American Airlines website Login for employees (faportal)

SMlogin.aa.com ex. Faportal.aa.com

Faportal.aa.com How to Login on?

If you are an American Airlines Employee, you can log in here to faportal.aa.com. The main condition to login here is your employment with AA ID. You can login here if you belong to Southwest. Registration is necessary if you are using the portal for the first time. So whenever you want to access the platform, do register first.

How to register with Faportal.aa.com?

Looking to get a registration with www.faportal.aa.com? You can simply follow some easy steps and sign up for the dashboard. Follow these steps to do the signup process:

  • Access the URL with your browser
  • There you can see a column to fill for first-time user registration
  • Fill your user ID here
  • User ID will be your employee or contractor number

You will get registered once you are done with the necessary information. Start using the platform with your user id and password that you created with faportal.aa.com

American Airlines Customer Service

Facing some issues with anything you can communicate with the customer care services of American Airlines. You may reach American Airlines or American Eagle. The number for the same is 800-433-7300. If you are looking to get assistance in the Spanish language, please dial 800-633-3711. There is an online way to get support from AA via aa.com/i18n/customer-service. So whenever you are stuck with faportal.aa.com, please let them know.

About American Airlines Company

American Airlines is a major US airline that operates from hubs in Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Los Angeles; Miami and New York City.

Their network operates in around 50 countries. This was founded on April 15, 1926.If we talk about the employee power of AA, the company has around 130,0000 as per 2019.The airline network handles around 500,000 passengers daily.

Final words

This is a complete guide to login to www.faportal.aa.com. So whenever you are looking to find any solution related to login, go through this guide. If you have any queries related to this, please drop a comment.

Magento 1 vs Magento 2

What is the Reasons to Upgrade to Magento 2

Magento 1 will cease to be supported at the end of June 2020, so Magento store owners should make the tough call of whether they should continue operating their ecommerce websites on Magento 1 or upgrade to Magento 2. 

Magento 2 was released to address many of the drawbacks, malfunctions, and bugs of Magento 1 and turned out to be a significant upgrade in terms of performance and usability compared to the former. 

Magento 1 vs Magento 2: Key Differences

Magento 1 was originally developed as a flexible ecommerce solution. However, the platform lacked some vital features (performance optimization and mobile-friendliness) that were found on many rival ecommerce platforms. Therefore, many merchants were complaining about the slow performance of their Magento 1 stores leading to lost customers and decreased revenue.

Magento 2 has come to resolve all of the problems encountered in Magento 1. Moreover, Magento 2 includes even more benefits compared to Magento 1. Let’s highlight the top differences between Magento 1 vs Magento 2 features. Some of these key improvements  are:

  • Architecture 

The Magento development team has modified the stack by adding different new technologies – Apache, NGINX, Varnish, Composer, Symfony, Redis, and more. The architecture now supports the PHP7 version, which essentially means even better chances for optimization and customization.

Magento 1 vs 2 technology stack:

Magento 1Magento 2
Apache 2.xApache 2.2./2.4.
 Nginx 1.7 or greater
PHP 5.2.x – 5.5.xPHP 5.6.x/ 7.0.2 / 7.0.6
MySQLMySQL/MySQL Percona 5.6.x or greater
Solr (Only for EE)Solr 4x
HTMLHTML 5
 Varnish 3.x / 4.x
CSSCSS3
 Redis 2.x / 3.x or Memcached 1.4.x
JQuery (in latest themes)JQuery
 RequireJS / Knockout.js
 PSR – 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Zend Framework 1Zend Framework 1 / 2
 Composer
 Symfony
  • Performance

Once your business expands, you will get more traffic and require a solution to be able to cope with a large flow of visitors. If we’re talking about Magento 2 vs Magento 1 performance, Magento 2 is faster all around: on the product, category, and home pages. As mentioned above, many new technologies were added to Magento 2 that helped to optimize pages for fast delivery, reduce the server response time for site activities, and make backend operations more effective. 

The average loading time is now below two seconds (50% faster than Magento 1), which means there is a much smaller probability that your customers will leave a website because of slow page loads. This is all possible due to full-page caching technologies such as Varnish and NGINX.

According to Benchmark Testing, now Magento 2 can operate around two million more page views and process up to 39% more orders hourly compared to Magento 1. Add to cart server response is now 66% faster, and an end-to-end checkout is also 51% faster. 

Even though Magento 2 offers fast performance by default, it doesn’t mean that you don’t need to optimize your site speed. In general, slow interface and loading time issues are caused by a lack of knowledge in optimizing the website. Slow load times hurt crawl efficiency and lead to fewer pages being indexed, so make sure you do everything possible to speed up Magento 2.

Magento 1 vs Magento 2 Loading Speed Comparison. Image credit: dev.to
  • Dashboard 

The admin panel in Magento 2 is customer-friendly, easy in navigation and intuitive. Thus, you can find info effortlessly, navigate all elements of the admin panel smoothly, and operate your ecommerce store more effectively. 

An advanced dashboard is what Magento 1 was missing. Magento 2 admin dashboard displays last, new, and average orders; lifetime retail sales, top search keywords; income tax, bestsellers; the number of products; and amount of shipping that helps to determine the progress of your ecommerce business. In addition, with Magento 2 you can create configurable products and customize data grids. 

Magento 2 Dashboard. Image credit: Magento
Magento 1 Dashboard. Image credit: Magento
  • Security

Maintaining security is crucial when operating an ecommerce website. Magento 2 supports advanced built-in security options. One of them is SHA-256 (Secure Hash Algorithm 256) for passwords, which makes it less possible for a dictionary attack to succeed. 

Magento 2 also comes with the fraud protection system Signifyd. Signifyd is embedded in the latest release of Magento 2,  allowing the platform to determine and reject orders that seem to be scams and deliver 100% chargeback protection. The cost of Signifyd depends on the number of orders your store processes.

The good thing is that if you’re running your store on Magento 1 and you’re worried about security protection, you can add security modules to your ecommerce website through extensions. The bad news is that there’s a bigger possible cybersecurity threat due to the fact that Magento will stop supporting security updates and patches in June 2020.

  • Extensions

With Magento 2, you can integrate and make modifications to new extensions less expensively and with no hassle. The process of installing extensions and updating features became simpler because of the new technologies (HTML5, CSS3, Require.js) integrated into Magento 2.

There are numerous third-party extensions available in the market for Magento 1. However, there could occur conflicts when two or more extensions attempt to rewrite the same functionality. Magento 2 introduced a change that enabled third-party plugins to overlap the core code, rather than overriding it. 

  • Functionality 

One of the major Magento 1 vs 2 functionality differences is the introduction of Ajax Add-To-Cart to Magento 2. In Magento 1, when a product is added to the cart, the system reloads the page, leading to deteriorated performance. With Magento 2, by adding Ajax Add-To-Cart, the new system doesn’t need to reload the page when a new product is added to the cart. 

Checkout functionality has also been simplified and now it’s easy for customers to navigate. Magento 2 automatically recognizes inputted card types of registered customers. This feature is not available in Magento 1. 

Magento 2 takes this further and also provides advanced reporting and marketing automation. Magento 2 offers crucial business metrics, allowing you to track 20 online store reports right from the admin panel. 

When it comes to marketing, Magento 2 has introduced Dotmailer e-mail marketing automation. With Dotmailer, you can create automated marketing campaigns for Push, SMS, e-mail, and other channels.

Last but not least, one of the most important changes in Magento 2 is the dependency injection. In Magento 1 class files are often large, so it’s difficult to determine what their core functionality is. Magento 2 solved this problem with dependency injection, a design pattern that abstracts out the dependencies of a class to make the process quicker and easier. Dependency injection is an excellent way to diminish tight coupling between application codebase. 

  • Support

The end of Magento 1 support is coming soon. At the end of June 2020, Magento will stop releasing and updating security patches and important fixes on their part. Evidently there will be no more innovations, new features or enhancements for Magento 1. 

At the same time, Magento 2 has integrated new features like page builder, PWA (Progressive Web Applications) and is expected to realize even more functionality to deliver robust e-commerce solution with better speed, security, and performance.

  • SEO

When Magento 1 was launched in 2005, it lacked significant functionalities for SEO. Magento 2 has introduced many enhancements in search engine optimization. For instance, Schema.org is aimed to boost the search engine rankings of your store. Also, rich snippets on the Magento 2 catalog pages make your product data much easier to crawl by search engines.

  • Cost

This could be the only aspect where Magento 1 wins the battle, as the Magento 1 license is cheaper than Magento 2. With so many updates, new functionalities, and the latest features, it’s obvious why the Magento 2 license costs a pretty penny. 

Community Editions: Magento 1 and Magento  2 are free of charge

Enterprise Editions:  Magento 1 EE license cost (starts at): $18,000 per year

                                       Magento 2 EE license cost (starts at): $22,000 per year

https://elogic.co/blog/magento-1-vs-magento-2-the-reasons-to-upgrade-to-magento-2/

How to Integrate Instagram API and Feed on PHP Website

Few can argue that Instagram is one of the most powerful and engaging social media platforms across the internet right now. It has more than 700 million monthly active users (MAUs) and about 400 million active users per day (DAUs). No surprise that many merchants and companies are already using Instagram as their primary sale or promotion channel.

Taking into account that 65% of customers are engaged in online shopping and social media, integrating Instagram may actually provide you a huge boost in sales and conversions. We’d like to share two most popular Instagram website integrations: social login and feed streaming and teach you how to integrate API into a website.

Login with Instagram Using PHP

It must be acknowledged that the shorter registration form – the higher conversion rates. Users are not willing to spend hours filling in long forms. The feature we’re going to integrate will allow your users to quickly login by using only their Instagram account password.

Moreover, by making this function available you still will be able to collect all valuable user data required for targeting, email newsletters, and analytical purposes.

Information that can be obtained through Instagram API:

  • User info
  • User feeds
  • User media
  • User likes
  • User follows
  • User follower
  • User Relationship
  • Search media
  • Get media
  • Popular media
  • Media likes
  • Media comments
  • Like media
  • Delete like media
  • Get location
  • Get location media
  • Search location

Step #1 Registering your Application

  • Login on www.instagram.com;
  • Go to the developer account https://www.instagram.com/developer/ ;
  • Click on “Register Your Application” button;
  • Register new client ID;
  • In “Website URL” field use your website address or localhost if you’re using it;
  • In “Redirect URL” field type location where the response will be handled (e.g. http://yourwebsite/yourprojectfolder/callback.php );
  • Go to Manage Clients tab. From here you can acquire your Client ID and Client Secret.

Step #2 User Flow

The principle of Instagram Authentication is quite simple. User clicks on “Login with Instagram” button. The request is redirected through Authorization URL to Instagram. It`s like magic.

Here’s the structure of Authorization URL:

https://api.instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=CLIENT-ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT-URI&response_type=code

In response, Instagram will provide you with the code in the following format:

https://your-redirect-uri?code=CODE

Get this code from URL

Step #3 Access Token

Next, you’ll need an access token. In order to acquire it you’ll need to make an array with the following data:

  • Client ID.
  • Client Secret.
  • Redirect URL.
  • Grant Type.
  • Code from Step #2.
$url = "https://api.instagram.com/oauth/access_token";
$header = 0; // header = 0, because we do not have header
$data = array(
"client_id" => $client_id,
"client_secret" => $client_secret,
"redirect_uri" => $redirect_uri,
"grant_type" => "authorization_code",
"code" => $code
);

You can call it and pass this URL using CURL

Step #4 Getting User Information

Finally, after getting access_token you can call this URL https://api.instagram.com/v1/users/self/?access_token=$access_token) and get User Data.

Data you will acquire:

  • Full Name.
  • Website.
  • Bio.
  • Followers Count.
  • Following Count.
  • Profile Picture.

That’s it, and good luck.

Just kidding! Here is a folder with all files required for integration of Instagram Login on your website using PHP.

How to integrate Instagram feed to your website without API

Most tutorials on how to implement Instagram feed suggest to use Instagram API. And while there is nothing wrong with this method, there is an easier way without actually using this API.

The first thing we need to do is to get feed data from Instagram.

Here’s a code sample for this task:

<?php
$username = 'YourUserName';
$json = file_get_contents('https://www.instagram.com/'.$username.'/media/');
$instagram_feed_data = json_decode($json, true);
?>

For the “name” field use your username as it shown in Instagram’s address line.

The string $instagram_feed_data = json_decode($json, true); indicate the data will be contained and decoded. The data will be decoded into the array.

Basically, in your array, the data about each post will be structured into [“items”]. Each item contains information about every single post including user info, images, the caption, likes, comments, etc.

This is the information we’ll gonna use. But first, you should check if there are any items in the array. Here’s how to make this:

if (isset($instagram_feed_data['items'])) 
foreach ($instagram_feed_data['items'] as $item) }

Next, you’ll need to get an actual post link and image URL. Keep in mind that the array contains image URLs in multiple formats: thumbnail, low_resolution, and standard_resolution. You may choose one of those formats depending on your needs.

In our case, we’ll be ok with low resolution.

$link = $item['link'];
$img_url = $item['images']['low_resolution']['url'];

In addition, you can take a caption. In case of Instagram posts there isn’t always a caption, so you’ll need to check whether it exists first.

$caption = isset($item['caption']) ? $item['caption']['text'] : '';

Streaming

Now, when feed data is acquired we can stream to your webpage. Let’s start with the images by using image URLs. Since this URL is leading to an external web resource (Instagram), we’ll make the target blank. Then, list output of actual image and caption.

<a href="<?= $link; ?>" target="_blank" class="instagram-post">

<img src="<?= $img_url; ?>">
<div class="caption"><?= $caption; ?></div>

That’s it. All you need is to compose all these code strings into one script. Here’s it by the way.

if (isset($instagram_feed_data['items'])) {
    foreach ($instagram_feed_data['items'] as $item) {
        $link = $item['link'];
        $img_url = $item['images']['low_resolution']['url'];
        $caption = isset($item['caption']) ? $item['caption']['text'] : '';
        
        ?>
        <a href="<?= $link; ?>" target="_blank" class="instagram-post">
            <img src="<?= $img_url; ?>">
            <div class="caption"><?= $caption; ?></div>
        </a>
        <?php
    }
}
?>

Use this simple script that will get images, caption and links from the Instagram feed with no API. With little CSS magic, you can turn this data into such a good-looking web page.

Hope you found what you looked for.

REFERENCES

Custom website development: definition, benefits, and costs

Do you have a website and are thinking about redesigning it, or are you or your business not yet online but want to fix it? Then you should pay attention to custom website development services. We have collected the basic information that will allow you to learn everything about custom web development.

What is custom website development?

A custom site is a website that is made exclusively for your business or personal needs and goals. It is a fully personalized solution with very specific features that fit your business strategy and communications. A custom site can be a landing page, an online store, a web portal, or any other, it all depends on the requirements of the owner.

One option for creating a custom site would be to use a CMS such as WordPress. This approach is a bit easier than full custom web development, but it does require technical web development skills to offer a unique template and specific features. Another way to create a website is full development, which includes back-end and front-end steps.

Why create a custom website?

The benefits of a custom website are endless for your business. Indeed, here are some of the real benefits that a fully personalized website can bring your business:

Strong design and clear brand image

One of the main advantages of a custom website is the design. Indeed, here you are not limited in terms of graphics, unlike a CMS, or you have to choose a common template and fiddle around to get it set up. Whether it’s your menu, the shapes you use, your animations, your colors, your buttons, or your footer, you’re completely free to design all of your elements.

Therefore, if you have a graphic charter that is already well established for your business, you will be able to transcribe it perfectly on your website. If you don’t already have one, now is the time to create one with your custom website. 

By having a unique visual identity that suits you perfectly, you will be able to make your site unique and effectively stand up to your competitors. As a result, your brand image will be better, and you will be able to reach as many of your potential customers as possible. Indeed, many of your potential customers get a sense of your brand from just the look and feel of your website.

User interface (UI)

With a custom website, you will be able to give an effective user experience to your visitors. Indeed, several points can be optimized with a personalized site:

You have the option to host pop-ups, buttons, or completely custom forms. As a result, you will create an interface that will please your users. In addition, the possibilities for creating an interface when creating a custom website are extensive: almost any specific idea you have in terms of your website appearance can be brought to life thanks to custom website development.

For example, knowing that more and more users are browsing the web thanks to their phones, creating a responsive site that adapts to all screen formats is now essential. By creating a custom website with the help of the Digiteum team, you can get the perfect responsive design. With optimized CSS, HTML, and PHP code, your pages will be technically and visually optimized on phones and tablets.

Download speed

Page loading speed is also a point to consider when developing a custom site. Such a site allows you to perfectly control the loading speed of your entire site. Indeed, you will have access to all technical options:

  • Image sizes;
  • Server in use;
  • Web hosting;
  • Pagination;
  • CSS and JS code;
  • Optimized download tool based on user geographic location.

Best SEO

It goes without saying that if you’re building a custom site, it’s for creating quality content. And quality is an important factor in your website’s SEO.

By developing a website, you will be able to create a code and structure that strives for perfection. If your titles, subtitles, various tags, descriptions, meta descriptions, etc. are optimized, Google will consider your site worthy of proper positioning in search engines.

In addition, Google is optimized to highlight sites with a properly organized HTML structure. Therefore, with a perfectly matched site, you can implement tags in connection with structured data. For example, FAQs, guides, etc.

Analysis of results

With a custom website, you will be able to analyze your site’s statistics very effectively and act on those statistics. For example, if you have an e-commerce site, you will be able to test different types of sales pages with different designs or different calls to action, for example. By doing this, you will be able to determine what works best in your marketing and in the design of your pages.

How long does it take to create a custom website?

Now that you know the main benefits you will get by using custom website development services from Digiteum, you must be wondering how long the development will take. This concept of duration can be very variable. This will, of course, depend on the complexity of your project, the resources you allocate to it, and the methodology used to develop your site. A growth-driven, agile-inspired, and data-driven design approach has the undeniable advantage of increasing your project’s chances of success.

How much does it cost to create a custom website?

The concept of value also varies greatly. The price of a website depends on many factors: the number of pages, technical specifications, type of agency, design method, design, options, content, and many other elements. Therefore, companies that develop websites have a wide range of tariff offers. Each such offer will be unique for each client because it will be based on individual desires.

As you can see, creating a custom site is quite a capacious process, but the benefits from it at times cover this investment of time and money. And now we can be sure that if you want to start your business on the Internet, then you need a custom website. This will allow you to learn much more about your market in addition to developing your image and your clientele.

How Interac Became The Most Popular Payment Method in Canadian Casinos

Although online casino gambling had been legalised in Canada, there was a major problem with how Canadians transferred their real money into an online casino platform just so they could enjoy their favourite casino game. While are legal issues that come with casino banking in Canada, the advent of Interac partnering up with Gigadat Solutions Inc, solved most of those issues. This pivoted Interac online and e-transfer to the peak of popularity in the country and it became the standard of online casino payments for the average Canuck.

The Canadian province of Ontario today (4 April) officially launched its legal and regulated online gambling market.

The Canadians could only play online casino games and gamble at sportsbooks with their credit cards. MasterCard and Visa partnered up with banks across the world to put an end to this type of transaction, and so the search for other methods of payment for Canadian gamblers returned. Skrill and Neteller emerged as the possible best for the Canucks in their search.

Legal Issues Hindering Online Casino Payment Processors

Back in September 2006, the US Senate released a bill that made online gambling illegal in the United States, this transformed into Neteller being charged by the government for “illegally” processing online gaming transactions and ESI. This also led to a Canadian payments provider being charged, then it became the chain of events that led to several legal problems arising in the industry.

Although no bill was passed in Canada to make online gambling illegal, the lack of response was left open to interpretations. The online casinos operating in Canada can only be given licenses by the provincial governments. Because foreign companies cannot be prosecuted under the Canadian Criminal Code except the companies that have a physical presence in the country, Neteller and Skrill, which both have a physical presence in Canada, decided to not run the risk of operating in the country and thus packed their bags.

Arrival of New Canadian Casino Banking Methods

Over the last decade, several payment providers came and left the online casino banking range. EcoPayz, iDebit, and Instadebit are the latest e-wallet companies to enter that market, while PayPal never concerned themselves with the industry at all. Paysafe, Neosurf and Flexepin also emerged in the market as they were accepted by most online casinos operating in Canada. However, they can only be used to deposit cash into their casino account, if they wish to withdraw they will have to choose another method to achieve that aim, which in most cases is usually the ancient bank wire or cheque in the mail.

