Facebook launches collaborative Stories

Finally, Facebook somehow managed to launch the Stories Feature on its app too which works exactly the same like snapchat does.

The story feature of the Snapchat was being appreciated by a lot of people and that's why the thing Facebook was undergoing the planning of introducing something similar but with its own uniqueness. 

Facebook launched the Stories Features on WhatsApp, Instagram and even Messenger. The more people get, the more they demand. 

The Social Media giants now are demanding a platform to share their stories across the world.

Considering which Facebook is now integrating the Facebook Stories and Messenger. 

This feature of Facebook was named as Stories. 

The Video or Photos which you will add to your story shared with same audience on both the Facebook and Messenger platforms. Facebook looked into the issue being faced by the people where they shared the images on one platform saved it to post on the other, which seems to be quite tedious task. 

Related Blog:- Facebook could hurt publishers by taking the news out of news feed

The Facebook product manager, Connors Hayes notified that opportunity will be given to multiple people to share story from multiple angles. People will get to see the stories on their Group and Events pages and also on the top of their News Feed. 

He further notified that that as the posts are in sync which states that if a story is viewed on one app, it will not be shown as not viewed in the other. Though the apps will be sharing the stories, the camera feature in both the apps will remain different.

But in the Snapchat, he has its own private group which is similar to group chat feature.

Facebook enables to make group around the similar professions, hobbies, locations and ideologies so as to create niche stories content which might not attract the friends but will attract the people with similar interest for sure.

It is also planning to route all the Stories replies and Facebook Camera messages thorough Messenger. 

The next new feature of the Stories is that Facebook users who are also the part of the Groups and Events will now make their Stories visible to rest of the members too. Also expected to come out with another new feature which is the new privacy controls for Stories, which is applicable to both its main app and Messenger. 

Facebook will be giving you the choice of selecting your audience which can be either from Public, Friends only, Friends, custom list of specific people and connections.

Google shares developer preview of TensorFlowLite

One of the major announcements from I/O 2017 was TensorFLow Lite created for machine learning on mobile devices. Developers were already informed about the launch of TensorFlow in May itself. 

TensorFlow was in use for many devices starting right from the servers to loT devices and varied platforms, but the demand of adapting machine learning models have increased in the past which has lead to an increase in the need of deploying them on mobile embedded devices. 

On device machine learning models, TensorFlow Lite enables low-latency inference. With an aim of creating lightweight machine learning solution for smartphone and embedded devices the company came with the invention of TensorFLow for both Android and iOS app developers.

More emphasis will be laid on introducing low-latency inference from machine learning models to less robust devices and not on training models. To put it in simple words, TensorFlow will ensure that existing capabilities of models are being applied to the new data.

TensorFlow has been effectively trained for:

Inception v3 which is image recognition model offering higher accuracy and also larger size.

MobileNet which has got the capability of identifying 1000 different object classes and have been designed for mobile and embedded devices.

Smart Reply is on- device conversational model which enables one-touch reply to the incoming chat messages.

Google has mentioned that while they were designing TF Lite they laid much emphasis on lightweight product as that can help in initializing quickly and will lead to an improvement in the model on various mobile devices.

While redesigning TensorFlow Lite from the scratch focus was majorly laid on 3 areas:

Cross Platform, where in order to run many different platforms including both Android and iOS runtime was designed.

Lightweight enables inference of on-device machine learning models to be developed with a small binary size featured with fast startup.

Fast - To improve the model loading times and so as to support hardware acceleration, focus was laid on making the optimisation of mobile devices a little faster.

Google even mentioned that the full release is yet to come as more things will be added to the bucket. At present TensorFLow Lite is active for models like MobileNet, Inception v3 and Smart Reply. 

Google also stated that considering the needs of the developers, constrained platforms have been started so as to ensure effective performance of most important common models. 

Further they added, in future they have planned to prioritize functional expansion depending on the needs and demands of the users. 

They will also be working on the goal of simplifying the developers experience and also model deployment for various mobiles and embedded devices.

Mobile app prototyping tools

Prototype is the first step of software launch in which development evolution takes place and the fixations in the products are being done before actually launching the software. 

These testing done before actual launch are called as Beta Testing or Beta Phase.

