Category: News and Updates

“You have an app for that”. – How many times have you used or heard this statement lately? Probably a Gazillion times, right. Undoubtedly, it is because of the huge surge in the use of mobile applications and devices for anything and everything in this world. For almost everything you do, you invariably have an application for that. The number of services that are available with an app in your mobile phone has gone beyond imagination levels. While this is good news for the app users, it puts the developers in a tad bit of pressure in creating applications that surpass existing ones. Here we look at some of the latest trends in the area of mobile app development that have been doing the rounds this year and have contributed a great deal in making beautiful apps:

1. Rapid Mobile development – As the demand for mobile applications increased rapidly, businesses have been racing ahead in the run for delivering them to customers. This put the app developers on a constant lookout for ways to shorten their app development lifecycles and deliver apps much faster. Now, there are various tools available in the market for rapid app development and we can expect to see many more in the near future. The basic idea is to reduce the time gap between the birth of a concept and delivery of the product. These tools have also proved to be quite effective as well.
2. Internet of Things (IoT) and Big data – With 2015 came large amounts of data and the increased popularity of the “Internet of Things”. It means that the data handled by various business enterprises have increased along with the idea of connecting all of their devices and objects. App developers definitely need to take such big data, as well as their analysis into consideration and ensure proper usage and incorporation of these while developing mobile apps. The same goes with the connection theory as well. I would say that it has had a major influence on app development this year. The user interface and the user experience of the apps need to be modified essentially for proper integration with IoT. Users need to have unique user experiences in order to push an app into the market and increase popularity.
3. The cloud – The all-pervasive cloud has conquered the world of mobile apps as well. Users these days want a single app to be integrated across several devices, and what better way than the cloud. App developers have been faced with the challenge of making this kind of integration possible without affecting the look and feel of the app. An advantage of this is that the data stored in the cloud makes syncing among the different devices easier, faster and more efficient, which benefits the end users as well.
4. Wearable tech – Do I even have to explain how much of an influence this has been in terms of app development? With the launch of the Apple Watch, the race for wearables started and as more and more such devices came in, like FitBit, Jawbone etc. in the fitness industry, the popularity of wearables increased. Now there is a need for developers to create mobile apps targeted at such wearables. Actually not just now, in the years to come as well.

These were just some of the trends in mobile app development that have conquered the industry in a big way in 2015. There are also many other trends worth looking out for as well, like streaming content and digital media, e-commerce, increased use of HTML5, mobile marketing techniques etc. As is evident, these have enough potential to transform app development into a huge industry by itself. They definitely contribute to a richer user experience for users as well.

What other trends do you think have come up in mobile app development this year? Share with us in the comments below.

Apple alleges that its new iOS 9, released on September 16, 2015 will make people ‘do more and leave them wondering how they ever did without it’. What can be so fundamental that we missed for so long and never realized that we did? After all, what’s in it that the Apple is so proud about?

The new iOS brings subtle design changes, improved functionality, more refined features and performance enhancements. There are major enhancements made to apps, multitasking has been made much better with new 3D app carousel (an improved version of Android’s multitasking window), a made-over Siri, new built-in iCloud Drive that lets user store, see, access and manage all files in icloud drive, improved security and productivity- all are part of the new iOS now. Apple seems to be playing a catch up game with Android, by incorporating a deep battery saving mode in iOS 9, for phones in their dire power straits.
Apart from the usual well-versed features, are there any key improvements worth a bite? Yes, there are. Here are 9 of such cool factors that make you awe at the finest tweaks Apple has brought in its new version:

