SEO lets start by understanding what is actually meant by Search engine optimization. Well it can be understood as the art or technique of optimization of a website to make it search engine friendly. My SEO experience well to be fair I use to have three websites and lots of free time so I tried every bit of techniques on them from on page optimization to link building. So what I will share here will be my own empiricism.
Search engines determine whatever to rank your site for a particular keyword is by the number of inbound links to your site .That is the number of others sites that linked to you and the quality of senders for that particular keyword.
Think for a moment. Why would someone make a link to your website? The only logical reason is because you have created something of value. This is the logic of Google, anyway.
Another way to think about a popular website and a poor performing website, some sites are like old cities in the middle of nowhere with a road in and one road out that is poor linking . Some sites are on the trade route with high-speed multi-lane running in and out that is perfect linking .What we want a lively exchange, not a single road.
Again it just not all about link building it is also about the quality of content and at the end of the day, the quality of your content is the only thing that will convince other Web sites to link to you.
SEO can be divided into two separate categories: on-page SEO and off-page SEO.
Here I will try to list down the techniques of on-page SEO, although the on-page SEO is only 25% of the score on the search engines and the ranking of your website, it is worth addressing it, as it can improve in very less time.
On-page SEO checklist
Page title
Your page title should include keywords that are less than 70 characters in length if you make the page title too long, it will dilute the importance of the words mentioned.
Meta Description
The Meta description is not something that is visible on your website. Meta Description is a brief summary of the website, which is usually included in the top of the source code of the pages on a label, Meta description is not used by the search engines for SEO purposes. What the Meta description is used to provide the researcher a brief description of the page (150 characters) under each result. In fact, if a Meta description is not included in the source code, the search engine will show you some of the content of the page instead.
Titles h1, h2, h3..
The text of the titles is more likely to be read by the search engines as keywords of text in the rest of the page. For this reason, it is good to include keywords in your titles whenever possible. Labels h1 text give more weight to the keywords, tags h2 carry more weight than the label h3 .
Images
Do not use excessive images. More images mean that your page takes longer to load. This has a negative impact on the user experience as the optimization of search engines. The text associated with the images. Search engines do not read images, just read the text. The ALT text is an HTML attribute that can be added to the image so that the search engines replace the image with associated text.
Domain Information
The search engines also favor sites that are registered for a period of time longer. Since domain registrations indicate a commitment to the site and what they say the site is less likely to be considered spam. Extend your website registration for 10 or more you will definitely see better result for your site.
URL structure
Avoid nesting pages with URLs . Nested pages receive less SEO credit .
Include keywords in the URL.
Create static URLs, not dynamic. This means that the URL of one of your pages must be the same.
Design is a roadmap or a strategic approach for someone to achieve a unique expectation – Wiki
I agree Design is strategic, purposeful and always aims to solve problems. A good Design creates a strong impact on users. Brilliant work catches your attention, keeps you engaged and stays in your memory. Just think of something that has caught your attention and forced you to read; do you recall some comic strips, cartoons, animation, sketches, illustrations in trolls?
Yes, the power of Visual Story Telling always has an edge and plays a crucial role in unfolding a story. There are many forms used like pictures, videos, animations, sketches. And that’s when a visual story telling medium comes to picture. Of course there are photographs that can convey your message. But are they versatile like Illustrations?
Users connect with illustrated narratives faster and more easily. So, who is your favourite super hero? From print the trend has gone viral and now digital platform is witnessing all forms of it some static and others in motion. Designers now are creating websites that use full-screen illustrations to custom made icons to personify brands, identities and provide that USP. Even highly technical and data driven websites can be made extremely lively and interactive yet commune the brand message as strongly as ever before and custom illustrations is the most fun and engaging way to do so.
The major misconception most people have is using illustrations as synonymous to beautification or to support but in reality it is Design in itself; a tool that can magically combine beautification and clean concepts.
It is no surprise that it’s taking over the web and mobile applications. Mood, style and theme of the websites can be set and unlike photographs, they can mesh reality and imagination and present you with an extra-ordinary design. With illustrations you become the king of your own wonderland with powers to create anything and everything to best convey your message, be it a dog floating in the space, a talking owl or a superman delivery boy; absolutely anything that hits your imagination. Little creativity, color and compelling illustrations are sure to change a website’s identity.
Illustrations have lot of technicalities attached to it also. While the illustration may have depths of complexity, the overall message should be simple. Like any other design, even illustrations undergo layers and layers of stages, from the rough sketches to vector outlines, to colors to depth and composition.
Color is a powerful tool in illustration because it can change mood – the mood of the user. Imagine a website has power to improve our state of mind and thereby it strengthens our relationship with a brand. And, if the colors are taken from the brand’s logo, the illustrations becomes a part of the brand’s identity. And, introducing more complimentary colors or gradients will add to its vibrancy. Texture brings more depth to the illustration, a simple halftone texture or a grainy grunge texture creates a nice effect to the flat illustration.
Today we spot illustrations mostly on a banner of the website or around the section that seeks to explain the usage of product/ services. The trend in mobile mainly focuses on splash and on-boarding screens. People also use lot of subtle animations to enliven the whole website/ applications. The animations are usually done using animated GIFs. A customized icon with svg animation is now a trend in UI interaction. The delicate use of animation in illustration just gives the site that extra dash of awesomeness for that memorable experience. There are different Illustration and icon styles used in websites and mobile applications, more leaned towards flat design. Few common styles include line drawings, filled color, hand drawn, low poly, Geometric, isometric and 3D.
I’m an absolute fanatic about delivering products via an Agile Process. That wasn’t always the case. I wasn’t a believer earlier but I’m now. We primarily follow Scrum in our organization and can totally vouch for the value it provides. It not only provides astounding ROI but also allows to succeed or fail faster. It specifically works great for product companies building beta or version 1.0 of their product. It allows everyone to be nimble and be focused on constantly improving the product based on user feedback.
I could go on highlighting the benefits of it but we have found certain myths/misunderstanding regarding following the process. Here are the top few that we have seen recurring-
1. Retrospectives are the panacea for fixing the problems.
Well, it’s only partly true. Prognosis of issues or talking about them candidly wouldn’t solve them. The team has to be diligent to iron out all the issues collaboratively. It needs relentless focus and drive to mitigate the risks or clear out the impediments once they have been brought to the forefront. Sometimes inadvertently the team ends up making similar mistakes. The most common problems that I hear in the retrospectives are about – not enough discussion regarding User Stories, not estimating the work properly, not writing enough test cases, not enough time to do code reviews or refactoring. And, then only to fall in the same trap again.
2. 100% Code Coverage predicts bug free software.
Mostly true. At the same time, we have seen that some issues creep in because of environment configuration, external dependencies, browser issues and integration with other components. Having good unit test cases does solve most of the heartaches and gives you the confidence to re-factor but the product still needs to be functionally tested to make sure it solves the user problem.
3. It increases productivity i.e. It takes less time to build software.
Not true rather it takes more time to build software the agile way. It is a process that recommends building products in Sprints thus the team releases individual features faster. The product takes somewhat longer as one has to bake in unit testing, code reviews, pair programming, having the right build process in it. Please don’t misconstrue this as I wouldn’t develop any other way but doing all of this takes time. In the end, one does get a mature product but at the cost of incremental time.
4. Unproductive teams do stand ups for more than 15-20 minutes.
Not true. At all. I’m not saying that one should have hours of meeting but there are times when one needs to explain the context of their impediment. Does going over the time limit to explain the context and get help a big deal? It isn’t. I would rather that the the entire scrum team(BTW, we only work in small teams. We end up having small scrum teams if the size of the team grows) knows the context of the given problem so that they can help.
Travelling gives you wisdom and experience that is beyond words and I am extremely lucky to have been able to tour to various parts of the world, though, most of it has been work related; Lollypop has made me explore European and Western world mostly to meet either new clients or catch up with the old ones. And, this time I feel like I have struck a jackpot – Vietnam!