Even when software comes on the final stage of launching there may be certain bugs or problems in the software. 

This is when prototyping is used to fix the problems found in the software.

Prototyping in important as

-> It helps in the evaluation and testing the design. It gives the allowance to designing team to test the before launching it in the market.

-> Prototyping helps in finding the design issues at an early stage. It reveals all the flaws in the designed concept which will aid you with resolving the required issues before bulk production.

-> It also assists in clarifying the production costs and issues pertaining to the software. It gives us a clarification on the actual costs to be incurred.

-> Improvisations in the design can be made quickly. Revising and refining the ideas becomes a matter of minutes.

-> Prototyping helps in gathering feedback which helps in spotting the issues which can be rectified well on time.

-> Prototype can also act as a Presentation Tool so as to illustrate your ideas effectively and get the approval from higher authorities.

-> Prototype enables collaboration and also allows everyone to be a part of the early process.

There are various popular prototyping tools which are as follows

In-vision

This tool is highly recommended for Team Collaboration, Workflow Management and Enterprises. Invision is the most reliable tool across the world. Its main advantage is its collaboration features. It is helpful in commenting directly on the prototype, auto updating every time the file is edited, viewing previous histories, synchronizing with Dropbox, Cloud, slack and Google Drive. Check the tool now www.invisionapp.com

WebFlow

Web Flow is highly recommended for No Coding, Independent designers, All inclusive Prototyping, CMS and hosting. It is quite popular as it does not demand coding skills. Using the visual- based UI you can design the entire site. Check the tool now on www.webflow.com

FluidUI

With built-in material design, libraries for wireframe and iOS containing over 2000 customizable widgets and icons, connect product owners, developers and designer in interactive video sessions to share a wireframe, prototype or mockup for any device or platform in minutes without ever leaving FluidUI. Check the tool now onwww.fluidui.com

POP

It is recommended for Digitizing paper prototypes and Prototyping the mobile devices. POP is almost similar to niche prototyping tool and is serving the designers well. It is well known for transferring the sketches into an interactive prototype. Check the tool now on www.popapp.in

JustInMind

It is highly recommended for Offline Work, Medium to high intricacy in prototypes. It is known for creating high quality work. One of the most effective feature of JustInMind is that it allows the usage of items from UI libraries and can download numerous add-ons. Check the tool now on www.justinmind.com

Artificial Intelligence & machine learning

As we all very well know Virtual Personal Assistants, Video Games, Smart Cars but not aware with how all these technologies came into existence. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) made it all possible. 

AI mainly focus on areas of computer science where it lays more emphasis on creating intelligent machines that works and reacts the same like humans. 

The computers made with Artificial Intelligence are capable of Learning, Planning, Problem Solving, Speech recognition etc.

Also Read:- Business Intelligence and Analytics a needed tool for small business

Machine Learning is an application of Artificial Intelligence that serves the systems with an ability and capability to automatically learn and improve from experience. 

Machine Learning majorly focuses on the development of computer programs that extensively accesses the data and uses it for them.

Machine learning allows the software applications in becoming more accurate so as to correctly predict the outcomes. 

Machine Learning focuses majorly on building the algorithms to receive input data further using the statistical analysis so as to predict an output value within an acceptable range.

The process of machine learning begins with observations or data so as to look into the patterns in the data and make decisions in future.

The best examples of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are as follows

The Virtual Personal Assistants like Siri, Google Now, Cortana are all intelligent digital devices. They are helpful in finding the information when you ask for it with the help of your voice and that is when they respond well to your question with an accurate answer.

Security Surveillance is very common. But do you think it is under human’s capability to keep monitoring multiple cameras at once? No right. Artificial Intelligence andMachine Learning makes it all possible.

Netflix is also another common output which is predictive technology and recommends the users based on their choices, interests and behavior.

Video Games are the best example of AI and ML. The creation of video game characters learns your behavior and responds further reacting in unpredictable ways.

Online Customer Support is an example too for AI and ML. While the customers are browsing the website, they get to chat with the computer support representative but its not the live person you are talking to, at times its a rudimentary AI and it extracts knowledge from the website and present it will before the customers.