Search through settings
No idea where to find the “Location Services” in settings? Don’t worry, there’s now a search option at the top in the Settings menu, where you can enter your query, like “Location service” and get every matching result appear right there, from where you can easily access it. A very useful feature indeed to quickly search for features. iOS 9 also has a spotlight search at the top with which users can search through the different Apps to find a particular app they need to open.
Wi-Fi Assist
A feature that is enabled by default, to allow users automatically switch to the phone’s data connection, if the Wi-Fi connection they use becomes spotty. The feature is available in, Settings->Cellular-> Wi-Fi Assist.
Switching between Apps
iOS 9 brings the ability to swap back to the previous app you were using. For instance, you opened a new built-in App, like the Mail or the App store; the OS will show a quick shortcut in the top left corner to switch back to your previously opened app.
Going back quickly
The Back button at the top left corner of iOS 9 interface helps you swap between apps to check links or maps. It helps a lot to navigate around quickly than having to double tap the Home button like before.
Slip Screen
Hey iPad owners, make use of the Slide Over feature in iOS 9 by sliding your finger from the right. This feature has a second app as its sidebar. iPad Air 2/ iPad Pro users can tap and drag the Slide Over border line to use an advanced Split View.
Smarter searches
iOS 9 learns your preferences over time and will present you with smarter search recommendations. It is available when you swipe left from the main screen and will show your most frequently used apps, contacts, locations etc. first and the rest below on further scrolling.
Block out Ads
Ads are a great nuisance unless they are highly personalized, that is, about something we really need, which is not often the case. Most often users wish if ads were poppers which they can be popped off. You can do just that with new iOS 9. The “Content Blockers” work like desktop ad blockers, to block ads, tracking attempts, and more that in turn makes faster page loads.
Select multiple photos, hide photos, and find selfies easily
From within the main Photos app, you can select multiple photos easily. Tap “Select” tab, and hold and drag to select multiple consecutive images, just as the click and drag selection in computers. You can also hide sensitive images from the general view via the “Hide” option in the “Share” menu. These images can be made visible from the Albums view in the app. Another surprise for Selfie fans is that, iOS 9 keeps the photos taken with your front cam in a separate folder, enabling easy access to your smashing selfies!
Picture in Picture
The picture-in-picture technology in iOS 9 lets user scale down a streaming video to the bottom of the screen. You can open any other app like, mail and still see the video playing in a reduced screen below.
If you are planning to get the new iPhone 6s and 6s plus, you can enable even more features with new hardware like 4k video recording and 3D touch, but everyone can’t sell kidneys to get latest iPhones every year, right?

iOS 9 has brought the tiniest and finest changes that actually make your life a lot easier. You will be left thinking, “Wow, did they actually make this tiny tweak that makes my work a lot easier”?!
All these clearly justify the fact that the new OS has reached nearly 12% adoption in less than a day since its release into the wild (which is better than its previous version)!
However, I would suggest you to wait a little longer before updating. The OS is good to go with iPhone 4s and above versions but with other borderline devices, be slow people, the OS might work but the device could get extremely slow.

Image credits: Alexey Boldin / Shutterstock.com

The Android 6.0 Marshmallow (Android M) first announced back in June, at the Google I/O 2015 conference is hatching out the egg in the fall. The developer preview is already available for devices like, the HTC Nexus 9, the LG Nexus 5, the Asus Nexus Player and the Motorola Nexus 6, which is a clear indication that the final update will also land on Nexus devices before any other OEMs. PC advisor reports that the LG Nexus 5 and the Google Nexus 6 (hitting markets by November) will be the lucky ones to first experience the new OS update, in next few weeks.

Are you a Nexus user? If not, there is nothing much to get too excited about, because you may have to wait a little longer before manufacturers make Android Marshmallow available to other compatible phones, like Motorola, Sony, LG and Samsung, probably by early 2016. Also, there are phones (like HTC One M8 eye,) on which there are no signs of even Android Lollipop update yet. As of September 7, 2015, only 21% of android devices got the Lollipop update, where 39.2% were still using KitKat. So, if you have a phone that currently runs Lollipop, chances are that you get Android M update by the start of 2016 and if not, the choice is yours: do you want a new phone or ignore this blog and count your chickens?

About its final update, Google says, ‘this final API update is fairly incremental compared to previous developer preview version’. While Android’s previous version, the Lollipop, was a design centric update, Marshmallow is going to the basics with more focus on polishing the existing features, improving the core experiences and fixing the swarm of bugs in previous update. The following are the most significant changes we shall see in Android M:

Now on tap
This feature simply extends the smart assistant, Google Now’s concept, across the entire OS. So, regardless of what you are doing, you can use this Android assistant to get contextual information about whatever is running on the mobile screen. For instance, while watching a YouTube video, this feature lets you get more details about someone in this video, without leaving the app, by simply tapping and holding down the home button. Or, if a friend asked you out for dinner in a text message, you can get restaurant suggestions right there. You can also do a voice search, saying, “OK Google”.