This city has energy and vibes that is so enthralling that you have to take a step back and let the moment sink in. It’s fascinating how this place has witnessed endless battles, survived worst of the times and yet is one of the south-east Asia’s fastest-growing economies. Honestly, humans and economies never fail to appal me, Vietnam, labelled as a third world (by Western Economy) has fought three decades of bitter wars against them itself to gain independence. It just took me mere FOUR days, to have an absolute new outlook of this country. I have gained an unparalleled respect and love for this country. The constant urge to explore and discover this city made me dig a bit further and I have broken this article into 3 parts that amused me the most – City, People and of course Design.
CITY – Ho Chi Minh
Fresh and sparkling; it just makes you fall in love with it. Though, it is 10 times poorer than India, it is way cleaner and better. I have nothing against my country but I have to mention this here because really it’s just about individual’s efforts and attitude that speaks for one’s country and we Indians need to learn this. Another amazing thing about this beauty is BIKES, I personally am a biker by heart and it was an unusual experience to realize that Bike here is the basic medium of travel with no social tags. Be it rich or poor everyone is on bike, there is absolutely no concept of classic, sports or adventure bikes, A Bike is A Bike, simple and plain. And, yes the best way to discover this city is to hop on a “Bike Taxi”.
Next thing that leaves you gaped is the Food; it is just everywhere for dirt cheap. You can gobble all the food you need for less than a quarter and I am talking about healthy, good and nutritious food, now that is what I call a heaven! The city has developed much beyond my expectations and I even heard that everyone is developing a good traffic sense. Unfortunately, during my travel it was raining and I had to travel mostly on taxi which was bit expensive.
PEOPLE
A country is made of its people and the beauty of Vietnam equally reflects in its masses. The warmth and welcoming nature of everyone leaves a never fading smile on your face. There is a massive difference between Bangkok & Vietnam; Vietnamese are extremely soft, welcoming and warm hearted. But, the challenge here is of language and communication as not many are well versed with English and one can get stuck if you are outside the city limits. City thrives on service driven attitude and people love their 9 to 5 jobs with 2 hours of break; yes! 2 hours, 1 for food and another for quick power nap. They believe in moving with the flow and have little appetite for innovation. However, when you interact with locals, the keenness to learn and grow throws you off guard and you feel as if you are in a diamond mine, surrounded by precious gemstones.
DESIGN & IT
The best designers are generally rooted in the artists and Vietnamese art has a long and rich history, the earliest examples of which date back as far as the Stone Age. They are amazing when it comes to art and it is wonderful to discover how they are exploring new arenas of branching out; few have opted for print and animation but majority of them have chosen digital design. I was lucky enough to meet few designers and phew, saw some real exceptional work! The most marvellous thing was to know that all designers there knew UI Development by default; an artist turned designer with technical know-how, now that is what I call a master stroke. Here are some of the design samples from the designers I met:
1) This Designer here is amazing visualizer and perfect with design tools, the only challenge was communication gap.
2) This one blew me away! Literally, think of anything that is related to design and she knows it all; an amazing artist, designer, animator and brilliant communicator. One of the jewels, I was talking about.
Though, designs and designers had great impact on me, one thing that did offset me a bit and that was lack of individuality and their own identity; the designs there are predominantly influenced by Western world. However, the willingness of Designers to explore this part of the world given the right opportunity has my hope pinned.
To conclude my experience, all I can say is that a little guidance now to these emerging designing sensations will most definitely take world by design storm. And, I am extremely glad to be discovering them at an early stage. And, I am definitely over-whelmed to realize that Designers around the globe are realizing their worth and they know this is there era.
The open-source Flutter SDK is a Google UI toolkit that creates attractive, natively compiled mobile app, from a single codebase.
With apps being downloaded and used by millions of people in a rapid way, the mobile app development is skyrocketing.
There are many companies that are making use of this trend and contributing to the increase of app downloads. Here are some facts:
Did you know that android users can choose from 2.7 million apps, making Google Play the biggest app store?
The Apple App Store is the second-largest app store with almost 1.82 million available apps for iOS.
You should know that the accurate number of applications change because both the app stores regularly remove low quality content from their app stores and accept apps from the developers on a daily basis. However, the number of apps has been steadily increasing over the years.
In 2020, global mobile app revenues were over 581 billion U.S. dollars. In 2023, mobile apps are projected to generate more than 935 billion U.S. dollars in revenues via paid downloads and in-app advertising.
After reading the above facts and data, it is clear that the app development market is rapidly growing, and mostly the startups are taking the lead in developing apps and increasing their reach. If you have an idea and are confused about which platform to use, the best suggestion would be mobile app development with Flutter.
What Makes Flutter a Better Choice for Developing a Startup App?
As they say, numbers never lie. Let us look at some data revolving around Flutter app development services:
According to a 2020 developer survey, Flutter is the second most popular cross-platform mobile framework used by software developers across the globe. According to the survey, 39% of software developers chose Flutter development services for apps. This usage is expected to grow in 2021 as well.
Google broke down the share of Flutter developers and maximum work for a startup. Here is all you need to know: 35% work for a startup, 26% are enterprise developers, 19% are self-employed, and 7% work for design agencies.
Google reported a 80% spike of Flutter built apps in Play Store after version 1.20 was released. The number of apps built with Flutter in the Play Store has increased from 50,000 to 90,000 since April 2020.
As per Google Trends, Flutter is the leading programming language since February 2021 followed by React Native to develop customized cross-platform mobile apps.
Creating a startup mobile app with Flutter is in vogue and why would it not be? Flutter provides mind blowing benefits! Let’s discuss some benefits, shall we?
Benefits Of Building A Mobile App With Flutter
1. Fast development process
Flutter cross-platform application development is a huge buzz creator due to its “Hot Reloading” or “Hot Restart” features. With the help of this feature developers are able to write codes and finish the project development in real-time. As a result, coders increase their productivity and save a lot of valuable time.
2. Utilization of widgets
Flutter integrated apps provide a wide range of widgets including navigation, scrolling, fonts, and icons that are customizable regardless of the screen size. These widgets are easy to customize and make the app development process fast and simple.
3. Single code base for multiple platforms
The reason why Flutter is trending is because of its ‘write-once’ approach. Writing multiple codes for different platforms is no longer significant. Flutter mobile app developers only have to code once and not separately for both operating systems, that is Android and iOS, that is why Flutter is considered by most of the developers. As a result, Flutter makes the app development process as cost effective as possible.
4. User-friendly interface
Flutter can customize almost anything visible on your startup app. Be it shapes, colors, shadows, clipping or transforming elements, Flutter allows developers to execute everything seamlessly. Hence, it is needless to say that Flutter makes the app development process flexible and simple without adding extra workload.
5. Potential to move beyond smartphones
If you want to create a startup app, why do you want to limit it to just smartphones? Flutter cross platform app framework works as a full-fledged development tool. With Flutter you app can function on any platform- Windows, Android, Linux, IOS etc.
6. Serverless apps
Flutter allows the creation of serverless apps. Developers can use Google’s firebase support as back end and create serverless startup apps. Flutter provides a quick development cycle to help developers achieve their targeted time frames.
Numerous companies are choosing Flutter to develop exceptional apps in record time. Due to all the benefits, features, and functions listed above, creating an app using
If startup app development companies choose Flutter, then it’s the correct choice made. Flutter eliminates the struggle of time constraint and limited budget faced by startups trying to release apps across multiple platforms. Also, it is a blend of all the best Google ideas and technologies, a mixture which results in the creation of a powerful mobile framework.
Step By Step Guide To Flutter App Development
Step-1: The idea
This one is a cliché but don’t all great applications begin with an out of the box idea? Once you have an idea, you need to conduct a market research and find out your target audience. If you wish to create an app then don’t just begin blindly; instead, dig deep and research the facts, concepts and competitors. It is always important to find out how you are better than your competitors.