In 2015, Gmail introduced Smart reply which indicates its capability of responding to emails on your behalf. The machine learning tools automatically suggests varied responses.

Google Maps helps in analysing the speed of the traffic with the help of location data. Using that data Google suggests with the fastest routes to reduce travelling time.

Paypal a popular online payment platform also uses machine learning algorithms to fight against all fraud. Using the deep learning techniques Paypal undergoes the analysis of various quantities of customer data and leads to evaluation of the risks accordingly.

Uber is another best example as it using machine learning algorithms to identify arrival times, pick up locations and drop locations.

Send money to your buddies using PayPal on Messenger

Paypal has now introduced a new feature where it enables to send and receive payments from peer-to-peer ever the facebook messenger.

This will make it easier for the friends and family to exchange money avoiding all the hustle and bustle.

Payment in integration with the messenger also included Paypal’s first customer service bot which is helpful in managing the queries of the customers.

Facebook and Paypal made an agreement of giving an allowance to 2.5 million PayPal customers in the U.S with the facility of connecting and merging their accounts with Messenger added to this they were also given an access to shop on Messenger and also undergo a communication with various other PayPal users.

Customers can also opt for receiving notifications and receipts of the transactions that has been made online by them.

Paypal has got good response on launching this feature and this was stated based on the number of linked up accounts.

Nearly 2.5 million users linked their Paypal account with the Messenger and still the growth is yet to come.

Paypal is still bringing a new innovation named as the new PayPal bot for messenger which is said to serve the users with the best service of interacting with others. It will provide the customers with the services like refunds, or payment issues, handling account queries, resetting passwords etc.

Read :-Facebook launches collaborative Stories for Groups and Events

PayPal also was found to collaborate with Apple’s Siri to bring the concept of transactions with voice.

Not only this, it even collaborated with Microsoft so as to allow the transaction of money with the help of skype chat function. PayPal made payments possible with the help of messenger where the it is possible to make payment just by clicking on the green payment button.

PayPal bot can be used in the search field, just by typing a message to the PayPal post which you will get to see bot inside the messenger app.

Facebook approved on sending payments through messenger two years ago. The process involved the used to provide the details of their Visa or MasterCard debit number issued by the back in the messenger.

To provide security it offered with a PIN. By introducing this feature Facebook has successfully made messenger a platform for all the commerce transactions.

Chatbots has proven to be much of use as it helps the customers to deal with various transactions like reordering, sending gifts or paying the bills. The messenger bot and p2p payment options are now active on messenger but its accessibility globally will still take time.

Top 5 do’s and dont’s to achieve success as a startup founder

The journey of a startup can turn out to be fruitful only if you are aware with the proceedings as in what needs to be done and what should be avoided while you grow your startup inthe market. 

Looking at the journey of other start-ups, many of those looks all glamorous easy to go types. But the actual phase is not so. Start up journey is filled with sleepless nights, stress of handling lot of responsibility of your employees, customers and investors at the same time. 

The Startup journey is such that it can crush down the spirit and can bring down all the optimism. 

All this can be avoided if you carefully analyse the failures of start-ups of your industry, the reason behind it and following by certain do’s and dont’s of your industry, as this will take you to the path of Success.

The Do’s to achieve success as a startup founder

Validate your idea as per market terms

There are many startupfounder who come with a business idea and starts working on it without affirming its demand in the market. 

It is essentially important to ensure that whatever product or service your business is planning to serve the people with, the market and the people should be in need of it and should willingly pay for it too. 

Dont proceed with your business project until you validate it as per the market terms. 

Ask for help

No one is found to be full of knowledge, you me and everyone needs someone to assist us with our work. 

Ask for help from the ones who is well experienced in your field. This will give you the right guidance on how to move in the market at the right pace. 

Talk to the ones who have succeeded and also to the ones who have failed in their field. 

Learn a lesson from their failures and avoid all those mishappenings in your journey. 

Have your own business plan and the right budget for it

Entering into the business field without having a plan of how the business will run will take you nowhere in your journey. 

Plan your business; work on its format of working. Budget your business. Consider your business generating zero revenues initially and accordingly plan a budget for your business. 

Know your business purpose

Business without Purpose will give you no direction in your business journey. Have a purpose of starting your business. 