User-facing App permission controls
“The App needs access to the following, Allow?” Every one of us, the Android users has seen this while installing applications from the Android Play store. Android Marshmallow will have this question moved from here to when you open an installed app for the first time. Rather than asking permission to access a long list of ‘necessary/ unnecessary’ functions at a time, each app will now get individual permissions to the device functions it needs to work with. This provides user complete control over the applications that they install and protects any privacy issue. For example, suppose you are trying to send a Whatsapp voice message for the first time, the system will then prompt you, ‘Whatsapp is trying to access your microphone, allow?’ It would mean that you simply don’t have to grant permission to an app for an insensible request. For example, why should you allow a Picture editing app access your contact list? This setting can also be turned off in App settings.

Doze
This feature helps improve the battery life of devices, resolving the unpredictable standby times on phones. The verge reports that the feature when tested in Nexus 9 tablet, nearly doubled the standby time. The feature uses significant motion detection to learn your phone usage pattern, when it is frequently, mildly and not used. If the device has been left without any activity for a while, it will then take the phone to a deep sleep mode, where it cuts down the background apps, makes the update checks less frequent, while still staying alert to calls, texts, and other important things. A report from 9 to 5 Google says that while testing the beta on the LG Nexus 5 from 2013, the OS enhanced its battery by threefold.

Automatic Backup and Restore
What Android was missing for years! Android Marshmallow will allow automatic backups for apps and app settings (while connected to a Wi-Fi network) to your Google drive with up to a limit of 25MB per app. So no worries if you change the phones or reset it, because when you reinstall it, the app settings and previous data are automatically restored.

Shift to API level 23/ Fingerprint API
Android Marshmallow natively supports fingerprint scanners not just to unlock phones, but also to authorize payments offline via Android Pay (like Apple Pay) or to use with any Play store apps. Users can forget entering card details to confirm purchases and authorize the purchase with their fingerprints. Similarly, adding fingerprint authorization to apps helps you seamlessly access and use those apps from different devices and sensors.
Android M would have a new RAM manager located front and center in ‘Settings’ that allows users to check and manage the memory/RAM consumption of different apps. It will have a rotating home screen, a 3-5 times faster charging mechanism with its USB Type C feature, and will improve the Chrome browser, Google Now, Google Photos and more. Speculations aside, what other things Android 6.0 Marshmallow will bring with it is still a surprise, Google is always about making users happy, you see.

Image Credits: Technobuffalo

What had so far been a hot topic of debate over the past few years has now bloomed into a new trending concept for some, and a way of life for some others. The concept of course, had been doing the rounds for quite some, until finally being accepted and practiced. Now, it has become worthy of being considered as a growing trend, and being assessed and evaluated in terms of future prospects. I’m talking about the so-called “sharing economy”, that benefits the users or the consumers, the service providers as well as the intermediates. According to a recent report by PwC, the global size of the sharing economy in five key sectors was approximately US $15 billion in 2014 and it is expected to reach US$ 335 billion by 2025. It definitely seems like it’s on its way towards becoming a common thing for people.

Robert Vaughn, an economist at PwC said, “ The sharing economy is a result of long-term mega trends colliding together, driven mainly by advances in technology, resource scarcity, and social change.” Couldn’t have put it better.

The two most used or most popular (of late), representatives of this particular concept are Uber and AirBnb. Their success is not just a passing fad or a fantasy. They mean business and a new form of business at that. Now, what is it that help these companies achieve more than their other counterparts?

A simple explanation could very well be the fact that sharing, makes everyone’s lives easier. Both AirBnb and Uber revolve around this fundamental fact, of sharing and rational living. It basically helps everyone involved. They have gone as far as influencing the minds of more and more people to use and enjoy something without having to own it. Whether it is by sharing rides like as in Uber or renting something for extra income as in AirBnb, people have accepted them as a way of life.

What do they teach us?

Let’s take the case of Uber for the sake of arriving at an “economic rationale”. As rightly put by Julio Alonso, “ with two assets without any technology, it is difficult to seize prey; free time individuals who are not professional drivers and their private vehicles.” This holds good in case of a number of other assets as well and for the same reason, AirBnb and Uber have paved the way towards more such rational sharing of idle assets such as garages, commercial buildings, offices and even industrial plants. This could be applied to even a retail store, where it could be rented for a few hours. This means that the trend is fast growing in diversity as well with new kinds of industries and platforms pitching in.