Step-2: Flutter for MVP
A minimum viable product or MVP acknowledges business owners to validate their idea, gather feedback, and identify customer’s needs. MVP is useful in avoiding market failure and investing on a product that is not backed up by proper market surveys and research.
Being an open source, Flutter complements MVP development. With Flutter increasing the pace of the development process, the process has become more simplified and efficient. Also, Flutter’s compatibility with Firebase, doesn’t require you to separate backends for building simple MVP. Creating MVP with flutter provides an added benefit of delivery of an intricately designed solution.
Step-3: User interface and user experience
Flutter not only provides us with native performance and hot reload for fast development but also access to beautiful, native components. The Flutter toolkit has opened a gateway to allow for a multitude of UI/UX and, by using its own source code, eliminating platform limitations.
Flutter is becoming an all-platform framework. What about when you want to use your startup app or a smaller or a bigger device? Be it a smartwatch, TV, laptop or smartphone. So, you can build native mobile apps using flutter to provide a wider range of devices that the app can function on.
Flutter’s adaptive components help you overcome such challenges. Adaptive layouts means how your app proficiently displays the UI on the device where it is being viewed on.
There is no need to build separate code for a multitude of devices, as Flutter already supports that using a single code-base. There are packages you can rely on which are equipped with native iOS & Android widgets to help your app give a platform-specific look.
Step-4: Development, integration and deployment
Startup mobile app development is a highly interactive process. The process includes- planning, development, coding, testing and reviewing. This is the step where you must look out for a Flutter mobile app company that can develop an android app using Flutter.
Mobile app development comprises three integral parts that are – backend, API and mobile app front end.
Backend: The Backend has the information that the end user cannot see. It includes databases and server-side objects that are important for supporting mobile app functions.
API: Application Programming Interface is a communication method between the app and the backend.
Front end: The front end of an application is what the user uses. Mostly an app has an interactive UX that uses APIs and backends in order to manage the data.
Once everything is in place, the next step is deploying your web server (API) into a production environment that is scalable. The second is deploying the app on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
The Bottom Line
The current app development market is extremely competitive! In order to make a new app stand out within a limited budget, the product should be extraordinary enough to drive the attention of the crowd.
If you are launching your startup app, Flutter is the platform to choose as it allows you to develop user-friendly apps across multiple platforms in a cost-effective way. Unlike other platforms, Flutter app developers create apps with a smooth UI for their users.
Flutter is bound to transform the cross-platform app development industry with its capabilities to emboss customization and expedite the app development process. Dive deep into the world of Flutter app development company and join the transformation.
The modern-day business world has found a number of uses for chatbots. From increasing the user engagement count to play a major part in the lead conversion process, chatbots have entered the world across industries. The fact that chatbots are equally famous among baby boomers and millennials, increases the user base of the technology to a great extent. Seeing the business benefits and the flourishing market size, there are a number of businesses that are looking forward to launching their chatbots, both for their own app and for others to use. In this article, we will be looking at how much it costs to build a chatbot and everything surrounding the transformative technology. But before we get into cost benefit analysis of chatbot part, let us first look into what the flourishing chatbot market looks like.
Chatbot Market
Within the past one decade, chatbots have witnessed an unprecedented demand from a number of industries around the globe, including logistics and on-demand. What was earlier restricted to only eCommerce has now shifted to a number of other domains ever since the advent of mobile apps. All this has been the doing of growing inclusion of growing level AI in customer experience.
By the time we reach 2024, the market size of Chatbots would have increased to $1.34 Billion – a number that is driven by the inception of disruptive technologies like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in the chatbot mechanism.
From the simplistic rules specific chatbots developed to manage uncomplicated queries to cloud-based self-learning bots that are designed to understand the user intent and automatically modify the output, chatbots, no matter how learned or simple are being used extensively in fields like eCommerce, Healthcare, etc. via business data integration.
The fact that chatbots have proved themselves to be this useful in the world, has prepared them to contribute $1250 million by 2025.
Seeing the market share that chatbots hold, one thing is clear – Chatbots are going to be a very prominent part of businesses across industries. And why not, after all, the business benefits that they have to offer are unmatched and unparalleled.
Talking of business benefits of Chatbots, let us look at what they are before we move on to the chatbot development cost.
Business Benefits of Chatbots
It is invalid to ask the question ‘How much does it cost to build a chatbot’ until you are convinced that they are needed.
Besides the obvious benefit of making your business a 24*7 business, Chatbots, no matter how much you pay in the name of chatbot development life cycle, come with a number of advantages that are known to lower the cost of business operation, which tend to unnecessarily tend to close the gap between gain and loss numbers in the balance sheet. All aimed at changing your business growth story.
Here’s what they are:
A report by Juniper Research validates that the cost of building a chatbot is going to be a much smaller amount in front of the costs that chatbots are all set to cut down – $8 Billion on a yearly basis – by the time we reach 2022.
Let’s see how:-
Lowered operational cost
The biggest operational cost in businesses is around the number of incoming calls. By giving the visitors answers to what they are looking for, chatbots are able to save on the cost associated with the increasing call volumes and in fact the whole interaction volume.
In addition to this, when users call businesses after having the preliminary level of interaction with a chatbot, the time of customer care executive that would go behind answering the first level interaction gets lowered to a huge extent.
Cut down labor expense
In a report, McKinsey estimated that around 29% of customer service position in the US can get automated via a properly designed chatbot. The fact that chatbots can interact with multiple people at the same time, hints at a time where the customer engagement industry would be dominated by chatbots.
In addition to this, businesses who have employed chatbot in their customer service program know how chatbot implementation costs much lower than the annual salary of an employee while doing twice their work.
Cost effective 24*7 availability
Modern-day customers expect businesses to be available 24*7 to answer their queries at all hours. The fact that a number of businesses are still not able to function on a 24*7 mode has not just made them lose on to prospective sales but also has affected customer loyalty to a great extent.
But when you employ a chatbot that has been designed to answer to the customer requirement in the off hours when your customer rep is not available, you make them more receptive towards your business, altering your brand image 180 degrees.
Better resource allocation
When the customer representative doesn’t have a list of customers to attend to and knows that even in their absence their customers will be handled with equal attentiveness through a chatbot, they are able to concentrate on devising strategies on keeping the users hooked and finding ways to help chatbot close more leads.
This way, chatbots prevent sales reps from falling into the cycle of mundane work and monotonous job cycle, giving them the opportunity to keep learning.
Greater revenue
There are a number of businesses that have been using Chatbots for lead conversion and greater sales. Through chatbots, you can keep alerting your customers of the discount opportunities and increase the engagement and upsell count.
Along with making a business a sales conversion magnet, chatbots help create a strong brand awareness when integrated with social media messenger platforms.
Increased customer engagement
It’s vital to keep your clients involved with your brand. As indicated by companies, organizations that involve with their customers through social media were able to increase the user spend by 20% to 40%. While social media is doing its work, chatbots can contribute by making customer engagement interactive and easy.
Monitoring consumer data & gaining insights
As you already know that chatbots are great devices and tools to chat with customers. With the input they gather through basic inquiries, you can make improvements on your administrations/products and even upgrade your website by adjusting low converting pages. For instance, if your landing page creates a decent measure of organic traffic but doesn’t convert well, your chatbot can contact customers visiting the page with a study to gather more data on why they are leaving the page without buying or making action and so forth.
The chatbot benefits are equal among all the different types of bots. No matter what type your chatbot gets categorized the benefits mentioned above will hold true for them all.
Speaking of types, let us look at the different Chatbot types that are most commonly employed by businesses across the world.
Type of chatbots
When we look into the types of chatbots, we have to look at both – the Superset and the Subset wise demarcation of Chatbot development type, having elements that goes into interactive chatbot development.
The supersets
There are two categories of chatbots that you can invest in.
Bots Implemented in Own App – These chatbots work inside a mobile app which performs a specific function for the sake of automating the interaction happening between the app and the user.