How Interac Online Became Popular

Online casino banking or not, Interac is the most widely used payment processor in Canada. All Canadians that have a bank account probably know of Interac e-Transfer, as the payment processor has partnered with almost every major bank and credit union across the country, and they all offer Interac Online.

LeoVegas was the first INTERAC online casino in Canada to start offering Interac Online as a deposit method to Canadian gamblers. That was just three years ago. Currently, almost all top-class online casinos in Canada is now offering Interac as a mode of payment. Gigadat Solutions Inc’s partnership with Interac made this possible, as it is responsible for connecting Canadian banks with merchants.

Interac Online & E-Transfer

Using Interac as a payment method in online casinos became so popular due to its ease of use. However, there are two main online casino types, Interac Online and e-Transfer. Interac Online is popularly known to be a direct banking method that lets you transfer cash directly to your casino account with the aid of Gigadat as the third-party processor that will link the two parties together. While e-Transfer is a type of payment that is processed by a financial institution. Gigadat is still responsible for processing the information needed to complete the transaction.

While both types can be used for deposits, only e-Transfer can be used for withdrawals. Interac e-Transfer is available at every bank and credit union running in Canada, and it also takes more time to process deposits while Interac Online are instant when it comes to deposits.

Interac is an online payment solution that is based in Canada, so this won’t stop being a payment method for Canadians in online casinos unless it is regulated by the Canadian government. Interac will be Canadians’ stable, secure and fast casino payment method for a long time.

AI in Dating: How Smart Technologies Are Used in the Online Dating World

Everybody knows that artificial intelligence has found its way to most industries. It makes complex processes easier and never gets tired. It can predict behavioral patterns and even helps with reading emotions. The list of ways in which AI helps is long, let’s try to group the most important points. We’ll focus on one of the first industries that started using artificial intelligence. The two most important factors of online dating are safety and efficiency. AI improved both. Let’s see how.

AI on Guard for Relevant Matches

We’ll start with how AI makes dating sites more efficient. Online dating has come a long way since its beginning. That means singles now can choose platforms that fit them the best. Nowadays, along with general dating sites, there are many niche online platforms that target specific groups of people looking for a specific type of relationship. So, straight people join sites for straight people while gay men meet each other on gay dating sites. In turn, lesbian women have a bunch of platforms, but most still pick the best of all lesbian dating sites available today. They do so because they know that joining a platform only for lesbians makes their chances of getting dates much better. Lesbian women are sure that every other member on the site is their potential partner. That alone was a breakthrough in the online dating industry. Niche sites are much more effective than general sites despite having smaller communities. It’s easier to connect people who have something in common than those who don’t. That was the whole purpose of specialized sites.

And then AI took that one step further. Niche and general sites started using artificial intelligence to become even more effective. Because AI matchmaking is faster than the human brain since it can process more data in less time. Users no longer have to spend a lot of time manually searching for relevant matches (of course, this possibility is still present on dating sites). After filling in your details and indicating your desired preferences, the matchmaking algorithm will offer you a variety of suitable potential matches. And you no longer need to choose among all site users, but only among those who contain a set of qualities that you are looking for in a partner, and who may like you based on their request and your profile. But there is something even more. Not only does artificial intelligence connect better matches based on the provided data, but it also learns what each member prefers.

Example

For example, when a single woman joins a lesbian dating site to find her perfect girlfriend, she browses profiles, stops to read interesting descriptions, zooms to check out profile photos, sends messages to some girls, etc. All that time, AI notices (and remembers) what members made this single woman stop browsing. It usually turns out that all the lesbian users who grab one’s attention have much in common. Smart intelligence technology collects this data to make offers more relevant to each user, thus improving the dating experience on the site.

How AI Improves User Experience

Artificial intelligence makes dating sites more effective because it improves user experience. It’s easier to explain how that’s possible on the example of Facebook and its other companies. Do you know how you always see more content related to that one post you checked out? Thank AI for that. Stop to check out comments on a post related to COVID. You’ll start getting a lot more posts like that in your feed. It’s like that on every social media. AI thinks that people stop to read things they’re interested in. On most dating sites that manifest in presenting better matches in less time. 

That is, if a single woman is looking for a woman on a lesbian dating site, for example, browsing ladies from her local area, then the site will offer her exactly the local lesbians in whom she is interested. Yes, users still have to spend time on the site to give AI enough info. However, if a woman spends a couple of hours looking for her potential lesbian girlfriend nearby, the AI on the site will pick that up. At the same time, if another woman spends her time looking for someone like our first woman, the AI will remember that too. Then, those two lesbian women will be more likely to see each other on the site’s features. You can look at AI on dating sites as some sort of cupid. It watches over you, learns who you are, and tries to help you reach your goal.

How AI Secures Users

We explained how AI makes online dating sites more efficient. Now let us tell you something about safety. We won’t touch any technology that’s still not in use on dating sites, such as AI emotion detectors. We’ll mention how AI currently helps people stay safe while looking for dates.

As you know, AI processes a tremendous amount of information every second and never gets tired. In other words, it watches over the whole site to prevent issues before they happen. If some attacker wants to steal the personal data of one of the users, he will not be able to do so. Because AI will see errors in the code before he does and fix them. 

Also, based on AI, anti-spam and anti-fraud systems are being developed and implemented. These systems filter users for “suspicious activity” or block users for trigger words and images contained in posts, profiles, and the like. This reduces the risk of users facing insults, racism, sexism and other negative factors of online communication platforms. Therefore, the positive experience on dating sites for black dating or lesbian dating will only grow every year. Aren’t we living in the best era for being single?

Things to consider before starting a retail software development

There are three aspects to consider when developing the right retail software: the operational aspect (Is customer relationship management effective?), the collaboration aspect (Does communication between employees, customers, suppliers, and partners improve?), and the analytical aspect (Does data analysis become easier?). Among the retail software development services on the market, how to select the one that will help increase the productivity and commercial efficiency of your company?

What tasks will your business solve using retail software?

  • Gathering sales data in a shared database, in a single view
  • Segmenting the target audience and building customer portraits
  • Providing immediate response to customer inquiries
  • Generating personalized recommendations and offers for the buyers
  • Making sales forecasts

All these functions of retail software, in most cases, are aimed at customers. For example, such retail software as CRM works within the company: integrated with financial tools, it accelerates preparing reports, automates staff work, and improves communication between departments through a common information field.

All retail software can be divided into two large groups: boxed products (ready-made solutions) and custom software. And it is clear that to choose a custom retail software, you must find a quality supplier of retail software development services and have clear goals. Just the choice depends on the objectives of your business and the requirements which software must meet. Below, we have prepared some tips about software development.

Customizable and flexible retail software: does it really matter?

It all depends on the needs of the company and employees. Indeed, the customization needs are not the same if the retail software is used by one department (e.g., sales representatives only) or several departments with different modes of operation, which may need to be adapted. In any case, simple, ergonomic, and intuitive software is preferred.

In addition, to ensure that your retail software is open to other tools, it is interesting to see if it has an application programming interface (API). The IT department should be able to measure API needs and interoperability or technical barriers with the chosen retail software solution. For example, APIs allow interoperability with ERP, other software, or a website.

Compare the features offered by custom retail software

It is important to select its features according to the needs and use of each. By grouping the different features by topic, it allows you to put a rating of importance for each criterion and make a complete comparison to see more clearly. The main groups of software features most often are:

  • Database of contacts and companies: multi-criteria search, history of exchanges and changes, import/export of Excel tables, synchronization with another database, sorting, adding favorites, a tool for merging companies or duplicating contacts, etc.;
  • Commercial pipe management: monitoring the evolution of opportunities, creating personalized quotes, etc.;
  • Marketing campaigns: the creation of personalized campaigns, interface with mailing tools, automation of actions, etc.;
  • Sales cycle automation: automatic email/phone reminders, document storage (sales proposals, letters, etc.), overdue action reminders, signature probabilities calculation, etc.;
  • Data analysis: dashboards, data summaries with graphs, commercial reporting, custom queries, ROI analysis, etc.;
  • Workforce planning and management: general scheduling and general agenda, managing employee absence and expense reports, requesting and confirming leave / RTT, managing roles and access rights, hierarchy, etc.;
  • Additional options: interface with social networks, API call, links to Google Maps;

Custom retail software options that matter

Simple options or parameterization options are useful for increasing the productivity of your team. That’s why you need to learn about some features that can make a difference. If we talk about CRM, for example, social media interface, available on all types of support (mobile CRM, laptop, desktop, etc.), link to email software, synchronization with employee calendars (Office 365, Google Calendar
), related mobile apps, etc.

You’ll find that usage of custom CRM software is a detail that facilitates appropriation and long-term use. And let’s dive deeper into the retail software development topic on the example of these systems by Fideware.

CRM software: security, data storage, and backup

Depending on how the CRM software is obtained, it is important to question the security of the stored data. In the case of purchasing CRM software in SaaS mode, the publisher will take care of the location of all the data contained in the software. Therefore, it is preferable to check the level of technical skills and experience of the publisher, the location of data centers, the frequency of data backup, the technological partners of the CRM software publisher (vendors, training, support
). This step should not be overlooked. A data leak or loss can be an actual blow to the company.

If you’re still hesitant, test them out

It can be helpful to try the CRM software before you buy it and mobilize all its employees. Having different departments that will use the CRM software to do the test allows you to have feedback and comments and take comfort in your decision.

Why choose a custom solution from Fideware

  1. Easy-to-use retail software: With the advent of new technologies, your employees will have the perfect ease-of-use interface that you customize yourself to meet your needs.
  2. Comprehensive dashboards: you will be able to track, analyze and understand your customers’ journey.
  3. All your services will be connected: the CRM will be able to connect all your business processes to initiate the perfect collaboration of your services and increase efficiency.
  4. Smart tool: by creating lists that you will customize, you will be able to monitor your opportunities or consider new marketing campaigns by planning them.

Custom CRM systems are easily integrated with the IT infrastructure of the business, contain a package of options necessary for a particular business, and protect customer data. Many business owners appreciate the benefits of CRM.

By following all of these tips to choose your custom retail software, know that the more the solution is considered, the more effective and flexible the implementation will be. Measuring your goals and determining your needs lets you know which features are necessary and which are not. However, some steps in the custom retail software selection process are not negligible: checking the vendor’s reliability and experience, testing before buying, etc.

How Do You Pay for Online Casinos in 2023?

Being able to fund your online casino account quickly and secure is one of the most vital features for most online casino players. There are numerous ways of depositing funds into your casino account. While some payments methods are only supported for deposits, others will also allow you to make quick and safe withdrawals. 

With so many options at your disposal, it can get a bit confusing when choosing the best online casino payment method. This article highlights some of the best and most secure online payment options for casino deposits. 

Online Casino Payment Method Categories

Most reputable online casinos offer a multitude of payment options to accommodate all their customers with their different preferences. ​This way, every punter has access to suitable or preferred online payment options when transacting with the casino site. 

However, all major online payment options fall under the four categories discussed below:

Debit/Credit Cards

Debit and credit cards are the most popular and commonly used payment option for online casino punters. When you intend to frequent several online casinos, it is advisable to have a separate debit/credit card for your gambling activities. 

The most widely accepted debit and credit cards include Visa, American Express, Mastercard, and prepaid cards such as Paysafecard and Entropay. If this is your preferred online payment option, look for reputable casinos that accept prepaid visa cards to get started with your online casino gambling experience.

‱ Visa

Visa was the pioneer credit card for online purchases, and it has stood the test of time and managed to maintain its status quo as the largest payment network across the world. One of the most profound benefits of using Visa is that it’s acceptable at virtually every online casino. 
‱ Mastercard

Coming as number two, Mastercard is Visa’s largest competitor in the credit/debit card category. Similarly, it is widely accepted, and you can use your Mastercard at any online casino. 
‱ American Express

This credit/debit card has maintained its first-class status and remains a valid and safe online payment option. However, only a handful of online casinos support American Express. This is largely due to the strict legal framework governing online gambling in the US. 

E-Wallets

E-wallets are becoming more popular among online casino gamers as the digital world advances. This is significantly due to the ease of tracking transactions and the almost instant transaction timeframes. 

Compared to other online payment methods, E-wallets are proving to be more effective. Unlike traditional banking methods, you will not have to wait for five to seven business days for your transactions to go through. But it’s hard to build an E-wallet from scratch.

The most common E-wallets that you can use to fund your online casino account include PayPal, InstaDebit, Neteller, EcoPayz, Skrill, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

‱ PayPal

This is the most widely known e-wallet all world over. After growing a global customer base, PayPal was purchased in 2002 by eBay, the world’s largest online store. Today, it’s dubbed the people’s online payment choice. 

A majority of reputable online casinos accept PayPal deposits like Target. And it’s easy to add PayPal to your website.

‱ Neteller

Neteller is yet another giant in the online payment industry. This payment option has a long history linked with the gambling industry. Online casinos, poker rooms, and sportsbooks all support Neteller as a deposit and withdrawal option. 

In 2005 alone, the company facilitated 80% of all online gambling transactions. This led to Neteller being forced to pay circa $300 million in legal fees due to trouble with the US Department of Justice.


‱ 
Skrill

Skrill is Neteller’s largest competitor in the online payment service category. Being regulated under the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom, Skrill is one of the safest online casino payment options. 

If you are looking for a reliable online payment method to fund your casino account, the Skrill e-Wallet is by far the most prevalent and convenient option out there. 

‱ EcoPayz

Having been in operation for over two decades, EcoPayz offers a variety offinancial services. The EcoPayz e-Wallet offers the typical functions associated with all other e-wallets, plus the bonus of being able to cash out funds directly to your prepaid debit card (ecoCard.) 

Both EcoPayz and ecoCard are acceptable at the most reputable online casinos on the market today. What’s more, the company offers its services in seven different languages, and you can make your transfers using any of the supported 45 currencies. 

Cryptocurrencies

The number of online casinos that support cryptocurrencies as a mode of transactions is ever-increasing. It won’t be long before all casinos recognize crypto as a legitimate mode of payment. 

However, when considering using cryptos to fund your account, you should understand that their value is highly volatile. This means that the market highs and lows can either work for or against you. In other words, funding your casino account with crypto can potentially add another layer of risk in terms of value volatility. 

The most popular cryptocurrencies for online casino gambling include Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Dash. 

Traditional & Alternative Banking Methods

Though modern technologies have greatly revolutionized banking and payment methods, some folks are still stuck with traditional options. For this reason, a majority of online casinos still support conventional payment options to accommodate such customers. 

Traditional payment options that are still acceptable at online casinos include eChecks, Bank Transfers, Mobile Phone Bills, and Offline Cash Payments. 

There are numerous other alternatives that you can turn to for online casino payments. ​These secondary options include FirePay, PrePaid ATM, Citadel, 900 Pay, CentralCoin, ClickAndBuy, and AddFunds. 

The truth is that some credit cards and online payment gateways do not allow gambling transactions through their instruments. When that is the case, these alternative options come in handy. 

Conclusion

The banking industry is currently undergoing an inevitable revolution that was set in motion by blockchain technology. As this happens, the financial sector remains in chaos. When looking to make speedy and secure transactions to and from your online casino accounts, e-wallets and cryptos are the best options. 

With the volatility presented by the crypto space, e-wallets remain the top-recommended payment option when it comes to online gambling.

Most Common WordPress Issues

Creating a website is one of the first and most important steps that online business owners will take. Many people end up choosing WordPress to build their websites due to its user-friendliness. WordPress is a great option, but there are a few common errors to be aware of in case you encounter them in the future.

Make a Backup

When you notice an issue on your website, you may have a temptation to resolve the problem right away. Before you take any action, it is a strong recommendation to make a backup of your WordPress site. This is to ensure that you do not lose any data if the attempted resolution fails. Several plugins offer backup services, or you could perform a manual backup instead. 

WordPress Issues

1. Slow Speeds

Due to the short attention span of most online visitors, it has become more important than ever for websites to load quickly. If a customer needs to wait more than three seconds for a page to load, they are very likely to navigate away and find a competing product instead.  

There are a few different methods of solving the problem. First, check your hosting provider’s website. A server may be undergoing maintenance, and the provider will likely post an estimated time of completion. 

Another possibility is that your website has outgrown its hosting plan. Talk to your provider about upgrading to a new, reliable WordPress hosting plan that will suit your needs better. A WordPress hosting plan will optimize your website and provide you with features such as one-click installation, auto-updates, enhanced security, and support from experts in the field. 

2. “White Death” Error

When your WordPress displays a blank screen, this is primarily known as either a “White Screen of Death”, or a “White Death” for short. This error indicates that the site was not able to load, and it can be tricky to troubleshoot because there are multiple possibilities. The most likely culprit is a broken plugin. 

If you just downloaded a new plugin, the resolution to the problem may be simple. Login to your admin area and navigate to your plugins. Deactivate the plugin you recently acquired and test your web page again. If that was the cause, you should submit a support ticket to the plugin’s developer to let them know there was a problem. If that was not the cause, you could try deactivating all your plugins at once to eliminate them from being the issue. Do a test, and then reactivate them if the problem is not fixed. 

Another potential solution is to clear your cache. After an update, the cache may still be displaying out-of-date files. This is simple to do if you have a cache plugin, as there will be a button in the admin toolbar. Simply hover over the button, and the option to purge the cache will appear. 

3. Internal Server Error

Encountering an internal server error is an indication of a corrupted .htaccess file. This is the file that contains server instructions that allow for configurations of your website. The file can become corrupt due to the installation of a plugin or if the internet drops during a change to the website. 

You will need to log into your site root directory to repair this. Here you will have access to your WordPress installation, and you can change the name of your .htaccess file. Rename it to .htaccess_old. Save your changes in the settings – permalinks area, and then check that the issue is now solved. If it is, you can delete the old .htaccess file, as a new one will generate to replace it. 

4. Issues with Uploading Media

Sometimes, while uploading media in the admin area, you may encounter an HTTP error. This will pop up on the side of your screen in a small box. Luckily, this issue tends to have a simple resolution. You may have left your session open too long and it expired. Refresh the page and then try again. 

Otherwise, there may be an issue with the media file itself. It could be too large, or it could have disallowed characters in its name. Try renaming it, and then resizing it to solve the problem. 

5. Unsecure Site

While testing your site, you may notice a warning of “Not Secure” beside the URL. This indicates that your website does not have an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate will ensure that the data transmitted between the server and the browsers of visitors remains encrypted and secure. There is a reduced chance that hackers can infiltrate the data and steal the information of customers. 

Having an SSL certificate is important because it demonstrates to customers your dedication to protecting their personal information. A customer will be far more likely to purchase something from a secure website as opposed to an unsecured one. 

Wrapping Up

The above are five of the most common WordPress errors you may encounter during your business operations. If you cannot find your specific error or a resolution, try reaching out to your web hosting provider, as they might be able to walk you through the solution.   

Starting Out with B2B marketing? Here’s Some Things to Consider

There’s a whole world differentiating B2B and B2C marketing from each other. When you’re marketing other businesses, you need to have a very different approach. Do some thorough research on this before writing your marketing strategy. In this article, you can check out some of the basic things to consider when starting out with B2B marketing. You can find a long and thorough guide on how to use B2B marketing on https://blog.hubspot.com/.

Build credibility and trust

Customer retention should be one of the primary focus points of any B2B marketing strategy. It can be a bigger risk for companies to choose a new brand, so once you’ve gained them as a customer, make sure you keep them. Often businesses keep the brands that make it work for them. The key for this is to create credibility and trust and give them no reason to replace you. 

Another thing to be aware of is the first impression that possible customers will get of your business. Make sure that all of your digital presence is spot on and up to date. This should be a main priority. If your website isn’t looking professional, chances are they’ll never even contact you. Throw money, time and energy towards a great website. Read much more on the importance of good websites and their names on https://domainify.com/.

Keep it simple and straightforward

One of the major differences between B2B and B2C marketing is that B2B buyers aren’t as affected by their emotions as regular customers tend to be. When you’re creating B2B marketing materials, you need to be focused on keeping it simple and straightforward. Businesses want a product or service that works for them and is financially sustainable for their business. 

