Looking into the phenomenal growth of mobile browsing, businesses are shifting their focus to mobile web. Their overall web strategy is gradually leaning towards mobile web. However depending upon the business the mobile strategy will vary. For example a business related to selling products like Amazon or Ebay will have a different strategy then a business offering news to the readers. Whatever be the business, the bigger question while creating mobile strategy is whether to use open standards like HTML, CSS and JavaScript to build the Mobile site or build it as a native Mobile App for the device you are targeting. To start with both Mobile Web App and Native App have their pros and cons. So before you start building the application a thorough evaluation is essential.

Difference between Web Apps and Native Apps

Before we proceed, let’s understand what exactly is the difference between the 2 types.

Native Apps are applications specifically designed to run on a particular platform. The whole application is installed in the device and can be executed. They are usually dependent on mobile firmware as well as the Operating System. So an app designed for Android will work only on Android devices and not on an iPhone. It needs to be ported or adapted to iOS to be used in iPhone. These Native Apps are mostly obtained through a marketplace.

Web Apps are applications which are usually accessed through a web browser and the whole or part of it needs to be downloaded onto the device each time you access it. These are created using open web standard like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. These are usually platform independent. These web apps are loaded automatically in the mobile web browser through the use of sophisticated detection technology when the site is accessed through mobile.

The image below depicts how US smartphone users use Mobile App and Browser for various tasks.

Source: Yahoo! and Ipsos, "Mobile Modes: How to connect with mobile consumers" - Aug 1, 2011

Pros and Cons of Web Apps & Native Apps

Both Native and Web Apps have their pros and cons. A clear understanding of the benefits and demerit of each along with your mobile web strategy will help in choosing one over the other and if requires choosing the both.

Rich User Interface:
Native Apps seamlessly integrate into the device features and provide a rich user experience. They integrate with phone in such a way that gives the feel of built-in functionality of the device. The improvement is mobile web technology is helping the Web Apps to gradually go through a phenomenal change in user interface. But the Native Apps clearly win here.

Connectivity:
Native Apps can be used to some extent even if there is no data connectivity however Web App requires connection to Internet to function. Native App is winner.

Performance:
As Web Apps require HTML and JavaScript rendering they are comparatively slower as compared to similar Native Apps. Native App is winner.

Availability:
The Native Apps are distributed through a marketplace like Android Market or iPhone Apps Store. And these are available subject to Approval. Even if an App is approved now, in future that may be rejected based upon the terms. This dependency of Native App for distribution is a hindrance for Enterprise to go for a Native App for their business application. On the other hand the web app can be accessed from any device without such restrictions. Web App is winner.

Updates:
The updates to Native Apps happen through the market place where as the web app update is instant. The moment you make any changes in the web app users will be able to see the updated features instantly. Web App is winner.

Cost of development:
The most notable advantage of mobile web app is that you build it once and it will be available to all devices irrespective of the configuration and platform with few changes. Native Apps being platform dependent, considerable amount of money has to be spent to develop same App for different platform like Android, iOS, Windows 7 and Blackberry. Web App is a winner here.

Engagement and Branding:
Because of the stronger integration with the mobile platform Native Apps provide a better engagement. Also they help in creating a stronger branding for your business as there will be a dedicated icon of your brand on the mobile device which is used to launch the Native Application. Native App is a winner here.

For further elaborate learning on this Max Katz has created a table that shows various differences in various categories between Native App and mobile Web App.

Conclusion:
Thanks to HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery framework like jQuery Mobile and Sencha Touch the gap between a Native App and Mobile Web App is gradually reducing. With few exceptions most of the native apps could be written into Web Apps and can provide almost similar experience. Another form of the App called Hybrid App is also seen now a days which is a web app placed inside a native wrapper. According to Jeff Haydn the Native App and Mobile web are not mutually exclusive and need to co-exist for some time.

Feel free to contact us at info@indusnet.co.in for our advice. We will be more than happy to help without any bias, as we have both capabilities and only suggest the right fit to our clients. You can also visit our mobile section at http://www.indusnet.co.in/mobile/

Do you want your site to rank in the first page of top search engines and lure the best traffic in the online domain? Well, a competent Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) process can increase the chance of your site to achieve the top ranking.