Bots which Function Within Messenger – These chatbots stay in messengers which support bot interaction. These work best for businesses that do not have a standalone app or wish to keep social media at the center of the business model.
The Subsets
Within the prime categories of the chatbot mentioned above, there are a number of chatbot types that you can get made –
FAQ chatbot – A basic QnA or FAQ Bot provides its users with automated responses to frequently asked questions in a natural, intuitive question-and-answer conversational style.
Conversational chatbot – The chatbot type uses language understanding services to have easy flowing conversations with the end users. They are usually made to A. collect the basic information about the users and B. keep them engaged till a human customer care executive is online.
Transactional chatbot – These are the chatbots that help the app users to inquire into and buy something off the app without ever talking to a human customer care representative.
Predictive Chatbot – These chatbots are the most advanced ones in the market at this time. They are developed and designed on a case by case scenario. By incorporating heavy machine learning in them, businesses use predictive chatbots to analyze how users might react next.
Irrespective of what type your chatbot belongs to, the elements that go into it are all the same. Something we will be attending to, next.
MVP Chatbot Features
Conversation
Conversation, one of the primary needs and features of chatbot should be based on a fundamental principle. In the basic principle, the request for messages ought to be logical and comprehensive for each customer. For example, when a customer asks about the contact number of your organization, the chatbot should tell the user just a number. If it informs about the address, it implies that the entire rationale is broken.
What’s more is that, ensure that your chatbot doesn’t commit grammatical errors and follows the overall pace of the discussion. Keep an official discussion tone in case you’re focusing on business people. If the task is somewhat hard for you, it’s smarter to hire a freelancer to produce content for the messages.
Payment system
This feature suits e-commerce chatbots. If your bot’s main goal is to boost sales and create new distribution channels, you should take care of at least one payment method. This is the point for you to choose between the third-party system or a custom payment solution.
A well-designed payment system eases the flow of the payment security and allows to analyze the payment and customer behavior. What’s more is that you don’t need to stress over expenses that are generally charged by third-party systems. Regardless of advantages, the expense of a custom payment framework is excessively high. That is the reason why most of the small organizations execute services such as PayPal, Braintree, Stripe, and others.
Geolocation
Online mapping is another helpful feature for a chatbot to attract new customers by pinpointing the area of your business on the map. For instance, users can request the bot to help them navigate to the restaurant or street they’ve never been to. Google Maps Platform permits you to make this feature with zero effort. All things considered, it draws customers to visit your place.
If we take an example of food delivery, then this feature is the best. All that your users need to do is to place an order using the chatbot, make payment through an integrated payment gateway, share the location with the delivery personnel, and enjoy the food after arrival.
Personal touch
The personal touch is more about the personality and character than the technologies. Mentioning users by their name rather than pronouns, elevates their feelings and emotions. The personal mentality to every customer ensures increased brand loyalty and positive input about your chatbot.
To make a remarkable and unique chatbot, you can utilize the knowledge of a brand expert. In case you’re on a tight budget, you can always bring into play your imagination and creativity.
Account synchronization
The first use case of account synchronization that rings a bell is redeeming rewards. If there is a promo system, then the users have some awards or bonuses from the past purchases, which users can spend during further purchase. Nonetheless, if the chatbot isn’t synchronized with the website, it doesn’t display the rewards. Thus, you need to ensure that your platforms have a typical database that continually shares data with one another.
A synchronized record permits you to carry out efficient marketing campaigns. Whenever there’s a discount or sale on a product from the customer’s wish list, the chatbot sends a warning about it. This methodology is more successful than promotional e-mails and messages.
The Composition Required to Build a Chatbot
There are a number of components and chatbot design strategies that come together to develop a chatbot that goes on to revolutionize the customer experience that a business offers, all coming as an addition in the breakdown of chatbot pricing models.
Before acquiring the knowledge of building a chatbot, let’s have a look at the image that describes the working of it.
As a business who is looking to partner with an agency that excels in chatbot development services, you should look at their approach in the context of all these components before making any decision.
Backend
Chatbots need a backend to manage messages coming in from different channels and to process them with NLP offerings like Api.ai, LUIS, or Wit.ai. The backend also holds business logic and integration within the current systems and is used to develop conversational intelligence on the basis of which conversation happens with the end users.
Channels
After your backend is set up, you will have to create the endpoints for the integration with every specific channel. While every single channel integration is different, they mostly follow the same method of endpoint set up in the backend for the purpose of sending and getting messages which rely on the access token authorization. Also, you will have to implement the channel-specific user interface in places like quick reply, visual cards which guide users during a conversation.
NLP
The moment you receive messages from a specific channel, you are going to use NLP services like Luis, Api.ai, and Wit.ai for extracting the entities and intents out of the user message. While the set up of NLP service and processing of messages with the help of SDK is pretty direct, training the NLP entities and entities which might be present in an external system is not an easy task. You will have to understand the entities which map to specific objects which exist in systems like Contacts, Products, or Employees. You will also have to implement business logic validation on the extracted data which can range from simple validation to custom.
Conversational intelligence
This is the most complicated component of the whole chatbot development process. You will have to design intelligent conversations on the basis of NLP entities and intents – something that is not easy. To achieve a stage where you build an intelligent chatbot, you will have to create an algorithm for every single conversation and navigation so that users can start from scratch. You will have to make use of decision trees, slot based algos, state workflows, or other deep learning methodologies for controlling the conversation.
Integration
Because of prime purpose of your chatbot is the execution of processes like booking appointments, buying products, ordering items, etc. you will have to integrate the chatbot in an existing mobile application. Integration here will involve factors like business logic rules and validations, the persistence of data which would be required as a part of the business process.
Now that we have looked at the different components that come together to make a chatbot, it is time to attend to the things that matter to you on a more intricate level – the time it would take to develop a chatbot and the cost of chatbot development, in accordance with the different metrics that chatbots are evaluated on.
The time it takes to develop a Chatbot from scratch
A very important part of the whole chatbot app development process for businesses and an answer to the cost of chatbot development is knowing how much time it is going to take for chatbot app development company to develop them so that they get a rough idea of when to start witnessing unprecedented customer satisfaction graphs.
Well, here’s an answer to the hours it would take to develop a bot, something that will have a direct impact on your chatbot cost –
Integration with an app – the duration of it depends on the chatbot complexity, but usually it takes up 40-56 hours. Development of communication interface
Command language user interpreter takes up somewhere around 40-56 hours.
Natural language user interface takes somewhere around 120-160 hours.
Business logic
Adaptation of an existing business logic, takes up 120-160 hours, depending on the amount of logic.
Development of business logic from scratch takes around 160-192 hours.
Since you now know the approximate hours it would take to attend to different parts of chatbot development, it is time to translate those hours into the cost of chatbot development.
Decreasing the Chatbot development Cost
There are a number of aspects that increase the price of chatbot development. But there are also the option to stabilize the financial impact like the chatbot development tools that save time for developers and decrease the eventual final cost.
Third-party platforms
Developing a chatbot from the scratch without any preparation is quite expensive. Thus, to solve this people generally use third party platforms. With the assistance of these popular platforms, you can make a chatbot with less efforts and time.
Despite the fact that these platforms guarantee rapid development, they also provide flexibility and adaptability which lets the developer use them often.
Some of the common and popular chatbot platforms are:
Chatfuel
Botsify
Dialogflow
BotPress
Mobile Monkey
How Much Does It Cost To Develop a Chatbot? – The Exact Chatbot Development Cost
Now that we have seen all – The market of chatbots, benefits that they have to offer, types of chatbots that are presently ruling the world, and the components that come together to develop them along with the time it takes to develop chatbots, it is now time to look at how much it is going to cost you.
Seeing the work that goes into developing a chatbot, the approximate chatbot cost that comes for development of your bot is in the range of $25,000 to $30,000.The cost range includes the design, development, and integration part of the whole chatbot development framework.