Show it, don’t tell it

In addition to the just mentioned, you need to make choosing of your product or service a really easy decision for potential customers. Make sure that you show them results. Show it, don’t tell it. Businesses want to see results, so they can make a profitable decision for themselves. Another good idea is to prioritize and underline your flexibility. Offering your products or services with and without a package deal could be the small thing landing you the job. 

Networking is everything

Maybe not everything — but networking really means a lot when we’re talking about B2B marketing. Relationships are important apropos building trust and credibility. Most businesses stick to the product or service that they know. Make sure that is you. Prioritize building solid relationships with your customers and reach out to network with new potential customers. Maintaining these relationships should continue to be a main priority for you throughout your business journey. A great and recommendable platform to use for networking is LinkedIn.

How to Install WordPress on a Subdomain

If you want to use WordPress on a subdomain but have trouble installing it, there are a couple of ways to do it. The first way is to manually install it, which involves using an FTP client or your hosting provider’s file manager. This method is not very recommended, but it can work in some cases. You can follow the steps below to do it manually. The second method involves automatically installing WordPress on a domain, but it is more complicated.

In order to install WordPress on a subdomain, you need to create a new database in your hosting account. You can do this by going to your CPanel home page and clicking on the ‘MySQL’ section. Then, you need to create a user with the username you chose and grant them all privileges. The name of the database should include an underscore. Once you’ve set up the user, you can upload the WordPress files to your subdomain.

Once the installation is complete, you can check and verify the updates by logging into your WordPress account. You can even use an FTP client to install WordPress on a subdomain. There’s no need to create a separate domain to install WordPress. All you need to do is add a directory with the name of the subdomain in your hosting account. Then, you can go to that directory with your web host’s ‘Add Site’ button.

If you’re looking for a simple way to install WordPress on a subdomain, you’ll need an FTP client. To get started, open the ‘Domains’ section and select ‘Subdomains’. Next, click ‘Create’. You’ll find the ‘wordpress’ folder in your local files panel. To install WordPress, you’ll need to upload the zip file to the subdirectory and rename it.

Once the files are moved to the main root of your domain, you’ll need to create a subdomain folder. Then, you’ll need to change the path to the WordPress folder. You should also create a database in your host’s account in order to enable the installation of WordPress on a subdomain. Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to install WordPress on a subdomain.

The next step is to create a MySQL database and set up the WordPress software. If you have access to your main account, then you should log in to your subdomain using the FTP account. You should enter the subdomain name into the Directory text box. Then, you need to enter the administrator password and MySQL credentials. To make the website accessible to the public, you should enter the full path of your website in the ‘wp-admin’ field.

Animated Explainer Video Examples

If you’re looking for an easy and effective way to explain your business to a large audience, you should consider creating an Animated Explainer Video. An animated video isn’t as time-consuming as a traditional one, and it doesn’t require a crew or a shooting schedule. An animator can blend animation and real life demonstrations. If you’re not a skilled animator, you can use screen capture to create your video.

When creating your animated explainer video, make sure you have a goal in mind. Think about the message you want to convey, and then write a script. It’s a good idea to include images or other visuals, and then incorporate a strong call to action. You can also use audio and video effects to make the video more entertaining. Once you have a solid concept, you’ll need to find an interesting voice actor to narrate your story.

Animated Explainer Videos are a great way to explain your product or service to potential customers. These videos are versatile and easy to make and can be used anywhere you’d like. They can be simple or complex and can be as long as one minute or as short as one minute. Moreover, they are easy to produce and edit. A good animation can communicate a clear idea in an engaging way. It will help potential customers understand why they should choose your product or service.

Animated Explainer Videos can also be animated with different kinds of content. The most popular are infographics and cartoon series. Creating these videos is a great way to promote your business and educate potential customers. You can also use these videos to make a persuasive sales pitch. You can even use the animated explainer video as a lead generation tool. You can include a link to your website so that prospective clients can download your video.

Animated Explainer Videos are the best way to sell your business and brand. Whether it’s a product or service, these videos can be used to build brand trust and boost revenue. Regardless of the type, Animated Explainer Videos are an effective way to market your business. In fact, many companies have used them for their marketing and sales purposes. It’s possible to make your own Animated Explainer Video.

Animated Explainer Videos are popular for non-physical products, like iPhones and iPads. They can easily be customized according to your target audience’s needs and interests. They can be made in a variety of styles and formats, which will make them easy to customize. They’re an excellent tool to help your business communicate its value proposition. You can customize the Animated Explainer Video to meet your needs.https://www.youtube.com/embed/99CMimP2Mnk

What is Bubble Website & App Builder and Why It Can Substitute Custom Website?

Bubble is another website builder or web development constructor that makes possible “programming without coding”. Since the success of WordPress and its many counterparts like Joomla, Wix and Magento, website builders became a niche of software products that offer a certain kind of standardized CMS system to present content on the web and many templates to make it look different (for which you pay additionally). That’s too good to be true and it’s not by chance that most business owners and startups prefer custom software development to the deployment of any website constructor or software builder.

Proceed with further reading to know more about the obvious downsides of Bubble software and the many benefits of custom web software that can serve your needs much more efficiently.

Bubble software allows making apps as well because the digital world has shifted towards smartphones and tablets and it no longer gravitates around the desktop. However, builders like Bubble deprive your product of the only thing that can make it successful – originality. Your possible variety of design choices and features is very limited and whatever little you save doesn’t pay off because you lose your brand authenticity in the process.

And for every possible product out there you can be sure to find dozens of competitors. Who becomes successful? Those that clients notice among a myriad of other businesses. 

Custom is Always Better

Using a blueprint to build anything automatically means that the final design won’t be original and authentic. To stick out in the era of sophisticated marketing and frivolous consumerism it is absolutely necessary to be unique. If you start a project with “do it simple” and “do it cheap” objectives in mind, it will be detected by Google algorithms and your possible clients that always feel in their gut, whether you deserve their attention (and money) or not.

A custom solution gives more space for creative input and interesting choices simply because it is implied that the final project itself is the sum of such inputs and choices. This is work that is going to be respected for the sake of it. Putting in real work means showing effort and without effort there’s no respect from the users/clients to wait for. That is why a website or an app made with Bubble or any other constructor is destined to fail in a highly competitive environment. 

How Can Bubble Software Be Useful?

As one developer has put it, paradoxically, Bubble software can be effective in saving a lot of time and effort for developers but it is not marketed to them. Instead, it is promoted to be used by business owners and digital startups that seek a profound online presence. And it is useless for them. So the ones who really need Bubble (to cut down the astounding 25% of routine programming) to simplify coding are not considered a target audience while those that won’t really benefit from it are bought with the premise of “getting software without code”. 

Like Framer or WordPress that can substitute certain blocs of your website or help with design and content management, Bubble software can be effective in reducing time it takes coding the front-end but what it absolutely cannot do is to substitute the development entirely. And with a bright idea in mind some features offered by Bubble can, on the contrary, limit your possibilities. 

Bubble Features

  • DEVELOP – Build any web app with no code.
  • DESIGN – Harness total design freedom.
  • HOST – Scale with robust, hosted infrastructure.
  • GROW – Expand, engage, measure.
  • COLLABORATE – Share the workload.

Disadvantages of Bubble.io

Websites and apps built with Bubble software or other constructors are generally slower (because every feature is a plugin or an extension).

When you write custom code for a feature, everything works faster because the underlying engineering underneath your core processes is developed to behave optimally fast and as efficiently as possible. Every software engineer designs a specific approach and makes a unique process that are exclusively suitable for a certain task at hand. Due to that you can save milliseconds on features and summed up they’re gonna result in a significant rise in speed. 

Speed matters and there’s nothing that causes more outrage than slow connection. That’s why people buy newer phones with more RAM, build 5G networks and optimize every little thing in their lives to always move faster. This is the philosophy of progress and innovation. If you want to succeed, be faster. The faster, the better. Keep in mind that every millisecond here or millisecond there matters on the internet.

Wrapping Up

So, do you really want your business to depend on some third-party software provider? This is too big a risk to allow, since even a slightest discrepancy in your web platform or a mobile app can ruin the journey for your customers.

Even Google and Facebook frequently face downtime, so anything can happen to Bubble, putting to risk everybody, whose business depends on this software provider. When you have your own custom-developed software, you control the situation and have a much bigger number of opportunities to improve, update and upgrade your platform.

Bubble software is no match to it. And the choice is up to you.

Bubble October 2021 UX Update:

Honestly, it was intuitively hard to put together anything sane in Bubble before, and now this. The interaction of containers and content in it is complete crap. Attempts to redesign even the simplest screen cause despair attacks from the fact that the elements generally fly as and where they want, and your past suffering is devalued. It’s a shame to go through all that chaos for the sake of a template or MVP. I don’t plan to use Bubble at all, ever. It’s easier to hire someone to do the MVP for you, or have the code do everything humanly.

Elementor: The Most Dynamic Website Builder

WordPress is the most popular CMS on the planet, and with good reason.

Put simply, WordPress enables web designers to create the most stunning, comprehensive websites imaginable.

However, if you can’t code, creating a WordPress website may prove challenging (if not downright impossible).

With Elementor, you can create dynamic WordPress websites without having to write a single line of code.

Have we mentioned that it is free, too?

Elementor: The Ultimate Design and Marketing Tool  

The ultimate free WordPress drag-and-drop builder, Elementor empowers web creators to design the perfect WordPress websites.
If you have your heart set on creating an ecommerce website, Elementor has you covered as well (more on that in a minute:)

With Elementor, it makes no difference If you don’t know how to tinker with CSS or HTML. The platform will enable you to intuitively create your landing pages and keep track of your progress while you assemble it.

We haven’t even scratched the surface, though:)

Elementor boasts dozens of widgets and tools that help you actualize even the most ambitious web design concept. You can create any slide, design any form and create the most stunning popup, all within Elementor.

Core features 

Drag and drop editor

The foundation of every website builder is its editor. Elementor offers users a truly unique editing experience; every item added to your page can be dragged and dropped within a clean, clear and intuitive environment.

Here’s what it looks like:

The widget panel can be seen on the left. Elementor offers more than 90 dynamic widgets and hundreds of templates with which you can create your stunning website. 

Business and marketing features

Elementor is more than just a site builder; it’s an all-in-one website creation platform. And, most importantly, it is a marketing and business oriented tool, as well. 

With Elementor, you get to build, publish, and manage your landing pages, forms, popups, and website pages without ever needing to incorporate any other tools.

Elementor offers powerful features geared towards marketing and business objectives (including lead capturing). You’ll find:

  • A powerful integration with Yoast, ensuring that your website will be SEO-optimized
  • Features such as fully customizable forms and smart popups enable site owners to considerably grow their audience
  • Elementor users can leverage customizable templates and set triggers to target their visitors at the right moment. 

Workflow optimization 

Ensuring consistency across your entire website is mission critical when creating it. Thanks to 

Elementor Pro’s Global Settings, you’ll be able to create and manage your site’s own design system and  significantly speed up your workflows.

Whenever you create a new design, it will automatically inherit its settings from your Global Settings. In the event that you modify something in Global Settings, that update will automatically apply across your entire site.

You can always choose to tinker with a design on a page-by-page basis, if you choose too:)

Kits Library

WordPress websites are composed of themes and templates. While customizable, these elements can prove tricky (and time-consuming) to tinker with.

Sometimes, it’s imperative to create a website and launch it quickly and effortlessly.

That’s what Full Site Kits are for.

Elementor’s Kits Library contains dozens of complete, designer-made website kits. These kits include all the elements and attributes a website needs in one single kit. All you have to do is click import. 

With Kits, there is no need to work on each page attribute (e.g. header, footer, color palettes) individually. You can choose a kit, customize it so that it fits your design goals, and hit publish. 

Boom, you’re up and running with your complete website.

It gets even cooler, though.

A kit, as a whole, single unit, can be replicated and reused:

The site settings ,its content, templates and other individual components (e.g.s  header, footer, 404 error page, pop-ups, color scheme, fonts) can be easily implemented into other sites. 

Ecommerce

You can build incredibly comprehensive ecommerce websites with Elementor. WordPress’ premier ecommerce plugin, WooCommerce powers millions of online stores across the globe, and Elementor boasts one of the most popular WooCommerce site builders out there.

With Elementor’s ecommerce website building features you can:

  • Build your store’s homepage, product catalogue, product pages (that are more complicated than ordinary landing pages) without any need to code.  
  • Perfectly present the right product information, customer reviews and leverage powerful upselling features
  • Optimize your customers’ “add to cart” experience with custom buttons, menus, banners, and more

Elementor Free Vs Elementor Pro

Unlike some other website creation platforms, Elementor offers users a free plan, along with four subscription packages. 

With Elementor’s extensive free plan, users can leverage its , drag-and-drop editor along with a wide selection of widgets and 5 Kits. This plan should work for you if what you have in mind is designing basic landing pages and websites.
 

However, if your aim is to create a truly comprehensive website (not to mention an ecommerce website), and/or want to fully leverage Elementor’s game changing Full-Site Kits, you’ll need to upgrade to Elementor Pro.

Here is a list of features you’ll gain access to with Elementor Pro:

  • Access to Elmentor’s Theme Builder
  • The Fastest Theme On WordPress: Hello Theme
  • 300+ Pro Templates & Blocks
  • Custom Fonts & Adobe TypeKit
  • All WooCommerce widgets and templates
  • Elementor’s form builder
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The Best Websites With Apple Pay Option

Six years have passed since the moment when mobile payments were transformed by Apple Pay. The number of active Apple Pay users keeps constantly growing. And according to Statista, last year 441 million Apple Pay users performed 10 billion transactions. The numbers are quite impressive, aren’t they? And it is not a surprise because our way of living changed and now it demands more fast and convenient services. It is easier to pay using your Apple device rather than a physical wallet. 

Have you noticed that less and less people buy things in malls? They’d rather make an online purchase instead of standing in the line for a fitting room or a counter. It is much faster and less tedious to choose an item and make one-tap payment on the websites. And that is what makes Apple Pay so popular. We have already covered the topic of Apple Pay on websites, how to implement it and what business advantages it offers. And now we would like to share with you a list of top websites supporting Apple Pay. 

Where to use your digital wallet?

Without doubt, Apple Pay irreversibly changed the way we do online shopping. Each year more and more websites add it as a payment option. Apple Pay has numerous advantages and among them we’d like to emphasize such key ones as convenience and security. 

  • Convenience. The less actions a customer has to perform when making an order – the better. Just imagine how irritated customers may end up if they do their Christmas shopping. They probably need to buy various items on different websites, which, in turn, make them enter payment details again and again. That’s just too much effort. So Apple Pay resolved this major issue and made all its users forget about an annoying checkout procedure. With a single tap on Touch ID sensor a person can handle all purchases and transfer money to a retailer’s account.
  • Security. You’ve probably heard how the whole databases of online retailers can get hacked or stolen. It is insecure to store your card number on a device. So Apple Pay offers a perfect secure solution. It transfers your money using a special Dynamic Security Code and Device Account Number. You will be charged only after you tapped Touch ID sensor and your fingertip was recognized and accepted by the system. You actual card numbers will not be stored on Apple servers. 

It is understandable why many big merchants enable the Apple Pay option on their websites. And it is only a matter of time before all more or less big online stores will support it. The integration process is not complicated and does not require any special skills. It is way harder to develop a web application itself than incorporate Apple Pay in it.  So in case you are only thinking about web app development and you need a solution for business, take time and think about all crucial features and payment method it is going to offer. 

☝PRO ADVICE:

Before you make a final decision on what your iOS application should be, take a minute and read about native and hybrid app development. It will help you to choose the right type of app for your business.

But before all retailers will start accepting Apple Pay, let’s take a look at the ones that are already doing it. 

Airbnb

This service is a favorite of all travelers. It allows to book apartments all over the world, communicate with your hosts, leave honest feedback and rate the place you’ve stayed in.  It was one of the first websites which enabled Apple Pay and keeps successfully using it right now. 

Best Buy

A huge consumer electronics retailer which offers its customers literally everything starting with various house appliances like fridges or washing machines and ending with digital cameras, mobile phones and even software. Dealing with daily influx of customers is not an easy thing and yet Best Buy managed to make shopping experience better by implementing Apple Pay into its website. 

Etsy

Probably everyone has heard about Etsy and perhaps even bought something on their website. Having a huge variety of vintage and hand-made goods, this retailer understands the importance of customer satisfaction which depends not only on goods but also on services. So should you decide to buy something chic and unique, Etsy website with Apple Pay will make this experience enjoyable. 

Groupon

As of now 15 countries can appreciate this marketplace selling services, activities and goods. No wonder Groupon became an Apple Pay-friendly store. Numerous merchants united on this web platform to offer a full range of services. It is possible to buy everything you can imagine on Groupon – fitness classes, cosmetics, food, various memberships, accessories, flowers and many more. 

Kickstarter

Due to this crowdfunding platform, many startups raised enough money to become a success. Kickstarter has a large community of people ready to back up any cool innovative project by investing in it whatever sum they can afford. To make investing experience even more pleasant Kickstarter introduced Apple Pay and that turned out pretty well for both startups and their financial supporters. 

Grubhub

Food delivery is extremely popular and brings tons of money to companies. What can be better than ordering a set of delicious meals from a restaurant you like? Grubhub is a huge marketplace that has a website and mobile application and connects foodies with local takeout places. To ensure total customers satisfaction they offer various methods of payment including Apple Pay. 

Instacart 

The creators of this service understand the importance of fast delivery. By using Instacart one can order same-day groceriy pick-up and delivery from a store nearby. A couple of clicks and you have your food ordered, one tap on a screen – you’ve made a purchase using Apple Pay. One more great thing about this service is that anyone can easily become a shopper for someone else and earn money instead of spending them. 

Lyft

Everybody has used Uber (which by the way started supporting Apple Pay in 2014) many times but not everybody knows that there are similar services with even more wide spectrum of transportation and ride sharing services. F.e. Lyft – a holistic system (web platform + mobile application) allowing you to become a driver or get a ride at once. Moreover, Lyft has scooters and bicycles for rent and even organizes food delivery.  With such a big variety of services it is mandatory to implement different payment options for the customers convenience. 

Gametime 

All sports fans have already forgotten how exhausting buying a ticket can be. If previously they used to wait in the long queues, now with a couple of taps on the screen they can purchase a ticket for baseball, basketball, hockey, football and other games. Such ticket distributing services can’t manage without Apple Pay which makes all financial transactions easier. 

Priceline

This platform is a real finding for all travelers because it offers renting of cars, booking of cruises, flights and hotels at cheaper prices. There are even additional discounts for those who purchased a bundle (f.e. hotel apartment + flight ticket + car rent). All customers can not only pay conveniently via Apple Pay, but also save money. 

What changes await for Apple Pay after iOS 14 release?

This year Apple surprised us with some innovations at its WWDC. And while all users are alredy waiting for new iOS 14 to play with the brand new options, the app owners and developers start being concerned. What is going to happen with the already existing solutions? Should you seriously think about updating your apps?

Based on our experience, we can say that it is better to face iOS updated prepared, because no matter what app you own, the new App Clips option will require its code review.

And now as to the influence of App Clips on apps with Apple Pay option. First of all it is necessary to mention that thanks to App Clips users will be able to use a certain features of the solution without downloading it from the App Store. So all companies which have apps related to renting, booking and services providing and have Apple Pay option will need to update their apps. It will be necessary to develop App Clip of the app (which is basically a lightweight version of it) and make sure that Apple Pay functions correctly.

Also many resources discuss the new possibility that Apple Pay will get in iOS 14. This will be an option allowing to scan QR codes or traditional barcodes using an iPhone camera and make instant payments. Which is great if we speak about customer experience. Here is a sneak peek of the upcoming feature we’ve managed to find on the Internet.

It is high time to think about your application update since many new solution will offer this new option, and if you want your app to stay highly competitive you need to alter it. App Clips and payments via QR codes are predicted to be extremely popular especially among people from 18 to 40 years old (which is quite huge potential customer base that you can get if your solution will be up-to-date).

Also if your solution is related to providing services or selling some goods via website or mobile application, it will be reasonable to think about your own custom CMS. In case you haven’t heard about this solution.

FAQ

Can Apple Pay be used on wearables?