Both these companies have taught us how even with tiny bits of inefficiencies initially, or with tiny gaps while implementing technology, a whole new business model can be created and transformed with very little costs involved. An already existing or rather obsolete concept was given shape and wings to fly in a little time and with little resources. It shows how to make use of scarce resources and put them together to make a brand new idea. One that has the potential to bring about an industrial revolution I would say. Funny, how we always learnt throughout our academic lives about rational usage of scarce resources and everything, and how long it took us to finally arrive at a solution. It was like the solution was always in plain sight, waiting for us to see it.

This is just the beginning of sharing economy. AirBnb and Uber can probably be said to be the pioneers in this regard and they have laid quite a strong base for us to build on and follow their paths. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll see more of shared spaces and assets and yet, people living in harmony and peace.

If you are like me, you would have fantasized: ‘IoT would bring my reign, treat me like a Prince and put me in a world of sheer convenience’. Oh wait, does the monarchical system feel a bit too old or overstated? Ok, let’s fast forward to the ‘Democracy’, where you at least thought, the IoT will let you be like Richie Rich, “the poor little rich boy” with a ‘Dollar’matian dog, who had nearly everything automated around him.
No wonder, because with IoT, – “Everything that can be automated will be automated”- said Robert Cannon, Internet law and Policy Expert.

Internet of Things– the new buzz is certainly the next big thing you are going to witness, whether you are its fan or critic! In a nutshell, Internet of things, also called Internet of Everything (IoT) is a network into which the everyday things in our life (like phones, car, laptop, tea machine, alarms and anything with an ‘on & off’ switch to internet) are connected for machine to machine communication within themselves to accomplish tasks. After an era of connecting places and people, the Internet of Future is all geared up to connect every object/thing in our day to day life. It took a decade to deploy the first billion internet-connected sensors, a billion more sensors were deployed in the year 2013 alone, and now we are on our way to a trillion connected devices, very soon we’ll see everything connected to this network.

As it has been at every point of this development, with a lot of conveniences and possibilities come the open chances to insecurity, vulnerability, and privacy breach. And with IoT, these aren’t the regular “my remote knows my email password” type of issues, but are going to be more severe vulnerabilities. Trust me, you ain’t seen nothing if you thought Viruses, Trojans, rogue security software or phishing attacks were serious security issues, because your total security in future- whether you use or don’t use computers/internet, is under the nose tip of: THE INTERNET OF THINGS!!!
While making life convenient and comfortable, the availability, use and exchange of private data during the courses of providing various IoT services/applications will also generate severe security/ privacy issues. More and more private information will be fed into machines and when these machines go online, there stands a possibility for hackers too to access these. “We have created a whole new playground for attackers to dream up things to do — whether it is nuisance, whether it is theft or whether it is violence”, says Jeff Greene, senior policy counsel at Symantec, and co-chair of the NSTAC task force.

…There you see Richie’s fancy Mansion slowly fading and evolving into Mario’s dreaded Sky Island 18 hole challenge…

Let’s see how the IoT will challenge its adopters,

Top security challenges that IoT would encounter:

• Too many points of breach: In IoT, every device and sensors would represent a potential risk. How confident can companies be about their huge number of devices connected in IoT, their ability to preserve the confidentiality and integrity of Data? Researchers at Eurecom technology institute, France, downloaded 32000 firmware images from potential IoT device manufacturers and found 38 new vulnerabilities in more than 693 images that were extended to over 123 products. These vulnerabilities included poor encryption or loopholes to unauthorized access and affected nearly 140K devices in the Internet.
• Unlawful Surveillance: The various objects connected to the IoT via internet connecting modules in it, like toys, cars, keys or home appliances can be potential threat of illegal surveillances. For instance, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had to file a complaint against the wireless camera production company, TRENDnet Inc. in 2013, as the videos recorded by nearly 700 of their cameras were hacked and put up with insecure internet links. This was due to the lack of proper security guidelines for the wireless cameras. Similar issues can happen in IoT where a lot of personal things used every day can compromise your privacy or security to criminals who can access even more information through your compromised/less secure things in the network. Economist reports that 60% of the surveyed business leaders think that security and privacy issues will hamper uptake of IoT by customers.
• The integrity and reliability of data collected: IoT will bring data from all sort of sensors connected in its network to corporate systems. Organizations can’t be sure whether all these data are secure, compromised or interfered with.
• All sort of personal data up there in the network and you expect privacy? With all sort of data collected from our daily lives, IoT will help us make smarter decisions and bring smarter solutions. But, what if the data collected by different devices get compromised at any point? Criminals will be able to actively intrude in private lives of people. A similar breach happened recently with a Japanese automated toilet, where Trustwave Holdings Inc’s consultant, Daniel Crowley hacked it, and was able to play music or make it flush randomly.

