How Brian Acton and Jan Koum Created the Most Popular Messaging App

We all have heard the cliché, “try and try again and ultimately you will get success.” However, seldom we really walk the talk. If you think the most powerful messaging platform on the Android platform today, the “Whatsapp” is the story of instant success; then you are totally mistaken. The duo that created this amazing application, Jan Koum, and Brian Acton were turned down brutally by Facebook and Twitter, the giants in the industry. Ironically, Facebook only bought it recently after paying a mind-blowing amount of 16 Billion USD!

Many people wonder what would have been the motivating factor for them. The incredible journey of these two founders is a splendid example of self-confidence and resilience. Both were determined by the strength of their application and knew that it will be a massive hit one day. Users and critics initially felt that they will not be able to keep the commitment to keeping it free of irritating ads. However, both of them have kept the promise so far and assure that the idea will be forever.

The story of founders

Brian started his career at Yahoo, the IT giant company. Later he also tried the fortune in the early 2000s when everyone was just crazy about Dot Com companies. With the burst of the balloon of Dot Com, he had to rethink about the business philosophy. The story of Jan was also not quite different. He faced immense problems after immigrating to the US from Ukraine. He met Brian in 1997 that encouraged him to join Yahoo. Both left Yahoo and worked on an idea that changed the way people interact with each other, The WhatsApp!

What makes WhatApp unique?

Undoubtedly, highly energizing look and feel make WhatsApp different. It is lightweight, simple yet eye-catching. Interestingly, there haven’t been groundbreaking changes in the application since its inception. Only a few cosmetic and logical changes here and there! You needn’t give any personal details, no complex username, and no maddening password policy. You are asked to give a 10 digit number; that’s it.

Short Message Service or SMS was at the peak when they launched WhatsApp. Since telecom companies increased rates regularly for business benefit, users always wanted a messaging application which is free. No wonder, it became the top-rated application at App Store in 2011.

As the application is owned by the stalwart company Facebook, it is sure that it will reach new heights of success.

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Making an App: 7 Things You Should Consider Before Hiring an Apps Development Company

Today, smart phones or tablets are what the customers of this techy-world are fond of. If you would like to reach out to the masses then you need to bring in a bit of change in marketing strategies and get into the track of promoting your business services or your products through apps and gain instant growth in revenue generation.

Take heed before you take a step further

But before you take the services it is needed that you get to know more about who you are taking the services from by asking them a few of the questions which are mandatory to get started before handing them the project of your mobile application development. Following are the questions which you shall ask as these can let you assess well about who your service provider is or what you can expect from him etc.

Question -One

Is your company registered?

The first basic question which shall be asked by you is the one given above. Remember, a mobile application development company which is a registered one can be trusted. If you are in the UK but you are looking for outsourcing your project then before outsourcing your mobile application development project it is needed that you get all the details of the company. You must always ask them to let you know of this first so that you can reliably move on to entrust them your mobile application development project.

Question – Two

Can you show a few of the examples of the mobile applications which your company has designed and developed for other clients?

Remember, this is the question which you shall ask in order to know more about what work they have done so for. Qualified mobile application development companies who have been in this field of providing mobile application development services are always eager to provide the clients the list of the applications they have designed and developed for others. A good company always take the initiative to explain to the clients about their previous projects, even before the client ask about that.

This way, you can easily gauge whether the company you are going to take the services from really has got the skills, experience or manpower or vision to produce the kind of mobile applicant which you are in quest of or not.

Question – Three

What is the mode of communication during the process of mobile application?

The quality of your mobile application (iPhone, android, apple, blackberry or anything) depends much more upon the level of work or how well the work is executed by the team you trust. It is necessary that the work shall be done in collaboration and with effective communication between the team members and the client. When you get a chance to communicate with your app designers or app developers then you will have the chance to get your app designed and developed as per your requirements. When there is a barrier in communication or when there is no connectivity between the client and company then this is going to affect the quality of the app.

Hence, it is indispensable that you shall ask your service provider about what mode of communication they prefer. You shall ask them to get you connected to the team leader or the project manager who will provide updates from time-to-time (or ask them to get you connected to the team members as well so that you can interact with them anytime you want or let them know of what changes you may require etc). Know well about what they prefer either a chat in person or communication via phone call, instant message, skype, email etc. It is necessary that you shall receive updates from the company on everything related to your app project.

Question – Four

What is your team size or How would you rate your experience on a scale of 1to 10?

The purpose of asking this question is simple. When you ask this question you will come to know of what capabilities they have or how much time they can take to complete your project. If a team consists of professionals with expertise in different domains then you can even expect to approach the same company for the second time too for some other kind of mobile app development services related to iphone, blackberry, android application development services etc.

Question – Five

What is your app-testing procedure?

It is necessary to get an app tested on a smartphone for which it has been built (The best way to test any app is to run it on its related platform.). Talk to your service provider to know more about what procedures they have for this application testing. A good company always provides a through explanation about what they do to conduct beta test in order to weed out any possible glitches. It is necessary that you shall know of what they are capable of doing if there are bugs in the app or how quickly they can resolve the issues if there are etc.

Question – Six

Copyright issues – who will own the copyrights?

Before you get your work done from them, let this be made clear as to who will own the copyright. Of course, you, the one who is paying for the mobile application, shall own the copyrights. It is needed that you shall get everything written in the contract before assigning them the task.

Question Seven

Let me know about your fee or your terms of payment etc

It is crucial that you shall know about their terms and conditions or mode of payment they accept or what amount they expect as an upfront fee etc so that you do not have to come across any sort of problem in future. Let this be very clear from the onset itself that you will pay as per the number of hours or per project etc.