Yes, it can be set up on Apple Watches. To do this you need to open Apple Watch app on iPhone, find Wallet option and tap Add Card. After that follow the instructions and everything is set up.

Where is Apple Pay available?

As of now it can be used in 40 countries all over the world including US, UK, China, Canada, Japan, Australia, Ukraine, Russia and many more. You can check the full list of countries on the Internet.

Is it secure to use Apple Pay?

Absolutely, since Apple does not save your card numbers or transactions data on its servers. Everything is performed through Wallet app and is kept there. Also Apple Pay makes a special token that replaces your payment details, and device account number is encrypted and securely stored.

To sum it up 

As you can see from the variety of stores accepting Apple Pay, this payment method works for any industry. The technologies nowadays aim to make our mobile and web experience more simple and secure. So before purchasing anything customers tend to ask themselves a question: “Why share my debit card numbers and store them on my device if I can avoid all risks and pay safely with one tap of a finger?” This means that way more customers choosing among similar stores would prefer the one with the convenient payment options.

How to Boost Your Productivity Using AI

What is AI?

Technology has had a huge impact on our society and the way we do things. It has also improved how machines work and the services they offer through Artificial Intelligence (AI). Generally, AI describes a task that is performed by a machine that would previously require human intelligence. 

AI is defined as machines that respond to stimulation that is consistent with traditional responses from humans. AI makes it possible for machines to learn from experience and adjust to new inputs. That is possible since it uses technology that uses a large amount of data and recognizes data patterns.

Give A.I. Long Boring Jobs

Though some believe AI will take over their jobs, some are happy with this technology in the workplace. The reason being AI helps in creating a more diverse work environment, and it will do long, boring, and dangerous jobs. Thus, this will give humans ample time to continue being humans.

The use of AI has a huge impact in various sectors from healthcare, education, manufacturing, politics, and many more. Since AI can infiltrate almost any industry, it should be trained to handle boring tasks. By doing this, humans will be in a position to handle higher-level tasks.

Tools for Better Productivity on an AI Basis

AI machines are known to offer efficiency and can be used by businesses to improve efficiency. But for the tools to work, people need to learn how to make use of the AI Learning tools to improve performance. Learn about the tools that can save time and help to increase productivity.

  • Neptune: This is a lightweight but powerful metadata store for MLOps. The tools give you a centralized location you can use to display your metadata. By doing so, you can easily track the learning experience and results of your machine. The tool is flexible, and it is easy for you to integrate it with other machine learning frameworks.
  • Scikit-Learn: This is an open library source with a wide collection of tools to build machine learning models and solve statistical modeling problems. Using this tool will be easy for you to train your database on any desired algorithm. Thus, this will save you from the frustration of building your model from scratch.
  • Tensor flow: With this tool, you can build, train, and deploy models fast and easily. It comes with a comprehensive collection of tools and resources that can build ML-powered addition, their applications. This tool will be easy for you to build and deploy deep learning models in different environments.

Audio To Text Converter That Will Help You Work Faster

Transcribing audios can be a tedious task in your workplace. But with AI, that does not have to be the case. As long as you select the right tools, they will convert your audio to text and save you the time you used to do it manually. Here is a look at some tools you can use.

Audext.com: This is web software that you can use to transcribe your videos automatically. Audext is affordable and fast. Some features you will get when you use this software are:

  • Speaker Identification
  • Built-in editor
  • Various audio formats
  • Timestamps
  • Voice recognition

Descript.com: The software will offer you accuracy as well as perfect transcription each time. The system will keep your data safe and private. Some features you will get when you use this software are:

  • Sync files stored in the cloud
  • Can add speaker labels and timestamp
  • Import already done transcription for no charges 

Otter.ai: With this software, you can record audio from your phone or browser and then get it to convert it then and there. With otter, you will get automatic transcription, and it is easy for you to group and add members to it. Some features you will get from this software are:

  • Searching and jumping to the keywords within the transcript
  • Can speed up, slow down, or jump the audio
  • Can train the software to recognize certain voices for fast referencing in the feature

Future of AI

AI is working all around us by impacting how we live our lives, search engines, and dating prospects. It is hard to imagine AI getting any better. According to research, Ai will continue to drive massive innovation that will help in fueling many industries. In addition, it will have the potential to create many new sectors for growth. Thus, this will lead to the creation of more jobs.

Conclusion

Whether we fight it or not, AI is here to stay. For that reason, companies and industries should stop fighting this technology and start embracing it. The best way of doing this is by being aware of it and adapting it to the new technology.

Information Technologies That Will Change Online Casino in Future

Online casinos are enjoying huge success these days. The latest innovations in the IT sector have helped them grow rapidly. For instance, in the infancy of online casinos and betting, they were accessible only through computers, and now they can be played on mobile phones whenever you want.

Now, new techs hit the market every day. The tech you have today will become obsolete next year. These new techs will also change the online casino industry in the future. Here, we have mentioned technologies that will impact online casinos.

Internet of behaviors (IoB)

Internet of Things is obviously one of the technologies that will have a major impact on every industry, but only a few know about the Internet of Behaviours. This refers to the understanding of the provided data from users’ online behavior and psychology. This seems like artificial intelligence, but it is a bit different. It collects data from IoT so; it will have more data to analyze.

This way, casinos will offer dedicated games to players who don’t know which one to pick. Plus, casinos will also be able to understand what improvements they should make as they will better understand what users want.  

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are already popular technologies that have changed several sectors in the last few years. Many businesses use these techs to improve customer experience. For instance, a furniture company can offer an AR app to show how furniture will look in their home.

AR/VR will enhance the gaming experience at online casinos as well. With VR headsets, players will immerse themselves in the virtual world, while AR tech will help to bring the gaming experience to their homes.

Cryptocurrency Casinos

Cryptocurrency is the future of the financial world as it is decentralized, fast, and very secure. Many industries have already adopted this tech for the future. There are over 4,500 tokens in the crypto ecosystem, and it is likely to increase in the future.

Several online casinos have already embraced cryptocurrency as a payment method. But in the future, we will see crypto casinos that will only accept cryptocurrency. This will be more safe, secure, and fast gambling experience. In addition, players will also get the anonymity they want with bitcoin casinos.

Artificial Intelligence

Ever wonder why you are getting ads of the product you want on every application you use? Artificial intelligence is a really powerful tool. When you search for a product on Google, AI will analyze the data for needs and show all similar products across your applications.

It is also called machine learning technology. It uses vast data collected from millions of users to improve customer experience. Using this technology, casinos will improve customer support and services and learn users’ activities on the platform. AI will also help to pick casinos and games so that players can have an enriched gaming experience.

Wearables

The popularity of wearable technology has increased since the last decade. Smartphone tech is the revolutionary tech of the modern world, but wearables can replace it. Smartwatches and smart glass will allow users to perform all those functions that are available on smartphones today.

Microgaming, a leading gambling software developer, experimented with this by offering slot games on a smartphone. This wasn’t a huge success due to limited features, but more options will arrive with the development of this technology. Thus, we may see more and more casinos offering various games designed for wearables. Smart glasses will also be able to offer the experience of being in a real casino right from home.

Extended Team vs. Managed Team vs. Software Outsourcing

A Powerful Trident Software Outsourcing service should not be a one size fits all process.

The outsourcing process for any project should be tailored to the needs of that project and not a single “one size fits all” solution. Depending on the stages or scope of your project, there are at least three ways to address workload: assigning in-house tasks and outsourcing partner tasks, dividing in-house and partner tasks, and combining in-house and partner tasks.

Extended teams, managed teams, and outsourced teams all serve a slightly different purpose, so managers should evaluate which option best suits their current project.

Here are the notable differences to consider when choosing a solution that could help advance your business.

What is an extended team?

An extended team model allows you to integrate top engineers into your in-house team, even if they work from abroad. Instead of outsourcing the entire development process – including management – your project manager remains in charge of the process, sharing the project between an in-house team and a small group of top engineers. By being able to scale your team quickly and efficiently, the extended team model allows for a better work-life balance. And because you’re in charge of all aspects of the development process, you’ll be able to produce products on time without compromising quality.

What is a managed team?

A managed team is the intermediate option between an extended team and a completely outsourced solution. This approach will allow you to apply the highest skilled engineering talent while sharing the risk and responsibility for delivering quality results. Key decision making roles are designated first to establish the rules of engagement and communication as well as make critical design decisions. Teams are quickly spun up around functional areas, from Software Architect to Scrum Master.

What is an Outsourced team?

Outsourcing is the most traditional type of development strategy, and you’ll barely have any direct control over the process. But if your team is small enough, this might be an attractive option to save time and resources. Outsourcers will provide a finished product based on your specs by the due date or sooner.

In this case, your project manager will not need to involve themselves with the development team all the time and can stay focused on management.

How to choose the right outsourcing option for your project:

Different kinds of outsourcing software help companies be more time-flexible. The type you choose depends on how much management you can spare for your team.

Starting up a new business? Create your software based on what the end user needs, by quickly modifying it as you go along. In this case, an extended team may be the best option; your project manager can continuously update the project because there is no set work agreement.

Being able to work with the extended team enables you to grow & improve your business without having to hire new staff. They operate just like your in-house team, so you can successfully bring new projects into being without any hassle.

However if your company regularly releases new software and is always busy, it might not be suitable for your team to scale the number of project managers.In this case, an outsourced team might be a better option, since it adds little to no work for the project manager, and the project will be delivered complete and on-time.

You can break your project down into smaller tasks to complete with the help of an external team. This way, you don’t need to worry about changes happening at the last minute.

When comparing a freelance project with a team, a managed team might be the perfect balance of quality and cost. If your project manager is short on time, but you still require a level of in-house supervision and flexibility for your project, consider hiring a managed team to fill in the gaps.

Sometimes, getting help from a professional in a field that is outside of your expertise can save you a lot of time and frustration in the long run. Hiring an expert company will always result in you getting the best possible service done on time and to your exact specifications.

The best tool for A/B tests for UI or CRO

I have two points for which I occasionally try to be persecuted:

  1. If you don’t know which tool to choose, then choose any tool. And this is most likely Google Optimize.
  2. You don’t need to know the under-the-hood math of A/B testing. Look at the tool’s “Win/Lose” messages.

https://optimize.google.com/optimize/home/

So why do I think that?

  1. If you don’t know which tool to choose, chances are you have no or very little experience in A/B testing. To get that same experience, it’s important to start as soon as possible.
  2. If you don’t know which tool to choose, it means you have no requirements for the tool. If there were real requirements, a simple comparison of functionality would quickly solve the problem. And if there are no requirements, then anything will do.
  3. Knowing the under-the-hood math will help if you write your tool from scratch. In other cases, it’s practically useless: you can’t change the Google Optimize algorithm(s) and/or other tools.

It seems like picking the best tool and figuring out the under-the-hood math is very, very right. The devil lies in the definition of “right.” I insist that speed of motion (start early) is more important in most cases. In that time, you will have time to do more and get better results than that gain from a better tool and knowledge of math.

Run experiments whose wins will be reported to you by accounting, not by the analytics system.

Qualitative Data Collection During the Pandemic

Data collection for most qualitative research relies primarily on face-to-face interaction. It is due to the nature of the data itself, taking the form of concepts, words, and ideas. 

But pandemic restrictions have affected all aspects of our lives, including research pursuits. This has significantly affected data collection for qualitative studies. Due to this,  many researchers have resorted to remote methods of data collection. This shift brings up some new challenges unique to remote interactions. 

We’ll go through some popular remote data collection methods for qualitative research. What are their advantages and characteristics? What factors do we have to consider with the use of online/electronic means for data collection?

Remote Data Collection Methods

Popular pre-pandemic methods of data collection were face-to-face interviews and focus group discussions. Aside from transcribing the words of the participants, researchers also made field notes. These notes consisted of the researchers’ observations on the environment and nonverbal cues, among others. 

However, you cannot access all this extra information through remote interactions. Alongside other factors, most people are more comfortable with in-person conversations.

Researchers have decided to make do and glean whatever information is available. Remote methods also present some unique advantages.

Video Conferencing

Video conferencing experienced a surge in popularity during this pandemic. Platforms such as Zoom and Google Meet became popular choices for communication.

Video conferencing is a popular alternative due to it being an audiovisual experience. It’s the closest we can get to face-to-face interaction without having to be near each other.

Depending on factors such as internet speed and access, discussions can flow naturally.

Most video conferencing platforms also have built-in recording tools. These leave you with a video file you can review and transcribe when needed.

Phone Calls

Phone calls are also a popular remote interview choice. They are relatively inexpensive and accessible, especially for respondents in more remote areas.

Phone interviews are an excellent way to collect verbal testimonies and interviews. It may also help respondents feel more comfortable since they won’t feel as observed. Since you cannot see each other, there is less pressure to ‘perform’.

However, this lack of visual cues can also be a disadvantage. It makes building a rapport more of a challenge. It also makes it more challenging to pick up on non-verbal cues like body language.

Organizing a group discussion over a phone call could also be quite a challenge. Some older phone models might not support the feature, and it would be harder to keep track of each speaker.

Text/Online Messaging

You can also conduct interviews or discussions via text message or online chat. There are a lot of messaging apps available right now, with both mobile and desktop versions.

Depending on your research design, these discussions can be synchronous or asynchronous. You can send your questions and have the respondents answer them. You can also have everyone go online at the same time and have a live discussion.

Like phone calls, respondents could feel more comfortable communicating via chat. Without visual cues, they can feel more at ease with expressing themselves. It’s also easier to record conversations since the medium is text-based.

Its weakness, however, is the lack of visual and auditory cues. The medium limits you to communicating via words on a screen. This risks misinterpretation. You can use emojis, slang, or tone indicators, but it is not the same as face-to-face interaction.

Considerations

Remote data gathering is not a new phenomenon, but it hasn’t been the norm until recently. Due to its differences with more traditional methods, it also poses unique considerations.

Privacy

Most remote data gathering methods need to use third-party programs or applications. You may reassure them that you will keep their data confidential, but these apps may not.

It’s best to be open about this to your respondents. For some, it might not be a huge concern, but it’s best to be safe. Better yet, you can find messaging or conferencing programs that guarantee your privacy.

Professional Standards

This concern can depend on who you are writing for or your research question itself.

Some studies have also questioned the validity of qualitative interviews. They cite that the researcher’s personal biases could influence their line of questioning. The additional barriers innate in remote methods could add to the method’s limitations.

Either way, it is best to consult with fellow researchers or your higher-ups. Getting feedback helps you ensure the clarity of your methods and the validity of your data.

Wrapping Up

Unique circumstances require unique solutions. There is no question that researchers will continually adapt and overcome. Pandemic or not, we remain committed to the pursuit of knowledge to help our institutions.

Once you have your data together, you’re ready to move on to analysis. Thematic has a quick yet comprehensive guide to help you through the process.

Digital Transformation as a Way to Increase a Company’s Revenue

Digital transformation of business is nothing new in the business world, but with the pandemic’s onset, we are seeing an incredible surge in this direction. The need to organize employees’ remote work has become a hassle, but a prerequisite for the survival of a business.

Box yesterday released its Q4 2020 report, which said the company had revenues of $199 million. According to the company, this is 12% more than in the previous year. As a reminder, the company provides cloud content management and file sharing for businesses. The company uses a freemium business model to provide cloud storage and file hosting for personal accounts and businesses.

Such indicators of profit indicate that the business of the company is going up. Also, keep in mind that last year, Starboard Value bought a 7.5% stake in Box. Now we can say that the company lives up to the expectations of the investor.

I believe that digital transformation services and solutions are the main reason for this kind of development these days for a lot of different businesses.

Box CEO Aaron Levy said the pandemic was an excellent trigger for companies to move to the cloud much faster than anyone imagined. He said that being a digital company, he quickly moved his employees to work from home WFH. Maintain efficiency with tools such as Slack, Zoom, Okta, and of course, Box.

The digital tool has helped businesses

The digital tool has helped businesses operate and demonstrate performance in difficult times. “We are fortunate to have been able to work in this environment. It helps that we have 100% SaaS, and we have a great digital engine for doing business,” he said.

He added: “And at the same time, as we said, we have achieved greater profitability. Thus, the enterprises’ efficiency also improved significantly, and as a result, we had an outstanding quarter with higher growth rates than expected and higher profitability than expected. As a result, we were able to raise our targets for revenue growth and profitability for the rest of the year,” Levy told TechCrunch.

Box decided to build its suite of products on a service platform. This allowed customers to take advantage of these essential services like encryption, workflow, and metadata and create their customizations or even full-featured applications using the tools Box has already built.

Time to switch to Cloud Solutions

I agree with the vision of Aaron Levy and also recommend our clients to switch to cloud solutions. If they already have a desktop application for business – the cloud is a good solution. You can read how to make a smooth transition from a desktop app to a cloud-based application in our article. Written on my experience with such projects. If you are considering the option of developing a cloud solution, then our specialist is ready to help you with the implementation of your project.

How are the Technologies Changing Gaming and Gambling Industries: extending old boundaries

Today’s top online casino and other games have hardly anything in common with old games, for example, old virtual slots. The gaming and gambling markets are in a constant state of flux, causing the game developers to work at new games. Technological innovations help them to optimize the user’s experience and provide the games with new options to the classic versions of many games. This development is also being driven by demand. There is plenty of different online casino and mobile games on the market. 

There are several exciting digital technologies that are currently either in the starting blocks or are already available across the board for the first time. And these technologies improve both gaming and gambling landscapes. That’s looking at these trends in detail and trying to understand in what way are they changing gambling, and gaming modern landscapes.

CROSS-PLATFORM GAMES

A major trend on the market is currently the increased emergence of so-called cross-platform games, i.e., games that can be played across platforms between phones, PCs, and consoles. Technologically, this is possible thanks to better CPUs in smartphones and network connections.

Besides, all friends are no longer forced to buy one and the same platform to play together. With cross-platform games you can for example build your own world in Minecraft together with your buddy on the smartphone. The role of such games is becoming more and more important, and so this feature will also be a high priority in the next console generation.

5G TECHNOLOGY AND ALWAYS ONLINE EVERYWHERE

The new 5G mobile communications standard not only pleases fans of YouTube and Twitch but also gamers. After all, one of the most successful gaming sectors at present is none other than online casino games.

With 5G, concepts like a live casino will soon be available to all smartphone gamers on the go – as well as completely new ways to experience games online casinos. The live casino is a casino where players are dealt cards by real card dealers and can see their opponents. This will delight the industry and gamers alike. It may also have an impact on the betting industry. For example, it can improve the interactive live betting – just look at https://tonybet.com/ca. Better internet connection makes the process of live gambling or betting more dynamic and immersive.

SIMULATION TECHNOLOGIES

The topic of simulation is especially in the focus of newer games. Through this technology, the customer has the feeling of being even more present in the game and perceives everything in real-time. 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Many people don’t immediately associate artificial intelligence with modern games, or online casinos. This technology is originally used to work with large amounts of data. Anyway, there are also some games, where artificial intelligence mimics human behaviour in a certain way.

AUGMENTED REALITY IS THE FUTURE 

Augmented reality is an increasingly important topic in the mobile gaming market, so as in the gambling industry. Many game developers try to incorporate augmented reality technology into a variety of games. In 2016 a Pokémon Go had a phenomenal success. And since then, it has been clear that the fusion of real and virtual reality has a great potential for games.

CONCLUSION

Ever new technologies ensure ever better gaming experiences on iOS and Android. Whether augmented reality, 5G, or cross-platform games, there should be something for almost all customers. What will the market look like in another ten years? It will definitely remain exciting. Anyway, it must be noted, that gamers and gamblers do strive for immersive and interactive gaming experiences. That’s why live gaming and augmented reality are becoming so popular.

What is Void Document Oncontextmenu=null?

Have you ever encountered a situation where you want to copy an inspiring quote or inspect a particular element, but the right-click menu simply doesn’t work? This is where void document oncontextmenu=null works.

The internet world is growing at an exceptionally exponential rate, and many websites have great content. We sometimes want to save content for future use, but as soon as you try to right-click to save the content, you will see an error message stating “Sorry, this functionality has been disabled by the administrator.”

The error usually means that the site administrator or owner has disabled right-click option to protect their content from plagiarism and from users who try to steal their work. Re-writing the content is a tedious task, but what other options do we have? If you need to copy only certain parts of the content, then you can use a few workarounds to copy from right click disabled websites.  One of the easiest ways that can be used is the void document oncontextmenu=null.