Nevertheless, the impact of such smart connected devices is expected to be in trillions annually, which lured the eyes of many, who argued that proper regulations and policies can very well apply brakes to such malpractices with IoT. Enterprise IT managers, policy makers, and other smart guarding brains have shielded us from challenges arising with every innovative technology, with the help of even better technology and policies to lessen such risks. If consumers, developers and providers clearly understand the security issues associated with the different modules, providing best IoT solutions with security and privacy factors kept intact wouldn’t be an unattainable goal, though it will be tricky.

The logistics industry has been undergoing a series of transformations for the past few years. Things that seemed like science fiction in the past, like augmented reality and 3D printing, are actually becoming part of the industry. Technology is being used widely today in order to provide faster and more reliable delivery services. In the future, we can see a lot more technology and innovation shaping the entire concept of logistics.

While we are on the subject of innovations and trends in the logistics industry, let us discuss 3 such smart technology trends in 2015, which are greatly influencing logistics and supply chain management:

1. Carrier technology – The latest advancement in the area of carrier technology is that smaller trucking companies are being given access to the technology support and operations that bigger companies use to manage. Earlier, small motor carrier companies, especially ones in the truckload segment, were always ignored when it came to the technology provision aspect. It was always the bigger companies, who could spend more on user fees and upgrades, that became the targets of technology providers. Hence, the smaller companies stuck to little or no technology at all and suffered from a lack of efficiency in their operations. It was not until recently, that this trend began to see a change. Companies like 10-4 systems have started developing technology solutions for carrier companies so that they can compete better in the industry. Carrier technology is set to be a turning point in the whole industry as it helps companies manage their demand planning and at the same time reduce wastage in their value chains. It also helps smaller companies grow by enabling them to generate better cash flow.
2. Web services – One of the biggest factors that was holding back the supply chain industry is its undue reliability on unreliable data, and the lack of efficiency and effectiveness in data transmission. Sharing of important information was always through technologies like EDI, fax and email. This year, we are going to see widespread use of web services and also a set standard for the language used for transmission of data. Several companies like Project44 have already taken the lead in this regard. This is going to have a significant impact on the whole supply chain industry, as it will change the way companies perform complex demand analysis, reduce wastage and shall transform the way that companies charge for their services. Clearly, a much-needed change.
3. Integrated supply chains – Integration between supply chains world over, not only enables instant online freight booking, but also enables the traders to serve their customers while simultaneously allowing traders to manage their connections with their transportation vendors. Such an integration will reduce the overall cost of logistics because it eliminates the need for intermediaries at various levels of the supply chain in the course of shipping products. This again, will make use of technologies like cloud services and pave the way for a more effective management of operations.

Technologies like these are soon becoming mainstream and are revolutionizing the logistics and supply chain industry. They clearly help overcome the challenges that the industry has been facing till recently. As a matter of fact, in the course of time these are most likely to bring the highest level of sophistication and much-needed efficiency in the industry. They will surely help in building stronger, more effective supply chains as well.

When Google announced its plan to start exploring the design field, the effort was very much appreciated and anticipated. Without a doubt, Google’s ‘Material design’ concept released in June 25, 2014 at the Google I/O conference is winning hearts. Material Design unifies Google’s expansive product range across various platforms and devices, under a consistent rich set of digital design styles and principles. These principles are backed with well-planned, solid guidelines that emphasize factors like, color, depth, weight, usability etc.