Why do you want to do this? What will happen when you do this? How will you do this? Have answers for all these questions and define your purpose of doing the business.

Build the Right Team

The most difficult step in setting up you startup is gathering a team. Team plays a significant role in the development of any business. 

Have good people in your team who have similar mindsets to what you have, who have a purpose in their life and who you feel are dedicated towards work in their life.

The Dont’s to achieve success as a startup founder

Expect Success Overnight

Startup Journey is a long one with lot of ups and downs and not just a sprint.

Even if the luck is favouring your and everything is taking place just the way you wanted, still you will never to be able to get success overnight. 

Constant smartwork and dedication will take you to the path of success.

Give up on your ideas

Nothing is Impossible, make this your mantra of your life. Never accept a no for any answer.

Never give up on your ideas and have patience to hold it for long. 

People will demotivate you claim your ideas to be not effective, but all you need to do is have faith and belief in yourself.

Assume money to be problem solver

People believe that money can buy everything, but the actual case is not so. 

No doubt capital is important for a business, but only if it is used in the right way business will succeed. 

Make the best use of your investment and plan a model that tends to succeed.

Deny accepting the changes

Changes are law of nature. With rapid advancement of technology, the market is bound to change and grow. 

Accept those changes and modify your business accordingly. Analyse the market needs and keep on bringing in new inventions in the market. 

Let your investor's decide on your company's strategy

Relying on investors for implementing new ideas in not the right thing.

Investor’s perspective is earning the maximum return on their investment they will not be able to think like a businessmen. 

If you wish to build your company well considering a long term approach, make sure not to involves investors who are looking for short term gains.

Quality Assurance - Effective strategy from smoke testing to regression testing

Popular as Build Verification Testing, Smoke testing is a software testing process based on non-exhaustive set of tests conducted with an objective of ensuring the working of the most important functions.

This test is performed with a motive of assuring that the build can proceed further and is stable to perform well.  Smoke testing covers all the major functions of software but none of them are being observed in detail. 

Smoke Testing is performed manually or with the help of automation tools/scripts. The results of smoke testing are well documented.

As Smoke Testing does not into the depth of the functionalities of software during the testing process, Regression Testing is conducted to look into the minute details of testing process. 

Regression testing involves the testing of computer programs so as to ensure accuracy in the working of older programming with the added new features. 

Regression testing is done by code testing specialists. The test department coders works on the development of code testing scenarios which will help in testing the new units of code after they have been written. 

All these test cases then form the test bucket. Before launching the new version of a software product, the old version test cases are run against the new version to verify if the old capabilities are still in a working condition or not. Regression testing is one of the most essential components of any software development cycle.

Before the final launch of the software, smoke testing ensures the success of the software due to which it is considered to be an essential part of the testing process. 

Importance of Smoke Testing is as stated below:- 

► It minimizes the risk of integration. When two teams are working separately on their respective coding integrates the results doesn’t turn out to be positive.

►Integration errors can also lead to cancellation of projects. Considering which Smoke test makes the errors manageable preventing problems. 

►It also helpsin identifying the bugs in the early testing stage. 

►Smoke testing does not consume much of our time and can be completed within limited period of time.

►It reveals the major problems when the software is newly built. It identifies not the coding errors but the errors pertaining to incomplete setup or configuration.

►It also assists in ensuring that the issues fixed in the previous build are not affecting the major functionalities of the application.

►Smoke testing does not demand much of the test cases to conduct the test.

►The major problems can be detected in the early stage which helps in reducing time and saving the cost.

►It also reduces the risk of low quality delivery. Smoke testing can aid in the prevention of quality problems and does not allow quality issues to be raised at any point of time.

Types of SEO White Hat SEO & Black Hat SEO

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a type of technique that is used to boost the website rankings on search engines and is much in use by small and large businesses as well.

 This method is very effective in order to get recognition in the market and increase your business’s visibility over the net. Importance of SEO in building a web presence to make people aware of your existence informing them about your products or services. 

It helps you take your website rank up on the search engine rankings which give your business a wide exposure.

The types of SEO techniques used more often in the market are White hat SEO and Black hat SEO. Both the techniques are quite effective but are different in their own ways.