However, do not exploit these methods for unethical hacking purposes. Also, try to follow all the methods listed below, as what may work for one user might not work for another.

How to Enable Right Click on the Websites that have Disabled it

Webmasters often use JavaScript codes to disable right-click on their websites. You can disable the JavaScript altogether to access the right-click menu.

In Google Chrome

1. Click on the three vertical dots at the top right corner of your screen and choose the Settings option.

2. Find Privacy and Security and click on Site Settings.

3. Go to Content Settings and find JavaScript. Click on the toggle to disable it.

In Mozilla Firefox

Open a new tab, type ‘about: config’ in the address bar, and press Enter. Search for JavaScript in the search preference bar and press Enter. Double click on the ‘javascript.enabled’ option to turn its status to false from true.

The downside of the method is that most websites use JavaScript to function properly. Disabling it might stop some of the web page elements and, in some cases, the entire website, so you should use this function with caution. Once you disable the Javascript, reload the website and use the right-click function. Always enable the JavaScript back once you are finished with your work to make sure other websites function properly.

Creating a Horizontal Gravity Form Using CSS

Gravity Forms is widely recognized as the best contact form plugin on the WordPress market, and it’s easy to see why. I use it on all of my sites, and here’s how and why you should do the same for yours!

Go to Gravity Forms Website

Gravity Forms’ highly capable and easy-to-use interface sets it apart from similar plugins, and with so many features, it’s not surprising that they’ve included CSS Ready Classes to use when customizing your form to match the design of your website.

Why Horizontal Forms Are Awesome

To create a custom form, frontend developer must first, well, customize the form! In order to create a simple horizontal form like the one shown below, some modifications will have to be made to the CSS. Typically, you will see horizontal forms used for newsletter signups integrated with third parties like Mailchimp, or you will see them used as simple giveaways people fill out to receive a PDF or other freeby. I love the idea of horizontal forms because they use limited space and are unintrusive, giving you a lot of real estate left on your website to work with while not being overly distracting. For an example of what I mean, here is a form that was modified with only a few lines of CSS:

  • Name
  • Email

How to Create Your Own Custom Gravity Form Using CSS

Before diving into the stylesheet, make sure you set each field label with the appropriate column class. Exp: Using gf_left_half and gf_right half for two columns and using gf_left_third gf_middle_third and gf_right_third if you are using three columns.

Now, you’ll need to set the footer to display inline-block, and have the form’s body float left in order to have the submit button next to the field labels. You are going to need to tweak the width and padding, and these values will vary depending on the layout specifications of your site. Make sure you clarify the id of the form to ensure you’re not breaking any other forms on your site. Here’s what the CSS will look like:

#gform_2 > .gform_footer {
    display: inline-block;
    padding: 0.85em 0 0.625em;
    width: 20%;
}
 
#gform_2 .gform_body {
    display: inline-block;
    float: left;
    width: 80%;
}
 

Simple, Right?

After going under the hood with Gravity Forms, I quickly realized a few modifications can go a long way and help you create exactly what you’re looking for. There is so much extended functionality and so many built-in features that I assume I’ll never have to touch the CSS, but if I do, at least I know it will be simple just like everything else about the plugin!

If you’re not already using Gravity Forms for your contact forms, I suggest you make the transition. They offer three different pricing plans including a developer license for $159 a year. 

Gravity Forms Design Examples

Gravity Forms is a premium WordPress plugin designed to make it easy, efficient and cost-effective to create and manage any type of form online. You can create a contact form, subscription form, donation form or any other type of form that you can imagine.

The plugin has been built from the ground up with the needs of WordPress users in mind. It’s not just a simple “add-on” that you have to learn how to use from scratch. Gravity Forms is an all-in-one solution for creating and managing forms for your website or blog in WordPress.

  • Material Design
  • Checkbox & Radio Styler
  • Bootstrap Design
  • Tooltips
  • Field Icons

What makes Gravity Forms so powerful?

The toolkit features everything you need to build a professional looking contact page with multiple types of forms: contact forms, subscription forms, donation forms and more.

How to Create a Dating Reviews Site Structure That Will Improve SEO

Having the best site ever doesn’t mean much if it gets no traffic. If your dating reviews site can’t attract enough attention, something needs to be changed. Check if you’re ranking for relevant keywords. If not, add more content. If you’re getting impressions but can’t get clicks, you have to fix your on-site SEO. Getting a couple more backlinks (off-site SEO) won’t hurt either. But we’re talking about the structure of your site, so no backlinks from now on. Before we reveal 6 ways to create a great site structure for your dating reviews site, you have to understand why it is so important.

Why Site Structure is As Useful For Users as it is for SEO

The Site structure of your website shows Google which pages of your site are most important.

If you look at SERP results for any keyword, you’ll notice that sites with high ranks have something in common. All of those sites have a good structure. It’s simple enough so anyone can easily find all the features and categories. That boosts user experience, so visitors spend more time on the site. Algorithms notice that readers are spending time on a site, so the site gets ranked higher. SEO is search engine optimization, but in the end, you aren’t optimizing your site for browsers; you’re optimizing it for your readers.

If someone who visits your site seeking dating site reviews gets confused by the site’s structure, they’ll return to the SERP. That will increase your bounce rate. An alarm to browsers that visitors aren’t satisfied with your site. In the end, your rank will suffer even if you write the best reviews and even if you upload 2 reviews per day. Bad user experience results with low rank, every time, not even black hat SEO can save you for long. If readers can’t find useful info on your dating reviews site, you won’t rank high. And the foundation for a good user experience is a clear site structure that lets everyone find everything they need.

Ways to Create Great Site Structure for Dating Reviews Site

People looking for reviews of dating sites aren’t all looking for the same kind of sites or fantasizing about the same types of relationships. They are coming from different locations as well. Because of that, you should make a different buyer persona for every category of singles you want to attract to your site. That will help you adapt your site and cover more niches – from lasting relationships to kinky and BDSM. Of course, you have to pay attention to proper structuring. Anyone should be able to find a search bar easily, and reviews should be divided into categories. But before you can start thinking about that, focus on the first tip below.

Plan Before Developing

In the famous Sun Tzu’s book “The Art Of War” the first and most important chapter is “Planning”. From the perspective of a dating review site owner, that means you have to know your audience. It’s easy to help someone when you know what they are looking for. 

When you choose the categories your site will cover, start building a relationship with the target audience from the beginning. Paid advertising is of great help there. You can target specific groups of people to answer their needs at the right moment. If you plan to start filling your site with reviews of BDSM dating sites because that’s trending in Australia, make sure people in Australia can see those reviews. Advertise locally and adapt the whole review to the Australian market. Don’t leave prices in USD; turning that into AUD is nothing for you. For your reader, that’s a point where he loses concentration because a wild math problem appeared in the middle of your review.

Create a Concise but Appropriate URL Structure

Many people neglect the effect URL structure has on SEO. A clear and concise URL with keywords in it lets the browser know what the site is about. When a page goes to fetish dating sites, it should be clear from the very beginning by the URL of the page. That’s important because algorithms focus on user experience more and more with every update. Solid URLs followed with relevant headings and content are easily understood by crawlers and people. If a crawler understands what a site is about (and content is relevant), it will check it as useful for readers. That means more organic views of the site and lower marketing costs.

Know Your Meta Tags

Clear URL structures aren’t the only way to help search engine crawlers understand the topic of your site before entering it. SEO heading (the heading visible on SERP) helps a lot, but you shouldn’t forget meta tags. Most people focus on writing meta descriptions (the text under a heading on SERP) which is great but doesn’t affect page rank. Meta descriptions help the readers understand what a site is about; meta tags do the same for crawlers. After doing deep keyword research relevant to the niche of the online dating industry, choose precise and relevant meta tags to give your site a free and easy SEO boost. 

Shallow is Preferred Over Depth

The easier a site is to see, the more people will see it. To accomplish that, don’t bury important pages. Don’t put casual BDSM site reviews in the casual dating category if they get a lot of attention. Make the BDSM category instead. Put related sites in that new (sub)category, and they’ll emerge from the depth. Do that from the start with all targeted categories, and you’ll easily create a clear site structure.

The Home Page is the Navigator for the Entire Site

This is related to the previous tip on putting important pages in visible places. Your homepage is the most visible page on your site. Even if some other pages are ranking better, readers will still go to the homepage to look for more reviews. When a popular query is available from the home page, like in the example above, anyone looking for fast dating matches in Australia will be able to go to the best BDSM dating sites in just one click. Because of that, it should have a simple menu that gets a reader to important pages in a couple of mouse movements. Pinning popular reviews as featured articles is another way to take visitors to helpful pages. Then it all depends on internal linking.  

Pay Attention to Internal Link Optimization

If you create a web of useful internal links, readers will browse the site for a while. Neglect internal link optimization and readers may go to the homepage and look for another review after they’re done with the first. Or they may leave the whole site and never come back. Just because there were no internal links that would take them to pages of their interest, put links to related articles in reviews to keep answering questions your readers have. If they’re reading reviews of casual dating sites, write a blog article with tips on casual dating and link it to existing reviews. Put a couple of relevant internal links on every page your audience and crawlers will be grateful.    

Summing Up

Structuring your dating reviews site carefully from the start will save a lot of time in the long run. When it starts to grow, it will take less maintenance to keep everything clear. Clear structuring of a site helps to get more organic views because crawlers go through pages easily. But the biggest benefit of a well-structured site is a great user experience. Give your readers useful info about finding love online in a clear way, and they’ll keep coming back for more.

PHP vs ASP.NET: Which is Better for Web Development?

There is a growing trend toward progressive web applications that empower users and enhance interoperability as well as facilitate the development process. Market demands are growing extremely fast, and it is obvious that the right technology stack can make the difference for a project.

According to statistics, two programming languages – PHP and ASP.NET – occupy the most part of the server technology market, so the question arises – which one is better for web development. Let’s learn more about each approach, its pros and cons, main differences and why it can work better in certain cases.

ASP.NET and Web Development

ASP.NET is a C# based web application server platform. It was introduced by Microsoft in the early 2000s as an extension of the .NET platform. This framework offers many libraries and tools, especially for web development. Moreover, any other packages available on the .NET platform, such as Visual Studio, can comfortably be used by web developers.

Microsoft provides a basic structure for handling requests along with a web page template syntax, authentication system, editor extensions, and template libraries. This framework allows you to develop different types of applications, including dynamic web pages, microservices, REST APIs and real-time hubs. The Microsoft team is constantly improving functionality and introduces a huge ecosystem of open source libraries. However, it is an open source platform supported by Microsoft, developers are also encouraged to contribute to the community.

Among the major features is a web page template syntax called Razor. This allows developers to write internal code in C#. Once the code is evaluated on the server, the HTML content will be sent to users. In addition, the user side is written in JavaScript, which integrates effectively with ASP.NET. Various editor extensions allow you to augment the code and highlight syntax.

Previously, ASP.NET web applications ran only on Microsoft servers, which typically required higher hosting fees. With the new 2016 version of ASP.NET Core, software developers can apply for Linux and macOS hosting services. In light of the relationship between ASP.NET and web development, we can conclude that this framework provides a reasonable solution and has a number of advantages to choose from for your next project.

IS ASP.NET SUITABLE FOR WEB DEVELOPMENT

In fact, any web technology can be a great choice for a project, as long as it meets the set expectations. Having given a comprehensive answer to the question “why use ASP.NET for web development?”, We would like to identify the most important aspects to consider.

To begin with, ASP.NET is a mature platform that has been on the market for more than a few decades. Compared to other frameworks, it has gained a decent market share and continues to strengthen them through continuous development. Today’s community consists of more than 60,000 developers from around the world. As an open-source platform, it is also actively supported by Microsoft and is known for active community support. This close cooperation leads to the availability of various libraries and clear guidelines. Microsoft invests heavily in developing its platforms and supporting the community. There is no fear that they will offer some outdated approaches.

On the technology side, ASP.NET is often chosen because it is fast and efficient. You only need to compile once because the .NET platform is capable of running compiled code over and over again. Unlike interpreted code that must be executed every time on a machine, compiled code is more consistent and scalable.

Scalability is a great performance gas pedal. It covers code optimization as well as architecture and infrastructure, including intercepts, networking, etc. D. This framework provides vertical scalability, which aims to reduce overall delivery time.

One of the distinct advantages is robust security. This web application framework supports all necessary authentication protocols. ASP.NET offers a number of built-in features for overall application security, as well as cross-site scripting and request forgery. In addition to multi-factor authentication, the framework provides it externally, such as with Google.

Previously, developers had to buy an IDE to write code. Nowadays, free tools and libraries are available to everyone. However, often professional development companies pay for additional licenses to get more functionality. Moreover, all web-based software requires hosting servers. Windows hosting is more expensive compared to Linux servers. In addition, there is Microsoft IIS, which is available for free for different versions of Microsoft Windows.

As a result, ASP.NET web development services have become a great solution for many companies due to their excellent functionality, security and regular improvements.

PHP Web Development

PHP as a web development server language evolved from a small open-source project. It was created in 1995 by Rasmus Lerdorf, who wrote several CGI programs and managed to make them work with web forms and databases. He didn’t aim to create a new programming language, but it has evolved into one of the largest open-source languages. Anyone can contribute to the new release, including task deployment, testing, documentation, and source code.

Because of its accessibility, PHP has gained popularity among a huge number of developers. It can be a common choice for beginners because its learning curve is much simpler compared to others.

The PHP community has various free open-source libraries, tools and extensions. For example, the MySQL extension, it allows developers to build PHP applications that interact with the database, providing improved support for statements and transactions.

In light of the ASP vs. PHP comparison, PHP developers are dealing with a different type of code – interpreted code, which is written entirely in C. It allows excellent customization, however, which can be the cause of some errors and poor coding.

Because this server-side language was originally released for web development, it is effective for interoperability and access to most types of databases. Because of its adaptability and flexibility, developers are not limited in their choices. Furthermore, PHP can support other services covering various protocols, such as POP3, HTTP, IMAP, LDAP, etc.

Pros and Cons for PHP

Pros:

  • It is open-source and free for users.
  • It has a vast community of dedicated developers worldwide.
  • PHP is the best choice for large projects like Facebook.
  • It is also a perfect choice for web-based scripts such as web content management systems (CMS) due to efficient communication with various database types.
  • You can customize it for your needіs, and it is highly scalable.
  • It is cost-efficient and easy to learn, code, and pick up.

Cons:

  • PHP is generally not suitable for desktop applications, as it targets web applications.
  • PHP applications tend to run slower than apps built with other programming languages.
  • Customization options can lead to bugs and poor coding.
  • In comparison with other programming languages, PHP lacks efficiency in error handling. Therefore, it takes more time to detect errors.

Consequently, open-source turned out to be a great solution for the PHP web development community. They have gained the largest market share and continue to make continuous improvements and regular releases.

WHY WE USE PHP FOR WEB DEVELOPMENT

While this may seem like an easy question to answer, we wanted to be more specific and identify the pros and cons of this approach to development.

The first reason we use PHP for web development is that this programming language was originally introduced as a web scripting language. It is strongly supported and improved by its own community of more than 5 million PHP developers. The open-source programming language is quite popular among newcomers and has gained the largest market share. Its supporting community has continued to grow for more than 25 years.

Working with open source has its advantages and disadvantages. In fact, this language is easy to learn, it is compatible with different servers and suitable for various web applications. Another difference of PHP development is the interpreted code. This type of code is usually executed on the server, later generated in HTML and only then sent to the user side. Accordingly, the execution time is longer and an error may occur when importing heavy files, resulting in lower performance compared to other languages.

On the other hand, web development in PHP is often chosen to increase scalability. This is achieved by adding additional servers. The total workload will be distributed among them and will be able to handle more user requests. This approach is based on horizontal scalability, which distinguishes PHP from ASP.NET.

With a number of built-in security features, PHP is still considered less secure than other web server programming languages. By gaining more flexibility when writing code, engineers have more responsibility for its security and cannot rely solely on tools built into the build.

Reduced development and maintenance costs are usually considered a big advantage. PHP developers have access to all tools and libraries without any additional fees. Moreover, developers can choose between different hosting services and be able to pay less.

This adaptable and flexible programming language can easily meet basic web development needs. However, companies need to first outline their needs and make sure that they meet the established requirements and end goals.

ASP.NET vs. PHP: the Best Framework for Web Development

Any company starting a web development project may face this common question – ASP.NET vs. PHP: which is better. Undoubtedly, each approach has its own advantages. Moreover, they have worked effectively on different projects, and companies are really happy with the end results.

The thing is, companies need to approach the choice of ASP.NET and PHP from a different perspective – which is better for their project, which points are of most concern. It is possible to follow a simple advice – all requirements should be divided into business and technology aspects. Obviously, it makes no sense to choose some technology that has a large market share, but does not meet any of your technical requirements.

Let’s look at some important factors in light of the business aspects of ASP.NET and PHP.

ASP.NET vs. PHP: the business side

Both technologies have been on the market for a long time and have gained special recognition among web developers. Because PHP was released earlier and was originally introduced as a web programming language, its community has grown faster than the ASP.NET community. There is now a high market demand for these developers, as SPA and SaaS applications are the new default business standard.

In terms of support, developers are offered very different approaches. As mentioned above, although ASP.NET is also open source, it is supported by Microsoft, while PHP is an open source project. Community support is always great, but some complex projects may require professional help and immediate solutions.

Among the users of these web-based approaches you can find many well-known companies. For example, UPS, Stack Overflow, DELL use ASP.NET, while Facebook, WordPress and Wikipedia practice web development in PHP.

The final choice between ASP.NET and PHP mainly depends on the technologies that affect the overall functionality of the application. More research is needed to understand which options to implement the idea are most acceptable.ASP.NET vs. PHPPerformance is a key requirement for any project. Everyone wants to provide their users with a fast and efficient solution. ASP.NET will be the clear winner here because the compiled code is more accurate and systematic.

In addition to different coding methods, enterprises should pay particular attention to scalability, which greatly improves service performance. Vertical scalability focuses on getting more capacity (CPU, RAM) for existing machines, while horizontal scalability focuses on adding more machines.

As far as comparing ASP.NET and PHP, we have to mention security as one of the main requirements. It is worth the effort to get software with a high degree of security. Of course, this can also depend on the project. When the business is dealing with tons of data, it is better to use ASP.NET. But if it’s an open-source small project, PHP would be a great addition.

PHP is an open-source programming language that requires no paid tools or licenses. However, the extra cost spent on ASP.NET development definitely pays off through improved functionality and high quality.

Consequently, there is no clear answer to the question raised between ASP.NET and PHP. The final choice is always determined according to the company’s stated requirements and available resources.

CONCLUSION

We have collected the most important details, which usually affect the choice of web development strategy. The main thing to remember is that each method has significant advantages. Always take a moment to outline the needs of your project. Choosing between ASP.NET and PHP will be easier if the company sets certain requirements and finds reasonable ways to meet them. Another great solution is to consult with some professionals who have web development experience.

SEO Features for Promoting Dating Site in Germany

Swiping right or left on other people’s profiles has made it easier to find romantic partners worldwide, and Germany is not an exception, either. It seems that more and more Germans are now moving away from traditional dating and embracing the idea of online dating to enjoy romantic flings. Reputable sites are making a lot of money in the process. Because of this growth, it is natural to think of starting your own dating business. But, you need to understand that even if you manage to create a quality dating site, it only works when people know about it. And to promote your site, you will have to resort to the best SEO practices.

Heading to the Dating Market in Germany

Germany is among the hotly contested markets for online dating sites, and new dating sites are appearing every day to shake up the sector. They are making every effort to be seen. Each site is trying to occupy its own niche and stand out from competitors with quality services to meet the desires of the clients. 

In particular, the niche of finding casual dating and sex encounters requires a closer look. Popular dating sites presented on Fresh-singles.de seem to understand how Google controls search engine optimization in Germany and use good keywords and optimization techniques to make their presence felt. The adult dating portal gathers different sites aimed at different groups of people of different orientations and ages, but united by a common goal – to give people a platform for finding sex contacts and affair dating. Thanks to this focus on the quality of services and targeted promotion strategies, they are gaining popularity.