With this, we have now seen all – the benefits of chatbots, features and components that helps to devise a well-structured chatbot, the market size, the type and the cost you will have to pay to get your chatbot developed, the only thing left for you to do here is to get in touch with our chatbot developers and avail the best chatbot app development company in USA.
As the technology industry continues to make more and more investment in innovative web solutions, the progressive web apps aka PWAs are becoming more prevalent. Today, PWAs are fully supported by Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and iOS, making great progress in providing benefits of PWA for businesses.
This growing support for PWAs is driven by demands from leading brands seeking to take full advantage of their capabilities. Listing some progressive web app examples below to provide you the growing importance of progressive web apps:
Twitter invested heavily in making its main site a responsive PWA to create a faster user experience with an enhanced interface, joining the likes of Facebook and Pinterest which both use PWA features.
Similarly, media powerhouses like the BBC, The Washington Post, and Forbes have also launched progressive web app for business to distribute their content more seamlessly across consumers and various types of devices, from desktops to cell phones.
The PWA landscape is rapidly changing the e-commerce vertical and big businesses like Twitter, Starbucks, Washington Post, Pinterest, the Weather channel and much more have launched their PWAs in the last six months.
So why are top brands making the switch towards the technology and reaching out to PWA development experts? To get the answers, let’s read and find out.
What are Progressive Web Apps?
PWA stands for progressive web app that you can install on your system. It uses the cached data from your previous interactions to enable it to operate offline or without a stable internet connection.
A progressive web app is a website that functions just like a native app. It has all the functionality of a native app and still manages to deliver the usability of a website. PWAs are intended to address a range of problems ranging from inadequate networks to data obstruction or total lack of connectivity.
Google describes PWA’s as web experiences that are:
Reliable: Loads instantly and never shows a website to be down, even under unpredictable network conditions.
Fast: Responds easily to user interactions, with silky smooth animations and without janky scrolling
Engaging: Feels like a normal app, with an intuitive user experience.
Progressive web apps use the latest technologies to blend the best of both online and mobile applications. Progressive web application development is increasingly becoming the norm for the future. For businesses trying to optimise user experiences, PWAs fit right in the requirements in terms of budget, feature, development time and more.
Progressive web app benefits companies by offering an enhanced user experience through progressive enhancement. Robust PWA solutions are useful in accelerating the technological capabilities, empower companies and add the right balance to the business.
Since the advent of PWAs, many businesses have leveraged the power of this platform to reach new markets and enhance their user experience. After all, the Progressive web app framework is simple to develop, test and maintain, post-deployment.
How are Brands Using PWAs to Connect With Users?
The ease of access, cross-browser compatibility, and faster page load times help companies render a higher-level user experience that impresses consumers and gets them hooked.
1. Rising consumer expectations
Customers have little tolerance for brands that have poor digital experiences. With plenty of choices at their disposal, consumers can easily move on to another brand if they have an underwhelming experience. When Pinterest and Starbucks launched their PWAs, they both saw a noticeable increase in interaction metrics. Pinterest saw a 60 percent rise in mobile interaction with quicker page loads, while Starbucks’ PWA was designed for web-based order management, and is now preferred by consumers over the native app for the coffee company.
2. Native-like appeal
PWAs provide a consistent and adaptive interface across all devices. It loads like a standard website but has many advanced native mobile app features, including the ability to add one touch to device home screens, to operate offline, and to allow push notifications. They also offer website benefits, such as search engine discoverability and the ability to be available from all modern web browsers. Additionally, PWAs can appear in the App Store and Google Play alongside native mobile apps.
3. Resource use and decrease in expenses
PWAs need only one code base to provide website and mobile app-like experience across devices and browsers, which implies it needs only one team, one software platform, one test approach, and one digital product roadmap to plan, design, create and manage both a website and a mobile app-like experience. PWAs not only reduce the cost of product design, development, and maintenance, they also save money for organizations by allowing for quicker delivery of new features and bug fixes.
4. Adaptive
Innovative brands understand that technology is changing at an incredible speed, and they need to implement more forward-looking technologies to avoid rapid cycles of strategy, design, production and re-construct for digital solutions. Progressive Web Apps are fundamentally versatile and continually changing to meet the new functionality improvements. If you are rewriting a legacy website or native mobile application as a PWA today, it will work for years to come as expected. PWAs are built for transition, ensuring that companies should avoid investing in one-off websites and mobile apps that eventually need redesigns to meet evolving demands and technologies from the audience.
9 Best Examples of Companies Using PWAs
1. Forbes
Forbes, a multinational media company, turned to Progressive Web Apps for their new mobile experience in order to improve loading times for their readers. The previous Forbes site took about 3-12 seconds to load.
The new site grounded in progressive web app technology is capable of loading in 0.8 seconds. As a result, Forbes saw a 43% increase in sessions and a 100% increase in engagement.
2. Flipkart
Flipkart, India’s biggest e-commerce site, adopted a mobile-only strategy in 2015. After shutting down their mobile site and focusing only on their native app, the company was not seeing the desired results. They decided to combine their web presence and native app into a PWA to allow their current and prospective customers to have instant access to their store.
Compared to their previous mobile presence, Flipkart has tripled time-on-site with their Progressive Web App. Users spend an average of 3.5 minutes on Flipkart Lite versus 70 seconds on the predecessor.
Flipkart has also generated a 40% higher re-engagement rate among first-time visitors and a 70% higher conversion rate due to the “Add to Homescreen” icon, because customers have instant access to Flipkart whenever they want.
3. MakeMyTrip
MakeMyTrip is India’s leading travel company with 8 million visitors monthly. After the addition of PWA, the major changes in the site such as improvement in conversion rate is 3X, the loading time of the page has increased by 38% and shopper sessions have increased up to 160%.
4. TwitterLite
Twitter wished their mobile web to be faster and more attractive. In addition to PWA, Twitter launched TwitterLite which becomes the fastest and easiest way to use Twitter. With lower data consumption, TwitterLite also gives benefits such as reduced Bounce Rate up to 20%, and the page per session increased up to 65%, 75% in Tweets.
5. Alibaba
Alibaba.com is the world’s largest marketplace for suppliers, buyers, and manufactures. It is the biggest E-commerce platform that recently adopted PWA and witnessed a significant increase in interaction rate up to 4X, and a huge rise in the conversion rate by up to 76%.
6. Starbucks Coffee
Starbucks allows its customers to check the menu, create the orders and add the orders to the cart even when there is no signal or poor connection. With the addition of PWA, Starbucks improved its performance and rendered a highly responsive and fast performance.
7. Trivago
Trivago is a big name in Hotel Search Engine Marketing. The availability of Trivago’s PWA is in 55 countries worldwide with 33 languages. After the adoption of PWA, the percentage of user engagement has increased by up to 50% and Click rate has increased by 97%.
8. Instagram
We all use Instagram, but are not aware about its working. When you access Instagram on the mobile browser, you are accessing it through PWA. Presently the PWA looks very much like the traditional application and gives you some additional features like you can now upload images.
9. Pinterest
When you consider Pinterest’s UI and its design, it is totally fit to take advantage of Progressive Web App technology, thus they have. Their PWA gives them a lot quicker loading times and the capacity for clients to add it directly to their landing page with no download or installation. They’ve seen a 40% rise in time spent on the mobile site, just as a 44% increment in client generated ad revenue.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Progressive Web Apps
Advantages of a PWA
Smaller and faster
Many individuals, despite the fact that native apps take a lot of space, would utilize these applications but they need more space on their smartphones so they can’t install them. But that is not an issue with PWAs, which only take space for what they need, making them quicker to download and saving space.
Offline capabilities
Lot of people realize the advantages of progressive web apps and that’s why they are downloading PWAs in light of the fact that it can be utilized even without an Internet connection. Also, these applications even work when the server is dead, making users not lose anything, and this is all such a great deal for conversions.