Is Flat design already on its way to become a passing fad?
When Google first released Jelly Bean, “flatness” was the trend- it said to get rid of whatever possible to make things plain, straight and flat. The design was simple and easy to use with more focus on functionalities, usability, speed of loading and actual working of the interface, compared to the skeuomorphic method which focused mainly on the looks of the interface.
As the name implies, it depicts something that is lying flat on a single surface without any 3-dimensional element in it to render a real world look, or an ability to interact. It was like a black board wiped clean.It removed all appearance styling stuff like gradients, texture, drop shadows and any decoration that imparted a 3 dimensional look for the design, and focused mainly on the interaction of simple icons, candid color schemes and typography. And for the same reason the design was found to be limiting in many cases, constraining us to simple shapes, colors, and icons. Its ubiquity made the sites look so generic, featureless and sometimes like a mid-2010 style if left without timely redesign. Another major drawback was that flat design failed to represent certain sites and apps systematically, which left users like you and me lost and strayed off the flow. It was short of complex visual cues which could actually guide confused users through the process. If you noticed, it was even difficult to distinguish between clickable buttons and static vector graphics because of the unavailability of raised edges and drop shadows. Flat made things extremely flat, that it became too much radical in getting away with all skeuomorphs, even those which were helpful to users. Overuse of the flat design concept began to give sites a monotonous look.

Material Design
Material design, on the other hand, is an evolution of flat design and is multidimensional, taking the 3rd Z axis (apart from the x and y axis) into consideration. Material design makes use of a bit of skeuomorphism and has an element of physics in it. It is based on physical/material objects taking into consideration its depth, edges, shadows, surfaces etc. This allows a more engaging user experience, perfect usability and is like the marriage of real and digital worlds.

Why/Where should you choose Material over Flat?

• When flat design was perfect for simple designs like logos or graphic design, the complex representations like website design called for a more interactive user experience, something more than what flat offered. Material design thus came in as a reactive response to flat design practices.
• It also helped lessen Android’s design inconsistencies, unappealing themes, lack of proper documentations and overuse of Hamburger menu.
• Though both looks almost similar to a novice, an important difference is that Material Design makes the hierarchy clear with proper use of shadows and lights, which flat did not. For instance, we can clearly understand the position of an object (if it is below or above) simply by the way its shadow has been projected.
• The 3-dimensional arrangement gives a real look and makes it easy to interact with.
•  As it has built-in animations, there is no overhead of handling animations manually.
• The extensive use of animations really helps understanding the hierarchy, make things vibrant.
• Material design, sure gives some guidelines, which have been quite a debate point. Some thinks that it’s a limitation to apply your creativity. But in this world with all kind of applications- good, bad, and the ugly, these well-defined principles gives a standardization for designing the apps, it is no more wild guesses anymore.
• Whatever device you design, there are possessing standards available in the design language for every detail.
• Animations are useful to extrapolate to other parts of the design.
• It helped unify how things looked in different android devices. Material design has been a great relief to developers, who struggled to make an app look similar on multiple devices.

Limitations of Material Design
The immense positive responses for material design have virtually erased the negative aspects of it. That doesn’t mean material design come without its limitations. There are a few things that might not please everyone, some are of the opinion that:

• Being so clearly marked the guidelines, they can’t use creativity so much.
• Animations clearly consume more battery.
• The animations and complex graphics can result in slow loading, compared to flat websites that are too fast and easy to use.
• Drop shadow, transform/translate transitions, color fill, can make things jerky and slow. Not all users have extremely fast devices like Google’s designers.
• Overuse of images, colors and animations can be visually distracting.

Both have so much in similar and there is no solid reasoning to choose one over the other. It all comes down to a matter of preference on the designer’s part to choose between a fancy website with colors and animations, and website that is too simple and easy to use. That being said, top designers from leading firms like IDEO, Obvious Corp., Khosla Ventures, Human and more, think that the Material Design is very cool, and most of the popular apps are already embracing the new design language fervently.
Material Design: A passing trend or here to stay?
Material Design has certain elements of fundamental design practices that are strong to stand the test of time, which is why I believe Material design is not just a trend, or being eye-candy. In earlier cases, the success of iOS and crack of Android was based on the UI and UX. But Google has finally come up with a design language that is a perfect response to popular design trends by Microsoft and Apple. It really seems practical from its current popularity and vast adoption, and also has immense adapting capability. Two years down the lane, it might not look the same, but you see, the concept promises a long reign.