Today, it is easy to design and maintain a dating site with turnkey dating solutions. But, to make it work, you need to promote it aggressively, and that is possible only when you understand your target audience, what they like, and how to make them appreciate your services. As adult online dating in Germany is already saturated industry, so the competition is fierce. The quality of services matters, but getting traffic through Google will always be the deciding factor. 

Getting near the top of search engine results pages will never be easy, considering Google produces about 780 million results for common keywords in no more than 0.5 seconds. In Germany, Google considers your internal and external optimization efforts to rank your site. They even use metrics and search algorithms to evaluate the quality of your links. They consider the trustworthiness of the link, the popularity of your linking page, the relevancy of the content, the quality of the anchor text, and the ownership connection between the source and target domains.

It is obvious how challenging it is to adopt the best strategies to get some link juice from Google and increase traffic to your dating site. If you are not sure, outsourcing your SEO campaigns will always be a good bet. Professionals learn about your business, perform the audits, and then share the best promotional strategies to help your dating site grow exponentially.

How to Promote a Dating Website in Germany?

Working with professional SEO companies will always be a better option, but you can still handle the SEO campaign on your own to spread the word about your dating site. The process can be tedious and demands a lot of time.

  • You will have to create an original site and ensure that you target a German-speaking audience. It is where opting for the “.de” domain makes a lot of sense. There are other options too, but .de is the official German Top-Level Domain and is extremely popular. It also inspires trust and ensures that people take your site seriously. 
  • Devote enough time to collect the semantic core. It is a list of all words on your project’s topic that help create a common structure and site pages. You need German semantics when creating a site, but it is vital to optimize it and eventually launch an advertising campaign. Be sure to use the semantic core of your competitors, collect keyword intersections, and utilize similar key phrases whenever possible. 
  • Pay special attention to technical optimization, which is mainly about optimizing your website as well as the server to ensure search engine spiders crawl and index your dating site more efficiently. Some technical characteristics are a responsive design, a secure connection, and a fast loading time.
  • Make use of internal optimization to ensure your site delivers the best user experience. It should be easy to navigate, not just for your visitors but for web spiders too. For internal optimization, you will have to find the best keywords, use them in website content, text, titles, and HTML coding. Do not forget Meta tags and descriptions when handling on-page optimization. You may even have to create pages in German and use keywords to target those who cannot speak English for better rankings.
  • External optimization is just as important because it is an important ranking factor. External links are placed on authority sites and point back at your homepage. The quality of these links can work wonders for your search engine rankings. For this, create quality content using your targeted keywords. Using content is a cost-effective way to raise brand awareness and attract search engine spiders too. Guest posting on authority sites with links back to your site is always a great idea, but you can also create viral content for social media with your collected keywords. Similarly, create your blog in German and update it regularly. 
  • The peculiarity of dating review sites is that in addition to direct keywords related to the topic of sex dating, you will also have many brands on your site, so the growth and promotion of these brands will have an impact on the review site too.

Summarizing

Every third German is taking advantage of an online dating service, statistics show. It seems that Germans are willing to cough up quite some money to find romantic partners, but they want to ensure that they are on an authentic site. That is exactly when getting your site reviewed by top dating site reviewers in the industry will improve your credibility and inspire potential members to go ahead with a buying decision. 

How to Create a Membership Website

Creating a membership site is one of the easiest ways to increase user engagement. 

Visitor engagement is critical. Nearly fifty percent of marketers report that tracking user engagement takes up between a quarter to fifty percent of their reporting efforts, underscoring its importance in inbound marketing. And with good reason: keeping customers engaged will boost your profitability and relationship growth by as much as 23%. 

Bounce rate, time spent on site, comments, and shares are a few metrics that can tell you how visitors engage with and value your content. 

While website content remains one of the best ways to engage your prospects, you can also boost user engagement by offering memberships. By enabling visitors to become members, you entice them to continue engaging with your brand in exchange for perks, exclusive access to gated content, and discounts.

This increases the likelihood of them returning to your site, browsing longer, and purchasing more. Memberships can also add lines of revenue if you charge subscription fees.

Offering memberships may seem difficult, especially because the most famous examples include giants such as Amazon and Costco. But you can easily create a membership on your own site in a few ways. You can use a dedicated membership website builder. Or you can use a content management system that offers the built-in functionality for enabling visitors to become members, or has a plugin. 

Before we explore some of these different tools, let’s take a closer look at what a membership website is and how it differs from a subscription website.

What is a membership platform?

A membership site offers members exclusive access to gated content as well as other members-only perks. This might include special reports, newsletters, webinars, online courses, special invitations to conferences and events, free shipping, and more. Many businesses, nonprofits, clubs, and associations have membership websites.

A membership website is often conflated with a subscription website but they offer different experiences. Let’s take a closer look at the key differences below.

Membership Site vs. Subscription Website

A subscription website is defined by the financial contract it requires. A membership site, on the other hand, can require a subscription but it doesn’t have to.

You subscribe to Netflix, for example, paying a monthly fee in exchange for unlimited access to the TV and movies on their site.

On the other hand, you can become a member — or Beauty Insider — on Sephora.com. As a member, you get access to beauty classes, exclusive trial-size products and sets, and special promotions (including a free birthday gift!). Though you do get rewarded for spending more, you don’t need to pay a subscription fee to become a member. You simply provide your contact information and use your unique login credentials to get access to all of your perks.

To put up a gate for members or subscribers on your site, you can use a dedicated membership website builder or a multi-purpose CMS with the required features and extensions. Many of these platforms can also automate or simplify other tasks, like registering new subscribers or members, processing recurring payments, updating member profiles in one place, and delivering newsletters and other communications. 

Now, let’s take a look at how you can create a membership website so you can reap the benefits. 

There are several ways you can create a membership website, which will vary depending on the platform.

First, be sure to have a site up and running. If you don’t, you can set up a website with WordPress or build a site from scratch using Wix, YourMembership, CMS Hub, or Morweb. 

The benefit of building a site on an out-of-the-box platform is that the members’ area is usually integrated into your set-up. With CMS Hub, for example, you can easily gate content for members without needing to install an external plugin.   

Once you have a website, you can offer memberships in five easy steps.

Step 1: Decide on your membership model. 

Before ever installing a platform or plugin, you’ll want to create a membership model where you decide what you’ll offer and how much you will charge per year. When your business runs on this model, you charge a recurring fee to your customers and provide access to services, perks, information, events, networking opportunities, classes, or facilities in return. 

To create your membership plan, you only need to answer three questions: 

  • What will you offer to your members? 
  • What membership levels will you offer, if any? 
  • How much will you charge, if at all, and how frequently? 

First, brainstorm offerings for members. Audit your products, services, and messaging to decide on the value that you’ll bring to your customers. In this stage, it’d be helpful to examine your buyer personas and brainstorm what they’d enjoy having exclusive access to. 

Some of these offerings may come naturally; for example, a gym offers access to its facilities, a chamber of commerce offers access to its networking events, and an educator offers access to courses and exclusive material. 

For other businesses, it isn’t as clear. If you’re a sole proprietor or a successful freelancer, you can offer courses to other freelancers hoping to get into your field. The Art of Proofreading course is an excellent example of this. 

If you’re an e-commerce brand or online retailer, you could follow the example of giants such as Amazon and offer free shipping to your members. Other things you can offer is exclusive access to perks, points, product samples, website pages, blog posts, PDFs, events, webinars, ebooks, and discounts. Barnes & Noble’s famous membership model offers 10% off on all purchases. 

Next, decide on the levels of membership, if any. Depending on the level they join, your members can get additional access to more content and more deals. Costco, for example, offers two levels: Gold Star and Gold Star Executive. Alternatively, it might be worth starting with one uniform level that everyone can join. Amazon, Ulta, and Barnes & Noble have only one membership offering, making it simple to join. 

Last, decide on pricing, if any. Sometimes, it’s worth making membership free, as it can help you create a long list of marketing qualified leads. If you decide to charge, it’d be worth looking at your competitors to see their pricing. Choose the frequency as well; annual to biannual to monthly are great options, though an annual frequency is most common. 

Step 2: Create members-only content.

Now that you’ve created a robust membership model, it’s time to create the gated content, pages, courses, events and other items you plan to offer to your members. Creating the content before ever publishing your new membership option will ensure that you delight, not frustrate, your customers. 

Perk-based membership models might not require the creation of gated content. However, creating exclusive resources may be just what entices users to join. Member-only emails are a great option. In these emails, you can hand out discount codes that only your members or subscribers have access to. 

This step would also include creating a pricing page and a sign-up form. However, don’t publish any membership pages just yet. Before you do that, you’ll choose a CMS or install a membership plugin, which we’ll cover in detail below.  

Step 3: Choose a membership platform or plugin. 

Now that you’ve brainstormed your membership model, established pricing, and created the content, it’s time to choose a platform or plugin. 

If you’re on WordPress, compare membership plugins and choose the one that best meets your needs. If you’re on another platform, integrate a membership offering by toggling the platform’s already-integrated settings or choosing a third-party provider. If you’re on Squarespace, for example, you have options such as MemberSpace and Membership Works that can integrate seamlessly with your website. 

Regardless of the option you choose, a great membership plugin or platform will have the following features: 

  • Contact segmentation: Your chosen platform should allow you to segment your contacts into members and non-members, and offer further capabilities for segmentation if needed. 
  • Gated content: For any membership model to work, gating content is essential. It will differentiate your website visitors from your members. A membership platform should give you the option to selectively gate content based on membership status. 
  • User and member pages: Your platform should allow you to create membership-related pages and forms. 

Some nice-to-have, but not required, features include: 

  • Automated workflows: Whether it’s used to send welcome or renewal emails, an automated workflow feature can help you save time. 
  • Payment provider integrations: You might not need this integration if you’re offering membership for free. If you are, this is an important capability to look out for. 
  • Engagement analytics: This might not be required because you might be tracking engagement using another tool such as Google Analytics. However, some membership platforms can give you even more granular data. YourMembership and Bold Memberships both offer this feature. 
  • Third-party integrations: You won’t need third-party integrations if you choose an out-of-the-box option such as Subhub or CMS Hub. But if you’re using a plugin or an extension, it should integrate seamlessly with your other marketing tools. MemberPress, which is a WordPress plugin, integrates with Zapier so you can connect it to your other tools. 
  • Membership levels: If you’re offering different membership levels, you’ll need a plugin or platform that supports different levels and price points. 

Knowing what you should look for should make it a little bit easier to make a choice. Now that you’ve set up your platform, it’s time to bring it all together by publishing the content you created for your members. 

4. Publish your members-only pages. 

Remember the gated pages and posts that you created earlier? It’s time to publish those and mark them as members-only. For some platforms, you can do this with one click. For others, you might have to navigate to the page you want to protect and select “members-only” from a drop-down menu. 

In this step, you’ll also want to publish a pricing page. This should be public, as it will help users make a purchasing decision. If your membership platform doesn’t come with a pricing page option, or you don’t want to build a pricing table from scratch, consider installing a pricing table plugin. 

You can also create a community forum that’s accessible only to members.

5. Announce your new membership offering through social media and email.  

You have your membership model, exclusive offers, membership platform, and pricing page set up. Now, it’s time to get people to join! 

Announce your new membership to your social media followers, email contacts, and blog subscribers. To boost conversion rates, consider offering a limited-time reduced membership price. You can also follow Amazon’s example and offer reduced pricing for students. Other things to consider is offering discounted fees to seniors and veterans. 

Now that you’re ready to set up your membership site, it’s time to explore some of the best membership website builders and platforms that can help you do that.

Membership Website Builders

  1. CMS Hub
  2. MemberPress
  3. Wix
  4. MemberSpace
  5. Wild Apricot
  6. YourMembership
  7. Morweb
  8. Weebly
  9. Subhub
  10. Membership Works
  11. WishList Member
  12. Memberful
  13. Bold Memberships

Below are a variety of different solutions for creating a membership site. There are CMS platforms with out-of-the-box features for creating member-only content. There are extensions for creating membership-based content that are compatible with different CMS platforms and website builders. And there are dedicated membership website builders.

We’ll cover all these solution types so you can pick the one that best meets your needs and goals.

1. CMS Hub

CMS Hub is a proprietary content management system that’s fully integrated with HubSpot’s marketing, sales, and service tools and CRM. With CMS Hub, you can leverage HubSpot lists to allow only specific groups to access a section of your site.

Source

Whether you’re giving product updates to your current customers, pricing offers to prospects, or web pages in different languages to a global audience, you can create all types of membership-based content with HubSpot. That way, you can provide every visitor a unique experience on your site — without installing a plugin or any additional software.

Pricing: $300 per month for CMS Hub Professional

2. MemberPress

MemberPress is a premium WordPress plugin that makes it easy to create and manage membership subscriptions and sell digital download products. With MemberPress, you can grant (or revoke) access to your posts, pages, videos, categories, tags, feeds, communities, and digital files to members based on their membership status.

Source

In addition to advanced user flow options, content dripping, and other out-of-the-box features, this plugin also supports integrations with Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and marketing tools like MailChimp.

Pricing: starts at $249 for one site

3. Wix

Wix is a hosted website builder that offers a limited free plan and several premium plans. On any of these plans, you can create a member’s area and let visitors register and get access to exclusive content. If you upgrade to one of the premium plans, you can also sell paid subscriptions without installing any third-party integrations.

Source

Wix is limited in functionality, however. You can’t personalize a registration email or create a multilingual membership site, for example. You’ll also have to download several of Wix business and social solutions, like Wix Chat, to improve your members’ experience.

Pricing: Plans range from free to $500 per mont

4. MemberSpace

MemberSpace is a third-party tool for creating membership-protected content on Squarespace, Webnode, WordPress, and other sites. With MemberSpace, you can gate any of your pages and then decide what members have to do to ungate it. It can be as simple as signing up for your newsletter or paying a subscription fee, like on Follower to Fan Society’s website.

Source

Pricing: $25 per month plus 4% transaction fee per member

5. Wild Apricot

Wild Apricot is a website builder designed especially for membership sites. Using Wild Apricot, you can create multiple membership levels with benefits that scale up at each price point. In addition to member management, Wild Apricot offers features to help you manage your events, email marketing, and online payments.

Source

Sine Wild Apricot comes with website building tools, you can build your site from scratch or use an existing WordPress site.

Pricing: Plans range from free to $600 per month

6. YourMembership

YourMembership is a membership website builder that offers everything you need to create and run a site. In addition to being able to manage members and events in one dashboard, you can view analytics about your site’s growth, set up automated workflows, and publish blogs, polls, and surveys.

Source

Building a site on this software can get pricey, however. While there’s no pricing information available on YourMembership’s site, its competitor Wild Apricot estimates that YourMembership charges $2500 in set-up fees and $6000 in total in the first year.

Pricing: Have to reach out to vendor for custom quote

7. Morweb

Morweb is a CMS designed specifically for nonprofits and associations. Offering a drag-and-drop editor, responsive themes, and highly customizable modules, you can create and customize a basic membership site without coding. You can also accept donations online, password-protect your pages, and create events on your Morweb site.

Source

Since Morweb is a software company and design agency combined, you can even hire them to help design your site.

Pricing: Plans range from $99 to $199 per month

8. Weebly

You can set up a membership site out-of-the-box with Weebly. You can add a simple signup form to your homepage, offer one-click login to members, and create membership tiers. You can also add buttons or links to your login/register window in any of your pages, email newsletters, and social media posts to get more sign-ups.

Source

While Weebly does offer a limited free plan and multiple premium plans, membership features are only available at the Professional and Performance tier.

Pricing: $12 or $26 per month

9. Subhub

SubHub is a simple solution for building and running a membership site. You can create multiple membership levels, accept credit card payments, set up recurring subscriptions, offer promo codes, and drip content on your Subhub site.

When designing your site, you can start with one of Subhub’s templates or you can hire SubHub’s customer success team to build a custom design for you. Below are some sites built using SubHub’s Speedy Set Up service.

Source

Pricing: Starts at $49 per month

10. MembershipWorks

MembershipWorks is a membership software that’s compatible with WordPress, Squarespace, Weebly, and HTML static sites. You can either download it as an extension on your site or sign up for the hosted version.

With MembershipWorks, members can sign up and renew and update their profiles on your website. You can use labels and folders to organize them into groups and send an email at any time to all or a specific group of them.

What sets MembershipWorks apart from other dedicated membership solutions is its timeline feature. You can see a member’s whole history — from notes to payment history to donations to the events they’ve attended — all in one place. Timeline is integrated with MembershipWork’s billing and event systems so payments, membership renewals, and event registration is automatically recorded.

Source

Pricing: Depending on the number of users, the cost of using the plugin ranges from free to $239 per month and the cost of the hosted solution ranges from $39 to $249 per month.

11. WishList Member

WishList Member is a premium plugin for transforming your WordPress site into a fully functional membership site. Once the plugin is activated, you can protect your content with one click, integrate with any of the 20 supported payment providers, and view membership statistics and data in your dashboard.

You’ll also be able to create an unlimited number of membership levels and make each level a free, trial, or paid membership.

Pricing: starts at $147 per year for one site

12. Memberful

Memberful is membership software designed to help you create a community while driving revenue. You can view your members’ activity, offer free trials, create coupons, and more.

You can easily integrate Memberful on a WordPress site using the Memberful WordPress plugin. You can also use Memberful with other website builders but, because they don’t support single-sign on, it’s not possible to create members-only web pages. That means, you’ll be able to sell memberships on your site but you’ll have to share members-only content through one of Memberful’s email newsletter or discussion forum integrations.

There is a free plan available but has a 10% transaction fee. On the premium plans, the fee drops to 4.9%.

Pricing: Free, $25 per month, $100 per month

13. Bold Memberships

Bold Memberships is an app that you can purchase to add and sell memberships on your Shopify store. You can show or hide any content, products, page, prices, add-to-cart buttons, menu items, and more with this app. You can create an unlimited number of membership tiers, charge recurring fees, and view analytics right in your dashboard.

Pricing: $9.99 to $299.99 per month, depending on the number of members

Creating a Membership Website

Offering a membership on your website is one of the best ways to enrich your users’ experience. Using any of the dedicated membership website builders, CMS platforms with built-in functionality, or extensions above, you can increase engagement and add additional lines of revenue on your site.

The 8 Pages You Need to Attract and Convert New Members

Research reveals that 74% of visitors feel frustration when web pages don’t reflect their interests or expectations — unfortunately frustrated website visitors leave and don’t come back.

1) Homepage

This is the first page your website visitors will land on, so think about what information you want them to see right away. Many nonprofits put their main call to action on this page (like, “Join our organization”), along with news, featured members, upcoming events, and lots of pictures.

2) About Us

This page is where you tell the story of your organization and the people who guided the nonprofit to success.

Most nonprofits include their mission, vision and values on this page, as well as profiles of the founder and the current board members.

3) Join Us

This page has all the information about what a new member might need to know before joining your organization as well as the online form to join.

  • Including a list of benefits to joining can help entice potential new members, just like in this example of a Join Us page from the Kapolei Chamber of Commerce.

4) Donate

This page has all the information about what a potential donor needs to know before donating to your organization as well as the online form to donate. If you’d like to make sure this page is optimized for maximum donations, here’s a complete guide on how to build this page out.

  • Here’s an example of a great donation page from Rotary.

5) Events

This page is where you list all your events. The best way to do this is by posting a calendar showing the dates and times of your upcoming events. It’s also a good idea to list some benefits of joining one of your events.

Remember to allow online registration and payments so visitors can register for your events with ease.

  • It’s relatively simple to create this page using membership management software, just like the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce, which actually used Wild Apricot’s software to create their website and events page.

6) Resources (if applicable)

If part of the value your nonprofit creates is from publishing resources, this is the place to host them.

7) Members-Only Area (if applicable)

There are quite a few reasons why you would have a members-only section set up on your website. In some cases, this type of section may be needed for privacy and security reasons, preventing the release of confidential information.

In other scenarios, a members-only section might host exclusive resources or a member director for paying members of the organization. Just seeing the “Members-only” tab on your website is enough to entice some potential members to join your organization online, knowing they’ll get instant access to these things.

8) Contact Us

This page includes basic contact information for your organization. You can also choose to include a newsletter signup here that covers the benefits of receiving your monthly membership newsletter.

The above eight pages will give you a great starting point to building your online presence and attracting new members online. 