Cost-friendly than other apps
Since content just needs to be delivered once, PWA saves time and money in contrast to making content independently for iOS, Android, and a site. Also, PWAs don’t need to be updated very often. Clients don’t need to download new data. If PWA works, you presently don’t need to stress over its development, which makes it a financially alluring option, similarly to Flutter, for instance.
Independent app
PWAs can be found by means of search engines and other platforms. PWAs can also be offered through social media, home page, or by another means. You are not required to be reliant upon application stores.
Disadvantages of a PWA
Limited browser support
PWAs are Android-driven and don’t work on popular browsers, including Safari, IE, and Edge. Since Safari overwhelms 51% of the browser market in the U.S., thus implying that a huge percentage of mobile clients will be unable to access PWAs.
But on the positive side, fresh browser versions of Opera, Chrome, and Firefox support PWAs, making other browsers to support this in the coming future.
Limited Hardware and Software Support
PWAs are generally new and not yet upheld by many device hardware and software. For instance, iOS doesn’t support PWA’s notification and home screen shortcuts.
Also, PWAs don’t support the utilization of GPS, finger impression scanners, smartphone cameras, and other device features.
No download store
PWA don’t appear in popular application stores, for example, Google Play and the Apple App Store, which may delegitimize them.
Application stores not just give authenticity and social evidence of applications to likely users through reviews, however they additionally go about as a list that allows users to look for and find relevant applications.
Since most clients directly look for apps in application stores rather than in search engines, thus your audience may miss your PWA app.
No access to innovations
Not every technical choice, like Bluetooth or Near Field Communication (NFC), can be applied to PWAs. This implies that you are restricted in the potential applications for your application. The inquiry is whether other future developments can likewise be utilized by PWAs.
Progressive Web Apps and The Future of Mobile Web
If you need a steady and consistent mobile app experience, then progressive apps are the best choice applications. PWA development company like Anteelo can offer interactive user experience similar to a native app without any high development expenses. The benefits of PWAs have been leveraged by many big brands, now it is your time to take up progressive web apps agency in USA and increase your conversions and revenue figures.
There is no denying the fact that social media cannot be ignored by today’s society. From a business point of view, social media is one of the most promising markets.
Many organizations use social media as a marketing tool to promote their business since they have their audience present on Facebook, google+, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest.
The rapid development is opening new landscapes within this play-area and social media app development has become a major game in the business world!
Want To Create a Social Media App? Let’s Look At Some Facts Shall We?
Over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide in the year 2020. This number is projected to increase to almost 4.41 billion in 2025.
Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass one billion registered accounts and currently boasts approximately 2.7 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular social network worldwide.
In June 2020, the top social media apps in the Apple App Store included mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, as well as the ever-popular app version of Facebook.
When planning to design a social media app, it is essential that one understands all the types of apps there are in the market. This will help you find your niche and identify your competitors. Not only this, but also understand your target audience, and offer users a more appropriate functionality.
Types Of Social Media Apps
1. Social networking apps
The main goal of these apps is to connect people for personal or professional reasons. From finding a job, joining a new community to connecting with a long lost friend, these apps will do the magic. For example: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
2. Media sharing apps
If you want to target artists and creators, this is the app for you! People these days love sharing videos, photos, GIFs etc to platforms like Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest etc.
3. Blogging and publishing apps
Writing is not as easy as it looks and writers do need an app that would let them write their mind. Such apps help writers to write from any gadget they want anytime. For example: WordPress, Medium.
4. Discussion forums
If you want to build a social media app where a community of people share their insights, experiences, ideas, opinions etc, this type of app is for you. For example: Quora.
5. Customer review apps
The major goal of these apps is to share their reviews about brands, services and products. Good customer reviews can help one grow business. For example: Yelp, TripAdvisor.
6. Service Provider apps
These types of apps help you undertake a particular service. From booking a cab, finding a plumber to booking a hotel etc, these apps are at your service. For example: Ola, UrbanCompany.
Now that we have understood the existing apps, let’s focus on how to make a social media app.
How To Develop A Social Media App?
Step-1: Find your purpose, target audience and competitors
The first step for social media app developers is to know the purpose of their app. Network apps allow people, organisations and companies to create, exchange and share information over a network of people.
If you have an idea, good for you, but a full understanding of the market, target audience, potential users and what your current competitors lack is very important information. Also, if you want to earn money from your app, think of all possible monetization options.
Once you are done with conceptualizing your future application and its missions, goals, user engagement ideas and competitive analysis, get ready for building out of the box growth strategies.
Step-2: Design social network app’s workflow
The next step is to create a defined workflow. This is to attain a specific pathway a user will follow in order to achieve the required set of goals. Hence, this step will define a complete user journey. The app workflow is a very critical step since it defines steps the user takes while they interact with your product.
Step-3: Development and design for both iOS and Android
As the name of this step suggests, it is equally important to design a social media app for android and for iOS. If you are using a SaaS solution then you don’t have to worry about this step but if you are planning to start from scratch so we suggest you start with creating a wireframe. Wireframes are the skeletal structure of the app, which represents how the app’s fundamental looks.
A wireframe will help your design and development team to visualise how the app works and what pages link together. The next step is prototyping which will create a working model of your app. This will help everyone understand how the app is functioning for android and IOS.
Step-4: Build your community and market the app
Now that your app is ready, it is time for you to win users and build a community! Start thinking about initial marketing strategies and campaigns that help draw the people’s attention, increase app downloads and user engagement.
7 Tips To Design Social Network App
Social networks app development is a tricky game! You must be sure that the app’s design is intuitive, easy to use and that same time appealing to your audience. Let’s talk about the best practices one can keep in mind while planning the look and feel of one’s app.
Keep it simple – A clean design always helps since people are already familiar with using the same. It helps you enthrall the users towards your value rather than distracting them away from it. When you focus on your offerings you don’t give your customers the space to think only of your brand, in turn. If you want to use your social media app for business, this is one of the key characteristics that you should focus on.
Communication is key – Allow your users to communicate with each other with the help of video call, audio call, recorded voice notes, ability to share content with each other. This is how you will build your community and keep your users engaged.
Focus on the Navigation – The minimalistic approach is the best one when it comes to designing navigation. If you create navigation with numerous features it will be too complicated for the user to keep up. The best practice is to ensure that all your icons and buttons are placed in the best part of the screen for the user to identify them easily.
Keep it consistent – You need to make sure that the design of your app remains synchronised in order to avoid any confusion that the user might face. By using consistency in your app it will create a logical structure that will clearly define where users can find what. This process will spare your app from confused and frustrated users.
Round design elements – Do you know why Facebook or Instagram use round profile pictures? Well, it helps to focus on a user’s face and further makes it simple for other users to remember or distinguish them from others.
Allow people to personalise – Provide users the freedom and choices to share information, media, links, content etc in order to add their personality to their specific profiles.
Color codes are very important – Choose colors of the same family that help in providing a seamless user experience.
How can you make money from a social media app?
You can easily monetize your social network app design and start earning returns from the cost that you invested in social media app development. Below are a few ways to achieve your goals:
Paid subscriptions: With an app based community, you can offer users paid subscriptions. It is best to first offer a free trial with good content and one or more paid trials that offer more in-depth and high-value content.
Paid content: If you have a lot of users engaged with your content, you can use social apps for business. Paid sponsorship is one way you can convert your user reach into money.
In-app purchases: You can give your users the liberty to directly make digital purchases. For example, ebook, a video or audio file.
Final Words
I hope that creating a social media mobile app is not as tough as you previously thought it was! I have walked you through the facts of social media apps, we have also talked about how to make an app from scratch, right from ideation to implementation and designing. Feel free to reach out to a social media app development company to guide you better and create your own app in no time. Take the first step today!
Are you an entrepreneur who is looking forward to making or getting their Android mobile app developed? Let’s dig into some trends & stats.
When it comes to developing mobile apps, no doubt the Android operating system gets all the attention, an attention that is well deserved.