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10 Email Marketing Best Practices

Primary! Social! Promotional! Ya… it is the format of our Gmail accounts. It has been incorporated long since today, and is the most lively adopted format which is heartily adopted worldwide. Why it has been divided so? It has been employed to enhance the functionality and the look of the Gmail accounts and you have surely felt the difference when all mails were merged and when all are dispersed into the chunks. Emails are the most professional and technical approach to transfer any attachment and to making on-line diverse deals. Actually, the mail you have sent to your client should be engraved with proper format and the language you will use.

Gone were those days, when email ids were identified by only mails and attachments. It is the cut throat era in which email marketing is in vogue. Email marketing is the type of direct digital marketing tool that employs the electronic mail for the purpose of delivery of commercial message. Now, the email marketing is becoming more prominent as the days pass by. Many agencies create the marketing content and then diffuse it to the customers via an email marketing campaign. The problem is that the results can be hit or miss.

Now, it is time for a question. How do you increase your chances of getting a click-through? Utilizing the righteous email marketing technique, you can surely enhance your conversions. Just like any other marketing strategy, the email marketing campaign lies in the attention to detail, careful planning, solid content and follow-up. Knowing how to reach your customers is just a piece of the puzzle. In a nutshell, the key to the successful marketing campaign is to pick the apt email marketing path.

Email Marketing Best Practices:

Let us discuss some tips for developing a strategic email road map that assists you to be prepared to hit the ground running in 2015.

1. Go mobile; It’s the future:

Responsive design can lead to a 130% increase in email clicks. Yes, you have read absolutely right. Just read once more! With the leading-edge world, this has been clearly stated that regardless of any marketing channel, small screen’s vitality can’t be overlooked. Every single aspect from the website design to newsletters, email template and landing pages, everything has to be responsive. Moreover, adding the social buttons in the email will increase your success rate.

2. Invest in Analytics:

Data and analytics make sure that you will go with the righteous approach and channel to acquire the better results. That’s why, step up your pace vigilantly about what you are doing, what’s the general market behaviour, what visitors generally behave towards your brand and then perform the steps. If you will spend a dollar on analytics, it can secure your $1 million from going waste.

3. Get in front of the readers:

Creating the blog and email content are all what was required to reach to the top of the search engines, convert them into users and beat your competitors. The world is not constrained up to just having the content, you will have to promote it utilizing appropriate tools and tactics.

4. Lead the conversation on social media:

Follow your customers. Go where they move. It is not adequate to join social media networks, you must engage with the customers. Choose the networks your customers prefer to use. Social media channel is the huge and imperative mode to get your brand endorsed. Through the content promotion and the authentic engagement, you can drive the visitors to your website and convert them into email subscribers.

5. Emphasize the quality writing over the visual content:

Visually compelling emails might be proved stunning, but they are ineffective at the same jiffy. Some email subscribers say they prefer emails with lots of images whilst some emphasize on the more content-oriented email. So, monitor your click through rates to search what style of email your audiences prefer.

6. Make it easy to sign up for your emails:

This is the busy-bees ambiance and an individuals skips out the website which will take time to sign up or any other option to enter into the site. Make facile for the users to register and increase your conversion rate. Employ the floating footer bar, slide in, sidebar widget and after post widget to use various categories of alternatives to grab the most subscribers.

7. Increase the email automation and drip marketing:

Drip marketing is the fruitful campaign in the world of email marketing. It allows the agencies to remain cognizant in the minds of the customers even at the specific jiffy, it is not accessible in the market. Apply this significant drip marketing in several ways such as if your emails have primarily focused on the selling, then you can utilize automated drip marketing to build up more trust and credibility.

8. Double opt-in:

This pioneer method allows the recipient to pick a brand’s email program by sending a blank email to the specific email address. When someone completes that then it triggers an opt-in confirmation request email that asks the individual to activate their subscription by clicking on a link in the email. A US author has stated that this process is slighter easier than signing up for email via SMS.

9. Execute an email-optimization process:

The email elements such as copy, design, calls to action, subject lines, headlines, landing pages, frequency and time sent require the continual improvement. An audit is very essential component in the email marketing. Analyse the email optimization tests for each campaign to determine what will best work out for your target audience. Execute this after a regular span to gain the higher performance of your email-marketing program.

10. Test everything secluded:

You are besieged with various new advices all the time. However, employ the split test for each to ensure whether that factor will work out for your email marketing. Just because something works for someone that doesn’t seem it will work for you and your business.

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Free and Best Mobile Applications – A Mobile Apps Review

Ever since the smartphones came to being, it has given rise to what is now known as the app economy. So how does this work? Smartphones are now the new interface for people to communicate, work and collaborate. By offering mobile apps that can be downloaded on to these interfaces, the developers offer more utility for the smartphone users. In return, the developers either get a new ‘estate’ to display ads and monetize or they can simply make money by selling the apps at a cost. 

The most popular interface that has given a spurt to the mobile app economy is the iPhone. The iPhone mobile app Store is one of the fledging ecosystem of app developers and iPhone users that has become very popular. This has now become a vicious cycle whereby the increasing success of mobile apps in the App Store has given rise to more and more developers pluging into the fray thus increasing supply while reducing the overall quality of apps. 

So, which are those best mobile apps that people actually find useful on their iPhones? Since there are potentially several thousands of these apps, they can be rather studied by the categories they belong to. According to a recent study of the best mobile apps, here are the results

1. News : 11

2. Reference : 10.7

3. Weather : 10.5

4. Books : 10.0

5. Lifestyle : 8

6. Utilities : 7.7

7. Games : 7.4

8. Health & Fitness : 7

9. Travel : 7

10. Productivity : 6

Information related mobile apps are clearly having an upper hand as we see from the list above. 

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