If you’re looking for extra tips on how to design your logo like the top, I’ve written a full guide on 5dollar-logo.

Content Aggregator Website Examples

Content aggregators give publishers the opportunity to reach a larger audience. And users can find anything they want from a variety of providers on a single website.

So how can you break into the content aggregation market? In this article, we’ll talk about great examples of content aggregators and provide some insights on how to craft your own content aggregator platform. But first let’s answer the question: What is an aggregator?

What is a content aggregator website?

A content aggregator is a website that collects different content including news articles, social media posts, images, and videos on particular issues from around the web and makes them accessible in one place.

NOTE: Content aggregation is not plagiarism. Plagiarism means using content without permission from the author. Content aggregation is presenting somebody’s work with proper credit and a link to the original source.

Content aggregation vs. Curation vs. Syndication

There’s often a serious misunderstanding regarding content aggregation, curation, and syndication, as they’re fairly close in meaning. To prevent confusion, let’s look at each of these practices in more detail.

Content aggregation is the automatic collection and grouping of content from multiple sources on a particular topic.

Content curation is more than just collecting content. Content curation is about selecting the best content that’s valuable to the target market and usually including some commentary, context, or views.

Content aggregators must provide benefits for news publishers

There are mixed views on the interactions between aggregators and publishers. At first blush, it looks like aggregators provide content producers with new ways to reach target users and subscribers, but in fact not all content aggregators are interested in meeting publishers’ needs. Some aggregators don’t care that much to promote a publisher’s brand, but rather their own.

  • Content aggregators should help news publishers reach a wider audience.
  • Aggregators should produce revenue for publishers.
  • By partnering with aggregators, publishers should be able to gain recognition for their work.
  • Content aggregators should provide publishers insights as to what kind of readers consume their content, what articles are most popular, and when users are consuming their content.

Seven great examples of content aggregator websites

Since content aggregators provide convenience, more and more consumers are interested in using these platforms. This is why there are lots of aggregators built each year. Some have already achieved great success and won the hearts of users.

AllTop

Originally set up by Guy Kawasaki, Kathryn Henkens, and Will Mayall in 2008, AllTop is a content aggregator platform that provides users with continuously updated news on any issue. Readers choose topics they’re interested in and then see the most recent news headlines from multiple providers on a single web page. Users can position the cursor on a headline and read the first few sentences of the article to get a general idea of what it’s about. Additionally, users can create customized pages 侀 their own AllTop pages. Users can choose topics and news sources they’re interested in to be displayed on their own pages. They can edit their pages any time by adding, removing, or reorganizing feeds.

News feeds are displayed on the AllTop website if the founders of the platform consider them credible, informative, and interesting. And since AllTop uses RSS feed aggregation, the platform captures data only from sources that enable RSS feeds.

SOURCE: ALLTOP.COM

Popurls

Created by Thomas Marban in 2005 as a single-page news aggregator, Popurls provides users with a clear picture of what’s going on in the world each day. Four years later, Popurls became one of the best online content aggregators and was number five according to the top 50 websites listed in Time magazine.

The Popurls platform has won the hearts of users by providing convenient access to content, smart search, and a no-frills interface. Popurls doesn’t just aggregate news feeds from such websites as Reddit, Flickr, del.icio.us, Digg, and many more, but curates them. By simply positioning the mouse over a headline, users can also see the first sentences of an article without being forwarded to a new page.

SOURCE: M.POPURLS.COM

Feedly

Feedly is one of the best aggregators, offering easy access to news websites, blogs, YouTube channels, and podcasts within one platform. All content is grouped by topics, sectors, and trends. Feedly is now available on iOS and Android and as a web-based service. On the Feedly platform, users can search content by keywords, the name of a website, or an RSS feed address. Users are also able to share any content they like on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Evernote with a single click. Other handy features include tagging, auto-marking as read, read later, and you might also like.

SOURCE: FEEDLY.COM

NextDraft

NextDraft is a very interesting case. Created by David Pell, the NextDraft app provides smartly curated news stories wrapped with David’s view on things. Each day, David picks the day’s ten most captivating news stories and tells readers what’s happening in the world by writing what these stories are about. Users can also find links to the original sources to read more.

SOURCE: NEXTDRAFT.COM

theSkimm

Created in 2012, theSkimm is an aggregator platform that presents the most important news to start your day. The major events calendar in the application synchronizes with a user’s calendar so users know what’s happening in politics, sports, the entertainment industry, and other spheres. The application also provides video and audio interviews with people of influence. Once a week, theSkimm presents a ten-minute audio episode that highlights key and relevant topics to users.

SOURCE: THESKIMM.COM

Khabar

At Steelkiwi, we have experience in content aggregator development. Khabar is one of the best examples of a news aggregator we’ve developed. This Saudi platform helps users find the latest news from over 100 news providers. Khabar runs on both iOS and Android and supports two languages, Arabic and English. The application has a minimalist design so users don’t get distracted from articles and lets readers share articles they like on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

SOURCE: KHABAR

Answers.how

One of the other great content aggregator examples is Answers.how. This aggregator website gives answers to top search queries. All content is grouped by category and subcategory. In addition, readers can use the smart search bar and benefit from smart suggestions or ready-made questions to quickly and easily find information. If no answer is provided to a query, Answers.how pulls data from third-party providers.

SOURCE: ANSWERS.HOW

How to build an aggregator website

Here are the principal stages in developing a content aggregator:

  • Define your core value
  • Identify content aggregator tools and technologies
  • Create a design that engages readers with content
  • Build strong filtering features
  • Choose a monetization strategy

Create a content aggregator website using WordPress or from scratch?

One more important step is deciding how to actually create news aggregator website. There are two common ways 侀 from scratch or using WordPress.

WordPress. When time and money is an issue, you might consider building your platform with WordPress.

From scratch. You can choose any design you want 侀 the only limit is your imagination. With custom development you’re not limited in functionality. You can add new features whenever you want. In addition, your website will provide great performance and will be protected against hackers.

A few things to remember when crafting a content aggregator

When it comes to building a content aggregator, the process goes beyond the principle stages we’ve just discussed.

Aggregate, curate, or syndicate?

The majority of content aggregators, like Flipboard and Hacker News, never publish full posts on their websites but instead redirect you to the original source. AllTop and Popurls go further and offer users the first few sentences of an article when positioning the cursor over the headline, however as soon as users click the headline, these platforms also redirect to the original website. Feedly lets users view full articles right on the Feedly website. This platform does include information about the original producer below the headline and allows users to go to the original page by clicking the headline. Answers.how aggregates data from outside sources if there’s no answer provided on the Answers.how website.

Aggregation seems to be easier than curation in terms of filling a platform with content. On the other hand, aggregators that curate content are much preferred by users. Remember theSkimm? As of March 2018, this platform already had six million subscribers and had raised $28 million.

Respect the intellectual property rights of publishers

When deciding what content to deliver, it’s important to make sure your content, whether it’s curated or syndicated, stays on the right side of the law. There are a few things that you need to pay attention to:

  • Always ask permission;
  • Avoid displaying content in full;
  • Don’t forget to give credit to the author by backlinking to the original source.

Follow Google algorithm updates

Since a content aggregator deals with different data and links from a bunch of sources, it’s necessary to understand Google algorithms and track their changes in order not to be penalized for content duplication. Particularly important Google algorithms for content aggregators include:

  • Google Panda for duplicated, plagiarized, and thin content;

Want to craft your own content aggregator?

If you want to enter the news market by offering a unique solution, remember that everything you decide and do from the design to the technology stack should be relevant to your core value and target market.

How to Develop a Local Business Directory App Like Yelp?

With every passing day, there are new apps in the market, and the number keeps on growing as per the current scenario. Every time an app comes in the market with the hope of delivering new and more features than other application of their domain.

As people, these days want new facilities in their control, and such desires are getting fulfilled by the modern era technologies.

Let’s discuss one similar app – local business directory app is one of those apps which become a sensation and known by the name “Yelp.” The app is very much helpful for a person in different aspects; also it gains a lot of popularity within a short period of time.

The Yelp app is available for both Android and iOS platforms; this makes the app available for both Android and iOS users. Moreover, if you want to develop the app similar to Yelp then, it necessary is for you first to understand every feature of this app.

With proper understanding, it is also necessary to have knowledge regarding the development of Android and iOS app. Even, you can hire any reputed software developing company for your Android or iOS App Development which has become the trend in this technological world driving the soul of modern businesses.

Further, let’s understand what this application is offering!! Let’s take a look:

What exactly is the Yelp app?

U.S.A based company Yelp Inc develop the app. It doesn’t matter what enterprises or establishment you are finding you can browse the application and you can know about your desired location.

Whether you are searching for a restaurant or a hotel, this app can help you to find the desired location. You can see the reviews to choose the best among the available options.

First of all, the app detects your location and after that provides you the list of all the available options. Options included are cafes, saloons, shops, market and many more. You can also apply the filters to make your search limited as per the requirement.

Once you have selected the option, you can get detailed information about that particular category which includes working hours, address and contact details. There will be a map to guide you the right destination.

You can check the reviews of people who have visited the place and even share your experience as reviews or comment.

Stats

As per the estimation, every month more than 32 million people use the app it helped them in improving the service selection quality.  The increased rating of the Yelp App expected to increase the sales by 5 to 9%.

Every year about $8,000 sans add and  $23,000 paid adds are on the app which indicates that businesses in the list of Yelp app can get good review and higher revenue.

Features supported by Yelp-like Local Search Platform:

The features are categories in three parts

  • Consumer: Website or application  user
  • Admin: Web panel
  • Owner of the business: Web panel

Features of Consumer app

  • Embed review: With this feature, the customer can embed the reviews to their platform, and for this, the customer uses review’s code. The system creates the code when customer taps on ‘embed’ option.
  • Integration of google map: Using this feature, the user can locate the different businesses on google map for providing customer navigation.
  • Integration of Cloud Storage: Amazon and google storage is used for storing the information in a safe and secure manner.
  • Content Management System: CMS allows to effectively manage the app content in images and the text format.
  • Payment Gateway Integration: Integration of payment gateway allow users to securely make the payments. Payment modes like Paypal, debit and credit transactions, stripe, Braintree and many more can be integrated.
  • SMS API integration: It allows to send the notifications to the users via SMS.
  • Reporting and Analytics: It’s feature allows admin to get the updates about users visiting the app, details about bookings, etc.

Admin Section (for Business and User):

User profiles need to be considered first whether it’s for the business or user.  Both have interaction in an entire advertising campaign through answering and giving the reviews, posting a photo, comment form, etc.

At some point, user and business may need to revisit the photo or comment they have posted and for they require the leisure. App keeps track of all the information in the right way.

Development of such local business directory app:

  • Advertisement: Advertisements let you earn more. As per the survey with the advertisement of local businesses, Yelp earned about 73 percent of the total evaluation of the company and got a hike up to $35 billion.
  • Apparel Store: Feature is beneficial for the customers who want to purchase online.
    Sponsored search: “It is like the Google Search.” Yelp is paid by the dealers of local businesses to increase their ranking in the SERP.
  • Deals and offers: YELP has Inbuilt offer system for their customers.
  • Business Advertising: One can have page customization using the pictures, videos and spotlight reviews.
  • SeatMe: In this, app reservation option is very beneficial for the restaurants and hotels. The option costs $99/month.

What cost require for Yelp-like App development?

The cost of development depends upon the various factors like :

Platform: The platform you choose (Android or IOS). Timescale relies on the complexity of the app which is equal for both. Also, the ultimate cost of the app may vary according to the features supported the more features mean more cost.

Design: The good interface is very important, but the complexity has a direct impact upon the cost. If the standard price is about $50 per hour, then the basic cost for app designing include the following for both platforms.

  • User experience: The app must be easy to use so that clients can easily navigate from one page to other. User-friendly app design requires 40 to 150 hours and cost is up to $8,000.
  • User-Interface Design: According to the market price, User interface takes 70 to 200 hours, and the cost is from $4,000 to $ 10,000.

App development company’s location

Nowadays, app development cost also depends on the location of the company. The charges for app development will higher in countries like America, Western Europe and might lesser in countries like India.

  • Developers based in India: $20 to $80/hour
  • Developers based in the U.S.A: $50 to $250/hour
  • Developers based in Eastern Europe: $30 to $150/hour

You will avail the complete app with a single platform, and basic features cost you around  $8,000 – $15,000. And if you want to develop both platforms for your application and include advanced features in it, then it cost you about $25,000.

Best Websites To Find Remote Work

  • What the BEST remote jobs are and how you can find one
  • The skills you’ll need to land (or create!) the remote position of your dreams
  • Stories from real Skillcrush students who have taken control over their lives and successfully switched to remote life 
  • What steps you can take TODAY to make remote-work-life your new reality

Remote Work and Freelancing

The reality of the digital nomad lifestyle is more likely to be different from the stereotype of sipping cocktails by the pool while working on a laptop. A digital nomad spends large amounts of time looking for freelance work and delivering projects for clients (or managing their location-independent business).

Not all jobs websites are the same and the purpose of this article is to help you select sites offering high quality work instead of low paid and low quality freelance gigs.

It is also worth noting, like a redditor eloquently said in a digitalnomad thread, that as a freelancer you should also work on your value proposition and branding. In other words, all digital nomads should focus on building trust and a strong profile to demonstrate they are reliable professionals by having a solid online presence. Having a good business profile showcasing your portfolio is as important as sending CVs to potential employers.

The Trouble with Jobs Websites

The common complaint from digital nomads about jobs websites is the element of competition when bidding for jobs. It can be very difficult to stand out from the crowd when potential clients receive multiple proposals for their projects.

According to Oncontracting, the freelancer/remote worker/digital nomad market is worth $715 billion.

The main purpose of jobs websites is to make revenue from listings. Some websites charge solely employers, while others also charge freelancers to access available projects.

Jobs aggregators have spotted that building platforms catering for remote workers is very lucrative, and this is at the detriment of freelancers, who often have to compete on price.

Example: Upwork (Formerly Elance/oDesk)

Upwork seems to be quite a popular choice among digital nomads who are looking for freelance and remote work. However, feedback from freelancers isn’t always that positive: online reviews are not stellar and they have been getting progressively worse over time. Usability issues are the main concern (freelancers mention the site crashes often) followed by poor customer service.

Upwork charges per transaction but a monthly subscription is also available.

oDesk and Elance merged at the end of 2013, then the new organisation rebranded as Upwork in 2015.

Back in 2015, Forbes reported that Upwork planned to increase freelance revenues from $1 billion to $10 billion by 2021.

Power To The People: Reddit Suggestions

To get a true picture of which jobs websites are more reliable, it is useful to look at online forums.

Reddit’s digitalnomad subreddit mentioned earlier recommends the following websites on its homepage:

Digital nomads should browse through Reddit recommendations from other digital nomads, who are best placed to give an unbiased opinion. Reddit has fairly strict discussion guidelines, preventing users from spamming and promoting their own content or affiliate links. Conversely, if you look at Quora, while many answers are genuine, some are often used to promote websites.

In a thread about Fiverr and whether or not it is a good website to make money as a digital nomad, a redditor said:

“It’s really the bottom of the barrel in terms of compensation and experience for the service provider. It’s marketed on absolute cheapness, and your services are turned into a commodity.

As a DN (Digital Nomad) offering a service, you should seek to get projects at good rates from clients in higher cost-of-living locations. To do that, you need to develop a clear sales/marketing approach to reach out to these clients, and all the elements to support this. This includes things like positioning, brand, marketing collateral, email/phone scripts, etc.

My advice is to skip it and focus on building a system that lets you land clients where you have more altitude in the relationship.”

Here’s a suggestion from another redditor:

“None of those sites are the best, they are all commodity marketplaces where you compete mainly on price. The best way to get freelance work is through your own efforts, marketing yourself and establishing a reputation and network. In general it’s best to have work/clients lined up before you start traveling.”

Another suggestion from Reddit is to use LinkedIn ProFinder.

LinkedIn ProFinder

LinkedIn ProFinder, launched in October 2015, is an online marketplace to rival Upwork and similar sites from LinkedIn. The idea behind this portal is to find high calibre freelancers (see Inc.com article). If freelancers want to submit more than five proposals and want to receive leads directly to their inbox, they have to pay for a premium account.

Please note that, at the time of writing, online reviews from freelancers are not available.

Power To The People: Quora Suggestions

Quora is a good source of recommendations, but bear in mind that it is also used extensively by marketing departments to promote their own business. In other words, recommendations can be biased.

Jobs sites for freelancers recommended on Quora include:

Remote Nomad Website Recommendations

The Remote Nomad website recommends these websites:

Please note that Power to Fly is a recruiting platform for women in tech.

Translator Jobs

Digital nomads specialising in translations should look at:

‱ Proz.com
‱ Translatorscafe.com

Jobbatical

Jobbatical lists worldwide opportunities. This Estonian company advertises relocation jobs and some of the employers will cover relocation costs and organise the immigration paperwork.

Traditional Jobs Sites: Searching for Remote Jobs

Traditional job sites have plenty of remote work opportunities, and not many digital nomads may be aware of it.

A good example is Indeed.com, which lists freelance and remote jobs. The main advantage of using websites such as Indeed is that they don’t charge a fee to freelancers.

To access current opportunities, type in “remote working” in the search box. You can sort and filter results by job type, location, salary and more.

For example, if you are a freelance writer, you can search for “remote working writer”.

Most sought after remote workers tend to be developers, technical writers and SEO experts.

Remote Jobs Aggregator: Ditchtheoffice

If you want to go to a one-stop-shop collating all the available offers of remote work, you can also try https://ditchtheoffice.co/.

Email Roundup: Remote Jobs Club

One of the alternatives to typical remote boards is Remote Jobs Club, which is  free, once–weekly email roundup of remote jobs that aren’t restricted by commutes or a particular geographic area.The interesting part about this newsletter is that all the remote jobs are manually picked and verified.

Jobseekers’ Resources: JobHero

JobHero  has a job search section and a lot of career-related information, including sample resume content for thousands of job titles.

The Verdict: Where To Find Remote Employment Opportunities

If you are looking for remote work, start your search on sites such as Remote OK, We Work Remotely, SkipTheDrive, RemoteJob and Indeed.

If possible, choose a website that does not charge to access opportunities or a transaction fee for each completed project.

The best way to use these websites is to allow you to access potential clients and, once you have successfully completed a number of projects with them, ask them for referrals.

25+ must-have Travel Apps you Need!

Note: Some of the tools mentioned below have limited features on their free plan and offer more features in their paid plans.

What i use when i planning journey

Travel is one of the industries that has completely transformed by the smartphone evolution and as a result, there is an abundance of ingenious apps designed to make your trips easy to plan, cheaper, well-informed and more enjoyable.

Short of literally packing your bags and rooting out your passport, your phone can support all of your travel needs in one way or another.

On the highways of travel applications

There are few things people hate more intensely than popular music, queuing, low battery, alarm clock in the morning, washing the dishes and taking out trash. Being unable to plan one’s activities efficiently taking a great amount of time to plan a schedule for a local excursion or travels to distant places. At the same time though it’s understandable, and even more so when you take into consideration travel time, route and mode of travel, an array of undecided options, prioritizing needs and making juggling choices about where to put scarce resources, and how to avoid disgracefully large egos getting in the way. You already know about it or have experienced it, right? I mean truly. We are living in a fast lane so our inability to make a decision quickly and be in disarray before accomplish anything is dictated by the frantic tempo of modern life. But really, all these things can be handled with the minimum amount of effort. Im not talking about egos though saying any of this is easy, cause it’s a whole different scene here. Someone’s ego is their perception of their own worth. For example, if someone has a big ego, they consider themselves very important and valuable.

That’s OK with me.

The places visited and experiences encountered reflect impeccable traveling credentials on traveller, no doubt about it. And a bag of destinations visited is obviously a common item of value shared between travelers, but excessively bragging that even Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain have travelled less than they have doesn’t put an eagle feather in your cap. Been to North American forests, they fought off grizzly bear attacks with a wooden cooking spoon, killed Anaconda with Bruce Lee’s one inch punch, jumped off the summit of Mount Everest and outran wild cheetahs in African savannah maybe you had the chance of a lifetime to a fly in a stealth fighter, they have orbited the Earth in a space shuttle. This kind of an attitude is embarrassing it really sucks!Travelling is not a competition for Christ sake! Hack away at bragging rights and when you check the bags, double-check the ego too and you gonna be as good as Captain James Cook!And on that note, let’s get back to the programme.