Do you think social media marketing is important for your business? If yes, do you use social media channels on a regular basis? If your answer is yes, then great. What if you didn’t post a tweet today, or in the last one week? What’s going to go wrong, right? (That’s an oxymoron!).

Well, what’s going to go wrong, is probably your entire business. Yes, it is that important. According to a recent study, about 1.7 billion people in the world use social media. That accounts for almost a quarter of the world. Which means, if there is anything that you want people to know, or if you want to know about something, chances are, that you either put it up on a social media channel, or read it up through one, respectively. What started off as a secondary marketing technique by, let’s say around early 2000, has now become THE MOST influential tool for marketing in a few years. So, as much as you need to be active on your social media networks, you need to also keep yourself updated with all the latest trends in social media as well, don’t you think?

Here are the top 3 trends in social media marketing.

1. SoLoMo – Since social media marketing and advertising through mobiles have been gaining popularity lately, and since social media is one of the most popular channels for digital content, there has arisen a new marketing mix, involving all these 3 factors. It is called SoLoMo, which is an acronym for Social, Local and Mobile based marketing plans. TechTarget defines SoLoMo as “a term representing the convergence of collaborative, location-based and on-the-go technologies primarily used for marketing and discovery purposes.” Some examples of apps using this technique are FourSquare, Yelp etc. You need to really engage with your customers through social networking sites and keep your online marketing efforts in line with your offline efforts. You need to also reach out to your customers wherever necessary, through location-based apps that compliment your facebook and twitter ads.

   

2. Twitter trends – According to a recent Twitter survey, apparently almost 61% of Twitter users follow various businesses online to share their opinions and ideas. Promoted trends on Twitter have had a pretty huge impact in this regard. 32% of users said that they are more likely to follow and even visit certain businesses after they see a promoted tweet from them that relates to their personal interests or ideas. Promoted trends are basically time-based, context-based and situation-based trends in Twitter, promoted by the advertisers. Just like trending topics, promoted tweets are also visible to all Twitter users and on clicking on them, the users will be shown all tweets that contain the trending hashtags or terms. These are very effective when you want to disseminate mass awareness about a particular product of yours. You can concentrate on a targeted niche of users every time you launch a new product or service too.

   This is an example of what a promoted trend on Twitter looks like:

   

3. Visual content – Whether it is on Facebook or Twitter or any social media channel, visual content never fails to attract us. It has been found that posts on social media channels with videos, attract up to 3 times more inbound links than regular text posts. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc. are some platforms that businesses utilize, to post videos and launch video advertisements through. Companies can run visual content marketing campaigns to increase their profits as well. Visual content marketing campaigns involve content in several forms such as animated GIFs, images, infographics, videos etc. or anything that attracts you. Various organizations have carried out such campaigns and have experienced tremendous increase in customer engagement and hence their profits.

These trends, along with a number of upcoming trends in the world of social media marketing are sure to bring about a revolution in this field. As influential as these are, the impact that they are going to create in this regard is also going to be pretty huge. What do you think are likely to affect industries in a big way?? Let us know in the comments below.

Feeling particularly jubilant today? You think you have an idea that could possibly shake or break and remake a preexisting idea that has been widely accepted as the “norm” or “The current in-thing”? Well, I hope you take that idea of yours and give it a life. I hope even more that your idea becomes accepted as the new norm.
Wait, if that idea of yours has anything to do with Information Technology, let’s discuss it a little more…
If you have already tasted success, you must be enjoying your 15 minutes/days/months of fame, but I sincerely hope you are not thinking of riding off into the sunset. Why? You see, by now that idea of yours has had its genes tweaked, dressed up in fancy new attire, given a new name and stands a pretty good chance of being cast in the sequel to your blockbuster movie; only this time it’s not you who is in the director’s seat. You have got to up your game else you are down and out for the count.