WHITE HAT SEO

White Hat SEO called to be one of the most popular SEO techniques. With accurate utilization of varied methods and techniques it works on the improvisation of the Search an engine ranking which fits in the guidelines of SEO. 

The White SEO practices are bound to follow the Google’s guidelines strictly without which it will not be able to achieve the expected results.

White hat SEO techniques makes the effective use of high quality content, restructuring and manual outreach and website HTML optimization followed by research. 

As White hat SEO completely abide by all the guidelines put down by Google it leads to effective approach. It is not conducted with an aim of exploiting or disturbing the loopholes in the process.

The most common tactics used by White hat SEO are as follows:

Use of Keywords and Keyword Analysis
Securing quality inbound links
Managing and organising the site effectively to make it easier for search engine to crawl your website.
Creating original and detailed quality content with added social and e mail campaigns.
Using Schema for a Competitive Edge
Laying more focus on User Experience (UX)

BLACK HAT SEO

As the name says it all, Black hat SEO techniques supports the practices that is focused more on identifying the loopholes in the Google’s algorithms so as to achieve the higher rank in the search engine result pages. 

The practices of Black hat SEO is completely against the guidelines provided by Google. 

The wholesome level also turns out to be comparatively low as Black hat SEO uses some of its most common techniques like link spam, hidden link, keyword stuffing, cloaking etc.

All these Black hat SEO practices is considered to illegitimate.

 The traffic that Black hat SEO somehow manages to bring to your website does not last for long and the rankings too fail in maintaining the position on the SERP’s.

Some of the tactics used by Black Hat are as follows:

• Unrelated Keywords
• Stuffing Doorway or Gateway Pages
• Duplication in the Content or Mirror Site
• Spam Blogs or Splogs
• Page Swapping known as Bait and Switch
• Trackback Spam
• Referrer Spam
• Cybersquatting or Domain Squatting
• Social Networking Spam
• Cookie Stuffing

Best strategies for to pitch an investor for your tech startup

Being a startup pitching the investors is quite a difficult task. You as a startup often find for the best ways to pitch an investor in order to get positive response from them. The below stated are some strategies to pitch the investors just the right way.

Opt for simplified things

Dont complicate your business. Keep it simple in front of the investors. Despite of presenting your business well in front of the investors many a times, it is always first time for them. Avoid posting much of the content on your site as that might distract the investors.

Turn your talks into a storytelling

Storytelling is sure to grab the attention of the listener and it makes the talk interesting for them to listen. Investors don’t find it interesting to look into the boring spreadsheets, number or valuations, they will be instead more happy if you present your business in form of a story.

Dont follow the Crowd

The pitchers must have been following many pitch deck template giving you a long list of specifications. But the actual fact is every business is different and there is no need of following a particular predetermined pattern or format. Decide your own business format, as no one else can know your business better than you.

Be specific

If investors are giving their time to you, value it well. Determine your core components that are to be presented before the investors. Be laser focused and avoid wasting time in talking what is not needed.

Explain the USPs of your product or service

Today, each one of us wants to stand out of the crowd. Even the investors look for that something new in your business. Ensure to present well the unique specifications of your product and service as that will draw the interest of the investors.

Be a step ahead

When you approach the investors presenting your business, be well prepared with the future proceedings too. They might ask you for your future plan, the marketing strategy, running out of the exact idea in that situation might not leave a good impression on the investors.

Brief the investors about your product/service and the target audience

After listening to all your long stories, the actual point of interest for the investors is your product or service. It is important to detail them on the product or service information, let them know the scope of its success in future. Make them aware with your target audience as that will help them get a better clarity on the possibilities of future success.

Present your Revenue Model Well

The next best thing that is sure to draw the attention of the investors is the business revenue model. Investors invest with a motive of earning a good return from it. They are keen on knowing their return ratio and how is their money going to benefit your start up. Inform them on your type of revenue model along with the strategy you intend to follow.

Showcase your personality well

First impression is the last one, and first impression is laid upon by the way you dress. Dress well as you are going to be judged on that basis when you newly meet the investors.

Rehearse and Revise

Practice well before you actually present yourself and your business before an investor. Be ready with an answer to all their questions. Practice your pitch well.