Are you an entrepreneur who is looking forward to making or getting their mobile app developed? If yes, then you surely need all the deep insights to know about the latest android app development trends.
Let’s dig in for some stats and read on further to discover the popularity of Android apps and the sector’s trends.
The fact is that today, Android is one of the most vitally used mobile OS that has captured almost 85% of the market share.
The Google Store has 3.04 + million applications, that range from web browsers, daily tools, social media platforms, complex games, enterprise mobile apps etc.
These figures clearly state that the app developers need to be aware of the hottest trends in mobile app development and incorporate them in their Android apps at the earliest, simply to provide users a unique experience.
Top Android Application Development Trends To Watch Out In 2021
The android apps continue to see implacable changes, that are primarily dominated by the user experience and constant innovations brought in by Google. As an entrepreneur, you would need to exemplify these trends for staying ahead of the competition.
1. Android Instant Apps
Although instant Android apps are not very common, slowly and surely, these app display types are picking up the pace. Android Instant app provides software developers with Android Instant Apps SDK and App Links Assistant that permits them to build mobile solutions from scratch or convert the existing apps into Instant Apps.
A working example of the type can be seen through the following – the Instant app allows users to try different games on the applications without installing that app on the device, exciting right? The advantage of these apps is that they are compatible across all gadgets, require less storage space, and have a pleasant user experience and user interface.
Instant apps are the future and one of the biggest trends in mobile app development that helps the user use the app without actually compromising on space on their smartphones. This is the technology that is designed to drastically help and push the adoption of multiple sectors like eCommerce and games further to secure a place in top android app development trends of 2021.
2. Navigation Component
Navigation refers to the multiple interactions that allow the user to move around in the different sections and app’s content pieces. Android jetpacks come with components of handy navigation that helps the developers to implement the navigations. The implications could range from a simple button, click to an intricate pattern such as a navigation drawer.
The navigation component’s further benefit is that the component allows a predictable and consistent user experience, as the developers who implement them, follow the stated navigation principles.
3. Blockchain Technology
The blockchain technology has been making rounds for many years; however, it has finally come into action. The blockchain technology provides the enhanced solutions of the decentralized app development that eliminates any unauthorized access and pushes transparency.
The blockchain technology market is said to grow at 62.73% CAGR by 2026 making $52.5 billion. Decentralized apps (Dapps) are an open source, smart contract based software applications that run transactions on blockchain. These applications run on decentralize blockchain and the data cannot be changed or erased in it. These apps are the future of mobile app development; they enable faster payment, reliable data records, and are tamper proof.
With the help of blockchain technology, an android app development company can maintain robust security protocols. This inclusion is fast becoming a part of the trends in android development especially in the financial segments such as currency exchanges, banks etc.
4. Google Assistant/Chatbot
In the coming years, we will see that many business owners would be keen on integrating their app services with the Google Assistant. The primary advantage of investing in such an integration is that it provides users with faster ways of accessing the app directly. By using the Google app actions, the users get access to an app’s deep-link which allows them to perform specific activities inside the application from the Google Assistant.
Google, in 2020 announced that they will release a new feature for google assistant at CES. The new feature called “Scheduled Actions” will permit users to communicate with smart devices through google assistant like turn on/off a smart device, make a coffee, etc. The feature will be capable of controlling 20 home devices including lights, coffee machines, AC units, and many more.
5. Multiplatform Development Through Flutter
Google has introduced a new technology naming Flutter, which is being touted as the future of android development. Flutter is a cross-platform framework that helps in developing beautiful apps with a single codebase.
Many developers have been selecting this platform to build mobile apps due to its flexible nature. The primary reasons to choose Flutter are that it is effortless to learn, has a native design, etc.
It is one of the preferred frameworks for minimum viable product development. This means that instead of spending extravagance on two different apps, you can quickly build an app on native platforms such as iOS or Android.
With the latest update Google took flutter beyond mobile and to the web. Flutter developers are now able to target macOS, Windows and Linux and other embedded devices. The desktop support provided by flutter also includes plugins that support various platforms.
The new Flutter and Dart update have been released with Substantial Performance Improvements from its contemporary releases. Flutter is prepared for creating apps for iOS, Android, Fuchsia, web & desktop with new platform support. Moreover, they are in talks with Ubuntu for Linux apps, Microsoft’s Android Surface Duo, and Windows 10X which will be made accessible soon.
Some prominent progressions made in Flutter in 2021-21 are:
decreased size and latency
less janky animations, and quicker treatment of UTF-8 strings
mouse cursor support
new widgets such as Interactive viewer making pen
zoom and drag-n-drop
range slider and date picker revamped
integrating flutter to the current application made suitable with Pigeon
improved help for Metal on iOS, and new Material gadgets.
6. Internet of Things
The key mobile app development trends 2021 is the implementation of the IoT (Internet of Things). In Android, these trends end up translating into many of the Android things that allow the developers to build the devices on the top of the known hardware platforms such as Raspberry Pi. The best part is that developers do not require any prior knowledge of embedding the system design to start. Instead, the developers can develop the apps using Android Studio and Android SDK.
The introduction of 5G will open the door for more devices, and data traffic. According to some reports the 5th generation wireless network technology is expected to connect 1.5 billion devices globally in the coming years. It is also stated that the global IoT connections will triple to 25 billion by 2025, while IoT revenue globally will quadruple to $1.1 trillion.
With that said, IoT will focus on developing smart parking lots, street lights, and traffic controls apart from advancing the hospitality and industrial sectors.
7. APM & EMM
APM (Application Performance Management) and EMM (Enterprise Mobile Management) are two primary elements of mobile enterprise development. These technologies are primarily used to reduce mobile apps’ slowness. With the overall rise in mobile application development trends, they have become the quality tester for mobile apps.
With the upcoming trends, APM will reflect the application behaviour, measure statistics for devices and Oss that are used, and screen user performance to figure out which application features are exploited. With the application landscape and business infrastructure moving to cloud, APM will also provide powerful tools to monitor resources utilized by apps, associate the retrieved data with user insights, and adjust performance with business processes.
EMM will incorporate mobile device management, app management, application wrapping and containerization, and a few components of enterprise file synchronization and sharing.
From the work from home context, EMM has grown many folds and is looking into automation of processes, workflow optimization, easier and smoother communication flow, and exchange of data
8. Motion Layout
The layout used by the developers to manage the motion and the widget animations in the apps. This tool is a part of the Constraint Layout library and is compatible with Android 4.0. With these libraries, the team can quickly fill up all the gaps between the complex motion handling and layout transitions, as these tools are known to offer high-end and useful features.
Developers will be seen using Motion Layout to create multiple interfaces that use the animations, helping them understand what is going on with the app.
9. Beacon Technology
Businesses have slowly started to immensely use Beacon technology, as it helps businesses target potential clients uniquely. Beacons are the transmitting gadgets that get connected with mobile devices, in that particular range. The technology allows the companies to send various notifications regarding the special offers, nearby hotels etc.
Beacon technology transformation from a push marketing strategy to an opt-in strategy is useful for many industries. The technology can be applied on-cloud and at-area, which is helping it to gain traction and promote its growth in the coming years.
Beacon-based notifications are helping out businesses to connect with their users in a highly contextual manner. The beacon technology trend in 2021 will see the coming of beacon enabled airports and mobile payment using beacon.
Some companies are predicting the rapid development and use of iBeacon and other similar gadgets for marketing.
10. Android Enterprise
Digital transformation is now the need of the hour in 2021 for enterprises. The Google-led initiative – Android enterprise helps the workers to use the Android apps in their workplace. The Android Enterprise program helps the developers with the APIs and various other tools needed to integrate support for Android into the solutions of enterprise mobility management.
Wrapping Up
Each year comes with newer innovations and ideas, and these trends keep on rolling back and forth. Looking at the above latest trends in android app development, we can undoubtedly claim that the Android Operating System is growing at a rapid speed towards providing the users a seamless experience.