Why Orkut went to the grave and Facebook is still young and dynamic
Let me explain with a few examples. Hi5, Zorpia, Orkut and many more social networking sites once enjoyed a good user base till something else came along, took what was already there, made it better and nuked the competition. Why has Facebook held the pole position among the social networking sites for almost a decade? There may be many reasons for this, but I think it’s mainly because Facebook never stopped trying to stay relevant. The Facebook mobile app is updated every 2 weeks for crying out loud! And updates to the website are rolled out daily. What was first a slick new social network, got regular doses of steroids and augmentations. The wall, news feed, privacy settings, etc. are all features that kept it in the game and relevant. It’s not like they never got anything wrong, not every new feature was entirely original (for eg. The tagging and tapping as in Twitter), nor did every once-popular feature enjoy a 10 year lifetime. By listening to users and by studying user analytics, Facebook quietly discontinued features that didn’t have much activity and introduced new features that were trending or set a new trend.
You may have the next WhatsApp-like app, but there are plenty of other apps that now have the same functionality.

How to make your idea future proof?
If your App was a smash hit in 2012 when iOS 6.x and Jelly Bean was cool, you need to update the look and functionality of your app to better suit iOS 8.x and Lollipop in 2015. That is how you stay relevant. Study the competition, listen to your users and be in sync with the times. So give your tech full body armor, a mini-nuke launcher and wings (or at least a jetpack) because not all tech is as reliable and future-proof as the T-101. We are fresh out of body armor, mini-nukes, wings and jetpacks here at Fingent but sure can help you out with technologies that we constantly attempt to make future proof.

The demand for field service management solutions has been on the rise for a very long time now and it has reached an all time high. According to a recent research by Gartner, the revenue from field service and workforce management systems comes to around $1.3 billion annually. The kinds of technology used for field management has been transforming the way field agents worked in their sites. Field service management solutions have gone a long way in increasing workforce productivity as well as improving collaboration among the field service employees. Now let’s see what other kinds of technologies are set to revolutionize the industry.

Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things is something that has had a huge impact in terms of productivity, as with this, you can practically access or even process and transmit information from pretty much any object. Machine to Machine communication (M2M) has been in use in the field service industry for quite some time now. With IoT, this system of sending and receiving signals from one device to another can expand and go beyond its boundaries to include a whole network of devices. According to a leading M2M solutions provider, “M2M is essentially about connecting and communicating with a thing, where a ‘thing’ may be a machine, a device or a sensor – basically anything that can send data whereas IoT goes beyond connecting computers with things. It represents things connecting with systems including business applications, ERP, and CRM systems, analytics systems, data warehouses and also people (workers, employees, customers)”. It basically means they have a much larger scope. Their potential is so vast, that it can range from enabling emergency service alerts in the case of search and rescue operations or even helping energy companies detect problems early on using alerts and predictive analysis. For example, a crack in a water pipe or a waste pipe can be identified using sensors and can reported to the control center with the help of alerts. Through this, the technician can repair the damage before it causes any severe problems. Similarly, IoT with cloud-based services and remote machines can send location information, status details as well as other such condition based service information., that can influence the world of field services greatly.

Augmented reality and wearables

Augmented reality is one technology that will definitely have a huge impact on the way field service agents work. When leveraged with wearable technology, workers get to actually experience real world situations and issues with the help of computer-generated sensory inputs such as sounds, videos, graphics etc. For example, a field worker can analyze the equipment or areas he is working on by augmented reality enabled glasses and identify the exact cause of the issue and remedy for it too. Hence, it becomes much easier for him to make the repairs in reality. Thus, augmented reality and wearables are actually 2 faces of a single coin, as one is supplemented by the other. They streamline field service management, introduce new and improved ways of working and interacting with people through Smart Watches, mobile phones, Smart Glasses etc.

3D Printing

This is also a technology that has been in the industry for several years now. It greatly helps field service managers and agents generate parts or equipments that they might need in their work in 3D. For example, if a repair requires a particular equipment or tool or part that is not available with you at the moment or is low on stock, you might need to put off your service visit for days or weeks. With 3D printing, you are relieved of such an issue. It provides an efficient system for parts management. It helps you create anything on the spot, with the help of a 3D printer, provided you have the required diagrammatics for it. According to Gartner, over the next three years, 3D printing is likely to reach a turning point, as the demand for low-cost printing devices is increasing rapidly and its use in industries is also significantly high.

Field service organizations are already using most of these technologies in their daily operations. As a part of our ever dynamic business environment, it is also important to look out for newer technologies and be open to technological changes. Since all of these technologies contribute to the productivity and efficiency of organizations, you need to make use of them in the best possible way. Technological disruption is bound to happen, so might as well make the most of it.