforementioned features, you get the idea that it is perfectly fine to develop website using Laravel Framework.

Node.js is a runtime JavaScript specifically built over Chrome’s version 8 JavaScript engine using an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model. It’s highlights are efficient and lightweight package ecosystem, NPM, delivers the largest available ecosystem of open source libraries in the world. With the never ending efforts from  open source community there are many excellent modules enhancing capabilities to Node.js application. Socket.io is one such module to manage connections between client and server, allowing the server to retrieve and push real-time updates to clients.

Apart from open source community and sockets, there are several prominent names associated with Node.js corporate users including Microsoft, Netflix, GoDaddy, IBM, Walmart, Cisco, Groupon, Yahoo! etc with the intent of evolving and integrating diverse services in same UI. Due to the advanced option to solve almost everything, Node.js is preferred by most of the developers. Here are some Node.js best practices for you to make most out of it-

Code Organization

You can organize code into smaller pieces to stay from the the complications. Developers use this approach to understand the code as it is modularized into small parts. The key to keep things simple by envisioning how things will function not just at the given point of time, but also future.

Embrace Style Guide

Developers need to consider deciphering codebase as it is easier if you stick to a specific pattern or consistent pattern. If helps the developers to keep the code manageable and less time consuming by eliminating the need of reworking and reformatting. However, there is no standard form defined to follow. Therefore, developers or team members have to enforce standardization on their own.

Do Not Reinvent the Wheel

Node Package Manager is an online repository for publishing of open source Node.js projects. There are wide number of packages already available and try looking for the existing solutions first before developing solutions from scratch. It will save you from trouble of whole process developing a solution from scratch which is already available.

Always Use Asynchronous Methods

It’s asynchronous runtime and non0blocking IO are the most critical features. It offers extreme flexibility and speed to serve requests much faster compared to other language. In order to leverage the maximum use of it you are recommended to use asynchronous methods in code.

Recognize Errors and Downtime

Monitoring and performance products can be helpful in gaining insight regarding codebase and API used. In return, you can transcend above monitoring and measure user experiences. APM products are capable of indicating a slow loading transaction on the end-user side while suggesting the main issue.

Wrapping Up

You need to Implement and analyse the best practices of Node.js before you dive into Node.js development. Node.js is perfect fit for developing real-time web applications which its robust performance. Also excellent APIs can be create and implemented to handle the requests that are IO based and demands scalability using Node.js.

Entrepreneurs are very  influenced by the advanced features offered by WordPress and it is the first preferred choice for developing business website for them. But ever wonder what makes it so popular? There are numerous features associated with WordPress and it also offers remarkable security plugins. Here I am discussing top five most popular WordPress security plugins-

1. WordPress Security and Firewall

You know what they say about anything which is online is not safe. You can never guarantee 100% security to anything when it’s over the network. This WordPress security plugin help you keep the score of your dashboard about how secured your website is. The security scanner of this plugin is capable of recognising the changes in WordPress website to keep you aware of any potential security threat. And as a bonus it is extremely easy user interface, this plugin protects website by detecting possible threats and implementing largest security threats.

2. iThemes Security

This particular plugin offers more than 30 potential ways to secure your website against hacker attacks and other potential threats. It is available to you in two versions,free and premium as well. It very well tightens the security of the website to protect against attack. Also, for added security, it uses two-factor authentication for login and recording action logs, specifically during some certain actions.

3. BulletProof Security

It offers instant security with single click bullet security solution, as goes with the name. It strong features allows this plugin to record the number of Login attempts, checks for uploaded files and also look out for other malicious actions. Best part is it is capable of sending instant alert right away to the registered email or other contact detail in case it detects threat. It offers effective security against RFI, XSS, CRLF and SQL injection.

4. WordFence

It is another great WordPress security plugin which can protect your website from security threats. It offers various security options including IP blocking, scanning, firewall protection and activity monitoring. Best part about this security plugin is that it scans the website from scratch to locate whether it is infected or not. Premium version offers high-end security features of predefined country blocking and scheduled scan.

5. Sucuri Security

This is another security plugin which offers effective features like all sorts of tracking of various activities over the website. Users can review their activity log and locate the problem area in case your website is malfunctioning. Additional features like auditing and blacklist tracking are quite helpful for admins.