Without adequate security, all connected devices provide a direct gateway into our personal & professional networks. Is it possible to avoid theft of data?
Considering the pace we are all moving at, companies are continually striving to make everything connected virtually. Devices connected to IoT can ‘communicate’ with each other be it tech gadgets, smart phones, smart home equipment and machines, etc. But, without adequate security, these connected devices provide a direct gateway into our personal, corporate, and governmental networks where confidential data can be either stolen or destroyed.
Now that IoT has become a complete game-changer, cybersecurity is more relevant than ever and challenging at the same time. The question still remains, are we ready for such an increased level of connectivity? What are the IoT security risks?
Before we dive into the glaring security issues, let’s look at some IoT market statistics, shall we?
Essential Internet Of Things Statistics To Keep You Up to Speed
Overview of the IoT market
1. The global market for the Internet of things (IoT) reached $100 billion in revenue for the first time in 2017, and forecasts suggest that this figure will grow to around $1.6 trillion by 2025.
2. The total number of connected devices to IoT is projected to reach to 30.9 billion worldwide by 2025. Do note that this number includes active nodes/devices or gateways that concentrate the end-sensors, rather than consumer devices such as computers and cell phones.
3. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the IoT adoption rate has increased, especially in the IoT in healthcare setup.
According to Microsoft’s 2020 IoT signals report, one-in-three decision-makers plan to up their IoT investments while 41% say their existing investments will remain the same.
Statistics about IoT security threats
1. SonicWall, which blocks an average of 26 million malware attacks globally each day, recorded 40% rise in malware attacks during the third quarter of 2020 as compared to 151.9 million ransomware attacks globally through the first three quarters of 2019, marking 15% and 5% year-over-year declines, respectively. The report clearly indicates how IoT cyber security is compromised.
2. According to the 2020 Unit 42 IoT threat report, 98% of all IoT device traffic is unencrypted, exposing personal and confidential data on the network. This is one huge example of IoT cyber risk.
3. The same report also points out that 57% of IoT devices are vulnerable to medium- or high-severity attacks. Also, 41% of attacks exploit device vulnerabilities that again shows IoT security challenges.
Now that you are up to date with all the data that revolves around security aspects in IoT, let’s discuss the challenges of securing IoT devices.
Internet Of Things Security Vulnerabilities And Challenges
1. Insufficient testing and updating
The major issue that comes with companies while developing IoT devices is that no one takes care of the security issue unless some major problem hits. Once IoT manufacturers launch a device they ensure that it is secure but over time it becomes prone to hackers and other security issues due to the lack of constant testing and updating. Hence, opening the door to IoT security challenges.
2. Lack of compliance on the part of IoT manufacturers
Let me explain this with examples you see in your day to day life. If you use fitness trackers, you must have noticed that bluetooth remains visible after the first pairing. A smart refrigerator can expose gmail credentials and a smart fingerprint padlock can be accessed with a Bluetooth key that has the same MAC address as the padlock device.
This can be labeled as one of the biggest IoT cyber security threats! Below are some security issues in IoT devices from manufacturers:
Weak and easily guessable passwords
Usage of old operating systems and software
Insecure and unprotected data storage and transfer
Technical issues in the hardware
3. Botnet attacks
Cyber security for IoT devices is very crucial since they are highly vulnerable to Malware attacks. They do not have the regular software security updates that a computer does. To perform a botnet attack, a hacker first creates an army of bots by infecting them with malware. Further, directs them to send thousands of requests per second to bring down the target.
Cyber security and IoT should go hand in hand in order to avoid a situation of attack. A botnet attack can easily cause a security threat for transportation systems, manufacturing plants, water treatment facilities and electrical grids, which can threaten big groups of people.
For example: A hacker can create spikes on the power grid by triggering a cooling and heating system at the same time. If this attack is planned on a big-scale it can create a nation-wide power outage.
4. Data security and privacy issues
Did you know that hackers did not spare a visionary like Elon Musk and a company like Apple which is known for its proud security claims. ? If such data comes in the wrong hands, it will not only lead to loss of money but also compromise intellectual property.
It was predicted that the Internet of Things will become a target-rich environment for hackers by 2020, attracting more than 25% of all cyberattacks. According to Microsoft, security aspects in IoT are lagging because 60% of employees use their personal devices for work purposes, and more than 80% admit to using unsanctioned web apps for work.
5. Financial crimes
Electronic payment companies that deploy Internet of Things may experience a wave of financial crimes. It will be a challenge to ensure the timely detection of fraud.
Also, due to compliance and operational issues, it will be difficult for all financial companies to launch new models of workflow. That is, unless they improve their project lifecycle and risk management strategies that include a rising threat of IoT security breaches.
6. Home invasions
You must be familiar with the concept of ‘smart homes’, which is a by-product of IoT. Cyber security for IoT becomes a huge issue when it comes to home automation. Due to unsafe devices and poor defense mechanisms, your IP addresses are trackable and it makes it easy for hackers to locate the address of the device.
7. Remote smart vehicle access
An IoT security challenge that is close to home invasion is the hijacking of your smart vehicles. This can lead to theft of personal data, vehicle theft, manipulation of safety-critical systems, etc.
Also, remote vehicle access can be a subject to ransomware, as a hacker may demand a hefty fee to unlock the car or to enable the engine. These malicious intrusions are obviously a huge threat to public safety as they can cause accidents.
Now that you have walked through the vulnerabilities and challenges that come with IoT, it’s time to talk about cyber security strategies that can help you overcome them.
How Can You Make IoT Connections Secure?
1. Secure the network
It is extremely important to secure the network that is a connecting bridge between the IoT devices and the back-end systems. This can be achieved by implementing security features like antivirus, anti-malware, firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention systems.
That being said, in order to sustain a smooth operation, there is a need for the IoT network to be protected and secured. You can effectively protect the network and secure it against attacks with the help of the above mentioned systems.
2. Authenticate the IoT devices
One of the cyber security solutions can be device authentication features for the IoT devices. Features like- multi-factor authentication and biometric systems ensure that nobody can access your devices. A potential attacker will need personal information to gain access to information and this is where you have leverage.
It is of great significance to secure your devices and reduce the probability of your data getting into the wrong hands. When you implement the suggested security options, your IoT devices become well secured against external breach of security. Thus, you will be able to enjoy the numerous benefits of having IoT devices at home, in the office, in your automobile, and anywhere you want.
3. Public key infrastructure strategy
A public key infrastructure (PKI) allows the users to engage in secure forms of communication, data exchange, and money exchange. This type of engagement is carried out using public and private cryptographic key pairs.
PKI ensures the encryption of data through two — asymmetric and symmetric encryption — processes. In asymmetric, we need two keys, one key is the public key and the other key is the private key. If something is encrypted with the public key, then decryption can only be done with the private key and vice-versa.
On the other hand for symmetric both the data encryption and decryption is done with the same key. The data encryption and decryption ensure that data privacy is maintained and the chances of data theft are reduced to the bare minimum.
4. Use IoT security analytics
You can drastically change the number of security issues you face by implementing security analytics. This involves collecting, correlating, and analyzing the data from multiple sources and can help IoT security providers by assisting in identification of potential threats.
Final Say
There is a lot of scope in IoT today and it is safe to say that the market will increase as per the projections, so now is the time to dive deep into the subject and understand it’s what’s and how’s. Also, with the discussion on IoT security challenges and solutions, we can conclude that securing applications is of paramount importance.
The security challenges must be managed, monitored and avoided by taking certain measures. You can go ahead and hire an IoT app development company that can help you overcome all your security risks, you can also choose the company based on the location, for example if you reside in the USA, then finding an iot app development company USA is better choice, as you will be able to know whether the company is genuine and knows its clients and customers choice.
As the technology industry continues to make more and more investment in innovative web solutions, the progressive web apps aka PWAs are becoming more prevalent. Today, PWAs are fully supported by Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and iOS, making great progress in providing benefits of PWA for businesses.