Living in one part of the globe, we didn’t really have much idea about the way things would go and how much any other part would even cost for a travel. We are just perceived as placing excessive emphasis on controlling things that went on. Everybody would hate for all planning to go down in flames, so Im gonna make a few adjustments to a plan. Travel is a competitive multi-trillion dollar industry, so every company from the smallest as Wanderfly to the largest as Google all want the chance to share in its success. Lately, travel companies have attempted to harness the power of data acquisition and the social graph to build useful travel planning tools. For many, Google and TripAdvisor were the first to arrive and hop on board of the travel appsdevelopment among other relatively fresh start-ups like Gogobot.

Travel is all about visual image. So let me give you that visual. When you’re planning a trip, you want to make sure that you are ready to do it properly, get the best deals possible for your flight tracking, car rental, travel expense tracking, booking, price comparison, hotel rooms, etc. Our iPhones have reduced a problem of legwork to a few operations saving even more money. No hassle, no need to count on travel agents and robust graph-based map catalogs with free and premium travel mobile apps available in the App Store, Windows Store, and Google Play, all of which provide useful tools for all stages of travel. So let’s take a look at the best travel apps, so you can short-circuit your stress to a bare minimum. APIs popularity is determined using a variety of metrics systems, including followers, GitHub, Twitter activities and search engine popularity based on Google Trends. Our drop of seven metres from the top to the bottom of the cliff I will start out with an undisputed heavily followed champion of the world of mobile travel app development, which locks in clinch the rest of competitors in the mobile applications market, but they are yet to fight back.

So, if you’re about to go on holiday or logistics just aren’t your forte, these apps will help you get it together:

Before you go — by tikets:

Skyscanner

 

Skyscanner is a well-known global travel search site that maintains services for millions of flights, car rental services and hotels. Skyscanner supports price comparisons for flights across more than 1,000 airlines, hotel deals, offers and programs in popular cities around the world, information for car rentals from airports, in cities and car hire companies with some of the lowest prices guarantee and much more.

Skyscanner has a perfectly designed API website that with detailed information about Skyscanner APIs as well as interactive API documentation for testing debugging and exploration certain API endpoints. Free APIs incorporate flights live pricing service, cheapest quotes for flights, and hotel booking prices and reservations. Skyscanner APIs can be used to great effect adding specific Skyscanner services to actual deployed applications or to build a consistent full-featured online travel search websites. Skyscanner headquartered in Scotland was founded in the beginning of 2000s as a flight destination specialist. Today the company is spreading globally, concentrating on international markets and persistently thriving its influence and presence in the Chinese travel market.

➀ Skyscanner (Free) [iOS | Android]

Kayak

 

Kayak is the best service I have found for booking multi-city flights. It can also be used to find hotel deals, book rental cars, plan your itinerary and track your flight details.

It is by far the easiest and most functional multi-booking platform I’ve used, even just down to the simplicity of the search pages.

➀ Kayak (Free) [iOS | Android]

Hopper

 

If you’re still in the planning stages, Hopper can help you predict when the flights you want are going to be the cheapest. It’s not always practical to be waiting to book but it’s really handy if your dates are flexible.

If you are set on your dates, Hopper can send you a notification to alert you of price increases or drops and advise you on when is the best time to book.

➀ Hopper (Free) [iOS]

Best Apps to have while traveling:

Booking.com

 

https://www.booking.com/s/35_6/ped4en72

Every day, more than 1,500,000 room nights are reserved on our platform. So whether traveling for business or leisure, customers can instantly book their ideal accommodations quickly and easily with Booking.com — without booking fees and backed by our promise to price match.

Booking Site (Free) [iOS | Android]

HotelTonight

 

HotelTonight is an essential one for any last-minute trips, or if you’re prone to missing flights! It offers discounted hotel rooms in cities all over the world at the last minute, or up to seven days in advance.

You can also use the app’s Escape feature to check out the best getaway deals for ‘tonight’ or the weekend ahead.

➀ HotelTonight (Free) [iOS | Android]

Airbnb

 

The Airbnb app is the pocket-version of its website. So, whether you’re looking for a place to stay for one week or a few months, Airbnb will have somewhere.

Often providing quirky alternatives to hotels and outside the usual tourist areas, Airbnb can really save you money.

➀ Airbnb (Free) [iOS | Android]

Yapta

 

Using Yapta alongside apps like Skyscanner and Kayak is a good idea as it works by holding the hotel and flight rates you’ve been quoted for a fee ($0 to $100+) so you don’t lose out.

It can be used by individuals for personal travel as well as by companies for corporate trips.

➀ Yapta (Free) [iOS]

FlightTrack

 

This app lets you follow the path of thousands of international flights, so even if you’re not traveling, you could watch your friends and family’s flights and know they’ve landed safely.

It’s also a handy one if you’re waiting to pick someone up at the airport as you can see if a flight has been delayed and when it’s due to land.

➀ FlightTrack ($4.99) [iOS | Android]

TripIt

 

This app is an organized person’s dream. It pulls all of your confirmation emails for flights, transport, hotels, etc into one handy itinerary and adds in corresponding maps for easy navigation.

It also scans your inbox for any reservations and adds them to your calendar.

➀ TripIt (Free) [iOS | Android]

Entrain

 

When it comes to beating jet lag, I think I’ve tried every tip no matter how weird it was. Very little worked until I gave Entrain a go. It hasn’t cured jet lag completely but it’s definitely the best app I’ve used to help.

The app was built by a team from the University of Michigan and uses your destination and travel details to determine the best way for you to adapt your sleep cycle with a timetable of when you should be in light and darkness, asleep and awake.

➀ Entrain (Free) [iOS | Android]

Packing Pro

 

Packing for a trip, whether it’s a week or a weekend, can be a real chore. I always pack too much because I find myself saying ‘I’ll bring this just in case
’ and then before I know it, the bag is full. Packing Pro aims to help kick that nasty habit to the curb.

When you enter your travel dates and destination, it gives you streamlined lists of what you should pack. The lists are split into essentials, clothes, gadgets and more, so you really can’t forget anything with this on your phone. If you’re travelling with your children or family, it has an option to generate lists for them too.

➀ Packing Pro ($3.32) [iOS]

Once you’ve arrived

Wi-Fi Finder

 

Affordable data roaming remains a necessity for most of us, but where it’s not accessible, Wi-Fi finder can help you out.

The app features over 500,000 paid and free Wi-Fi locations in more than 140 countries, so it can save you a lot of frustration and time. It even has an offline mode that lets you download maps so you won’t get lost when you’re out of coverage.

➀ Wi-Fi Finder (Free) [iOS | Android]

XE Currency

 

When I travel abroad, I tend to use my card more than cash and often lose track of how much I’ve spent when dealing in different currencies. There are lots of paid currency converting apps but I find XE Currency to be more than adequate for totting up the live exchange rate.

It’s also a great way to work out how much money you need to change over before you travel as well.

➀ XE Currency (Free) [iOS | Android]

Uber/Hailo/Lyft

 

Depending on where you’re travelling, one of these transport apps will probably come in handy. Uber’s been getting some negative publicity in recent times, but in a lot of cities it’s business as usual and is often the most affordable option.

Hailo is quieter in terms of publicity but it’s still operating successfully in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, all over Ireland, Barcelona, Madrid, Singapore, Tokyo and Osaka.

Lyft is the newest of the three and is still only available in the US for now. It has an option for ride-sharing with people headed in the same direction, so it’s a good one if you’re travelling from city to city in the States.

➀ Uber (Free) [iOS | Android]

Guiding around a foreign city can be a royal pain in the neck, especially if you don’t understand the language or don’t know the etiquette rules for tipping or bargaining. Uber, a popular app-based transportation service relieves the mind of all your worries. This car service app enables you to request a car and tell the driver where to pick you up by pinpointing your location on a map. The app provides you a fare estimate for a ride to your destination. When you arrive at a place, Uber charges your credit card the exact amount, and there is no need to tip. Uber is worldwide, with service running at more than 50 countries.

Uber unveiled its API to all developers in 2014, together with an affiliate program to inspire developers to integrate Uber into their applications. Originally the public API did not have the Request endpoint, which provides “request a ride” service. This endpoint was publicly presented just recently, allowing developers to integrate Uber platform functionality into third-party applications. To further facilitate the building of innovative travel applications with the Uber API and the Uber Request endpoint in particular, the company hosted its first hackathon on ChallengePost giving developers a chance to get ahead with the best applications. The Uber company provides a very finely designed developer website including detailed API documentation that is well-handled, competent and easy to follow. There is a Python example source code on GitHub that developers can use as a point of departure. Uber also provides a sandbox testing environment where developers can test the API endpoints for their applications.

➀ Hailo (Free) [iOS | Android]

➀ Lyft (Free) [iOS | Android]

New York Subway

 

If you’re going to the Big Apple, your best mode of transport (besides your legs) is probably the subway, which can be confusing if you’re not used to it. This app makes planning your journey less stressful with its nifty augmented reality mode that overlays stations nearby as you explore the city.

➀ New York Subway ($0.99) [iOS]

Maplets

 

While Google Maps and Citymapper are good, I find Maplets to be more accurate and reliable. It has fewer blank spots in its specialized maps, which are created both officially and by users. I’ve used it to find coffee shops in train stations, as well as specific shops inside shopping malls.

➀ Maplets ($2.99) [iOS | Android]

Google Maps

I can’t even imagine driving without headlights of Google Maps. Turn-by-turn navigation works just fine, they still keep on telling you to veer off the highway and right back on again once in a while, but the real time-saving trick is that Google Maps recognizes unexpected delays up ahead of the game, such as traffic, accidents, heavy congestion or road construction. The app automatically finds a shortest and quickest route in an elegant way. It’s a great in-car GPS navigation device, right from the heart.

Google Translate

 

Conversation mode is a life saver. I have pretty serious food allergies that I always have to explain in restaurants when I’m abroad, and it’s often confusing. Conversation mode translates between languages as people speak so if you can handle the lag while it translates, it’s a really useful feature to take advantage of.

➀ Google Transate (Free) [iOS | Android]

Exploring

TripAdvisor

 

TripAdvisor pictures itself as the “world’s biggest travel site,” making it a kid’s stuff to provide more than enough challenge of 200 million reviews, facts and impressions about millions of accommodations, entertainment, and leisure facilities, food services, amenities and attractions, from all over the world. The company provides a nicely illustrated, properly designed and systematicallyorganized website for developers that comprisesdetailed information about TripAdvisor APIs for those developers who would like to create consumer-oriented travel applications and gives programmatic access to business data and related functionalityfor accommodations, restaurants and attractions. The API also provides undistorted destination information and advices, including pieces of information of latitude and longitude coordinates for each point of interest and you can calculate the distance between them as crow flies. Other TripAdvisor APIs are available for B2B partners integration approach”TripConnect” and self-implemented partners solutions like online travel agencies, representation companies, hotel chains, etc.

The company is constantly evolving and working to improve and adapt the TripAdvisor platform and recently developed a “Neighborhoods” feature, which helps travelers to cover popular cities and sites. It also added “Just for You” personalized hotel recommendations.TripAdvisor is the universal travel site at your disposal, that enables you to download cities, maps and reviewsto your device. The TripAdvisor travel community contains more than 300 million monthly unique users.

➀ TripAdvisor (Free) [iOS | Android]

Expedia

Expedia is a leading light among travel companies that specializes in vacation packages and collecting and distributing vital information about travel destinations, flights, hotels, guest houses, railroad journeys, cruises etc. It provides a background of APIs that developers can use to add hotel, flight and rental car booking functions to their applications. The company launched a portal for developers that provides comprehensive information about Expedia Affiliate Network APIs. The Expedia’s strategy for obtaining global travel market share appears to be mostly going through the purchase of other travel-oriented companies. Not long ago, Expedia has purchased several major travel industry brands, including Travelocity (acquired from Sabre), Trivago and Wotif. It is uncertain if Expedia’s mergers and acquisitions strategy will help the company continue to contend for a title in buoyant travel industry market division.

Localeur

 

This app is good if you don’t want to stick to the usual tourist spots on your trip. Localeur gets its data from locals so everything you see featured has been suggested by someone who knows the area and has really been there before.

It’s only available in the US at the moment and lets you search for niche requirements, like a bar with a photo booth or where you can grab gluten-free pizza at 4am.

➀ Localeur (Free) [iOS | Android]

Swarm

 

Foursquare’s Swarm is a fun one if you’re travelling to a city where you know other people. It lets you check-in easily and see who’s nearby and might want to hang out. You can also compete with friends to win ‘Mayorship’ of different venues, if you’re feeling competitive.

➀ Swarm (Free) [iOS | Android]

Foursquare

 

Foursquare itself is a gift to curious travellers. When you open the app it shows you restaurants, bars, shops and even churches that are close by. You’ll also get a list of tips on places of interest from people who have been there before.

➀ Foursquare (Free) [iOS | Android]

Foodspotting

 

This app gives more info than your usual restaurant reviews service. It focuses on specific dishes, which is really useful for people with food-related allergies or even if you’re just a picky eater. The information provided is all locally-sourced so you can be sure that it’s reliable.

➀ Foodspotting (Free) [iOS | Android]

YPlan

 

If you like going to gigs, club nights or quirky events like pop-up cinemas and festivals, YPlan could be your ticket.

Available in London, New York and San Francisco, it suggests events nearby and lets you book tickets through the app and often at a discounted price. For some venues, YPlan even offers VIP tickets so you can watch the show in comfort.

➀ YPlan (Free) [iOS | Android]


Document it

Bonjournal

 

This sleek minimalist-style travel journal app is a pleasure to use. You can write notes and diary entries from your trip and add pictures to liven them up, then convert them to PDFs or share them via email or on Facebook. It might sound like the native notes section on your phone, but it’s just too beautiful not to use.

➀ Bonjournal (Free) [iOS]


As we travel, we free ourselves; we travel to discover ourselves and our calling. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world like children have a curiosity about the world around them. We travel to bring what little we can, some knowledge in our ignorance of those parts of the globe projection whose treasures are differently dispersed broadening the narrow streets of our mind horizons. And we travel, essentially, to escape and become young self-conscious fools again motivated to slow time down and get it hot, and fall in love once more. So choose among so many nice travel apps a traveling companion that will guide you through the planning stage and development process by any means necessary and always wait for something else something bigger.

Parkopedia – Best App to find Parking
https://www.parkopedia.com

Find your perfect parking space using our growing database of thousands of car parks, street and metered parking and even private garages!


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Have we missed your favorite travel app off the list? Let us know in the comments below!

Best Tools to manage a Multi-language Website

Developing a multilingual website is complex and involved specific rules and changes. This makes it incredibly hard to do all by yourself.

Though English is a really popular international language, it’s only one of nearly 7,000 languages in the world.  

In fact, English isn’t even the most widely spoken language in the world. Chinese is the most spoken language in the world, followed by Spanish and then English.  

It just goes to show, while English might be internationally known – there are tones of other languages that are being used every single day. For those looking to truly capitalize on the global marketplace, the Best languages to learn for business are sure to give you a competitive edge and make you more accessible to all markets 

This only highlights the importance of building websites that offer natural, practical ways to be available in multiple languages.  

The only issue is, not many website builders offer this option. This begs the question; are there any tools that can be used to create a multilingual website? 

Why having a multilingual website is important?

As stated, English may be known worldwide. It’s almost the go-to language for translation and communication internationally.  

However, when you provide your website in multiple languages, you’re catering to a much bigger market. Regardless of whether or not they speak English, too.  

If you provide your website in a customer or client’s native language, you have a much higher chance that they will engage, and return.  

It provides a positive user experience (UX) and expands your market. That’s why, if your analysis shows that you have a large market in another part of the world, you should absolutely consider using their language.  

Using a translator, and offering your website in a different language also benefits SEO. Keywords and locations are imperative when trying to place high on search engine results.  

For this reason, offering different languages also proves to be a marketing technique. This is especially beneficial if you’re attempting to reach new markets.  

The best tools  

It’s not only building the website, but it’s also all about managing it too.  

You have to make sure that your website updates at the same time, and also stays consistent.  

Any language or cultural changes, your website much accommodate to. Any reviews, complaints, or suggestions brought forward by the user should also be considered.  

So, what are the best tools, and all their benefits? 

Squarespace

Squarespace is a leader in website design. So if you want to create a site that looks great and serves an international audience, Squarespace is the right platform to use.

Squarespace has several page types for different kinds of content, including regular pages, gallery pages, and product pages. As a user, you can select the “Page” button to create a basic page with text, images, and links. You can customize each page and element of design to your taste.

Squarespace allows building a single site with a set of pages for each language. If you use this website builder, visitors from different countries and continents will be able to access your content in their native languages.

Site123

Site123 is another great website builder that allows setting up localization, SEO, and plugins in the menu.

“It manages things old-style and does not offer drag-and-drop features. So if you have never built websites before, it might be tricky for you to use this tool for the first time. However, if you have at least some experience in web design, you will truly like all the features that Site123 can provide,” says Jeffrey Zimmer, a senior editor at PickWriters.

Site123 offers free hosting, custom domains, and essential SEO tools. It allows creating a mobile-friendly eCommerce website and localizing it to reach a global audience.

Trello

Do you want to manage a multi-language website successfully? Use Trello, a project management tool that allows content creators, web developers, and translators to work more closely.

Using Trello, your team can create boards, lists, and cards to organize tasks and projects in a fun, flexible way. 

Trello is compatible with such tools as Slack, Google Drive, Maps, Jira, InVision, and many others. If you already use one of them, it will be easy for you to integrate the new app directly into your workflow.

Also it worth mentioning that Trello helps to track the progress of your team members. So you can see who works faster and who works slower. 

For instance, you may notice that the content creator writes five articles a day, and the translator translate only three articles a day. In this case, you may decide to hire one more translator to boost the performance of your team.

Monday

Monday.com is another project management and time tracking solution. It has such features as project templates, team collaboration dashboards, and file sharing. 

No matter how complex your project is and no matter how big your team is. Using Monday, you will be able to organize the workflow in the right way. 

You can use colorful columns to capture and visualize all the information you need. Also, you can track time and see who’s in charge of what. You can add mark locations, text, numbers, links, and so much more.

Monday is an easy-to-use tool with an intuitive interface. It allows getting new team members on board fast and easily.

So if you start using Monday, writers, graphic designers, as well as experts in content localization will get a chance to collaborate more closely. It will boost team efforts and bring your company to success.

Google Translator

Of course, one of the most widely used translators on the web is Google Translator. It’s an easy-to-use editor that helps users all over the world enjoy your content.  

Of course, there are certain discrepancies when using this tool. However, the benefit is that most people use Google, and many people use this handy tool – providing you with a free, useful, and widely recognized tool.  

However, it doesn’t always translate accurately, nor will it pick up on a particular culture or branding linguistics.  

We would recommend that you use Google translate when you’re just starting out – almost like a test run before you jump to using one of the other tools.  

Google translate is getting really accurate, and even lets the community contribute to translate, to help people all over the world understand different languages a little bit better.  

Consider navigation  

You must consider whether or not your website has comfortable language navigation. For example, your site may attempt to translate content based on their geographic location, but there should always be a choice to manually change this.  

A drop-down menu on your website is the best option for this. It makes it quick, simple, and completely painless. The most common is a smart button (usually featuring a flag), which when clicked reveals a list of options.  

Some companies have a separate landing page, which allows users to click the language before entering the website. This is an excellent choice for some companies.  

Left to right and right to left difference  

Some languages are read from left to right, and others are read right to the left. 

A multilingual site that offers this should adapt accordingly – even if it means that the website may have to be designed a little differently. To ensure that your site will be able to properly integrate reading direction changes, it’s preferable to have a web development or mobile development team to supervise this transition. Ideally, however, you’d want to anticipate such steps at the moment of design creation. 


Conclusion

Developing a multilingual website is complex and involved specific rules and changes. This makes it incredibly hard to do all by yourself.  

With tools online, you can achieve a seamless website – all that will help build it, and also manage it. Whether this is through automation, smart memory, or human translators.  

It may be tricky, but owning a multilingual site will provide fantastic customer service, and build excellent relationships with your customers. 

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