In simple terms, SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a process which improves the visibility of a site in various search engines through organic and paid search results. It is a major part of Internet Marketing and targets various searches related to image, video, audio or local searches. There are number of steps involved like site analysis, strategy framing, its implementation, result tracking and measurement. Optimization can be onsite as well as offsite. Onsite optimization includes the content editing with respect to the targeted keywords whereas the offsite involves link building and submission of the site to various directories of different search engines. The entire process can be overwhelming at times! To make life simpler, SEO activities can also be outsourced to a competent agency.

Keeping and maintaining track of the results is a bit time consuming and lengthy, but is necessary for framing the right strategies and sustaining your site rankings on a continuous phase. This measurement of the result is done through various tools such as Google analytics, Woorank tool or SiteReportCard tools. Lots of onsite, offsite and domain related parameters can be judged through them. Hence it takes lot of time for organizing such results. There are a number of SEO software tools that are available online and you have to make use of them accordingly. Some of the widely used tools are

• Ranking Checker
• Fiddler Web Debugging Tool
• SEO Analyzer
• SEO for Firefox
• XENU’s Link Sleuth,
• Keyword Density Tool
• Prominence Tool
• Google Ad-words tool

Starting from site monitoring, competitor analysis, keyword research, finding link partners to offering handy SEO advice, you can get an array of features from these SEO tools. In addition, these tools also help in deciphering the most popular pages that are being searched and visited, the Text to HTML ratio, the image detail, site w3c validation, site compliance to different browsers and many more. Certain off-site analysis of the back links can also be analysed, along with the site load time.

Based on your requirement, you have to make use of the features and benefits of the SEO software tools. The above mentioned tools can only serve a specific purpose at one time. Whereas if you are looking for a multi-dimensional tool that brings most of the things together and help you correlate things better, you need an integrated SEO software. We highly recommend AnalyticsSEO for this purpose.

Once you are able to get through, there will be no looking back. Your chances of getting the best traffic and excellent ranking will be enhanced. Let us know how did you get along!

Indus Net Technologies has always taken pride in working with companies through their struggle till they succeed (and of course after that).

Today, when I picked up the newspaper, I was thrilled to see that media has discovered another poster-boy of the Kolkata dotcom industry, for whom we have worked very closely for over one year. I am talking about Induna.com, a venture headed by Aadarsh Agarwal and his brother Siddhant Agarwal.

Read the full story here:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081222/jsp/calcutta/story_10265245.jsp

Indus Net Technologies is proud to be closely associated with the project as the technology provider. We have worked with Aadarsh through the blueprint of the website, leading to design and development of the website. Our relationship does not end here. We also do on-going maintenance and updates for the website to keep them at the cutting edge.

On a personal front, Aadarsh is a good friend, with whom I share several intense discussion on business philosophy, strategy and ideology. The interesting part of the story is that he knew he will be successful. His confidence is contagious. He has very strong work ethics and he is never shy from helping another person!
Things to learn from Aadarsh and Siddhant:

• Be persistent.
• Give your best shot.
• Never compromise on customer experience.

I think Aadarsh has excellent thought leadership about online retailing and I am expecting him to start his own blog soon. Aadarsh – do you hear me?

There are hundreds of companies who are copying us – our business model, our web site design, our style of doing business, etc. Though we do not like it, we consider it as a form of appreciation and ignore most of the times.

However this one stumps everyone else! This hilarious copyright infringement was done by a “reputed” Kolkata based company. They went to the limit of copying our D&B number which is a unique number assigned to a company by Duns & Bradstreet.

The DUNS number 91-848-3439 belongs to Indus Net Technologies and it can be independently verified with D&B (which of course is a reputed agency).

While copying (or let us say ripping off) our website, they even copied our DUNS number and are openly publishing it on their website. The funniest part is that they continue to do this even after getting a legal notice! I salute their arrogance. I hope they do not pass on the blame to their designer. They have given full support to this illegal activity by ignoring the legal notices sent to them. So I  wish that the ignorant designer is not fired who did what he was asked to do – i.e. to copy our website content and use.

Best of luck to them! This won’t help in growing the company for long.

 

Yahoo announced that they are opening up their search results for third party data integration. This will allow third party to contribute to Yahoo search experience and make it more useful for their users. It will be interesting to see how other webmasters use this open search platform to gain popularity by sharing data with Yahoo, while still retaining their competitive edge, by virtue of their database, in their respective area. We can expect to experience a long-tail of innovation in days to come. This will help webmasters, visitors and Yahoo! A perfect win-win-win situation.

On the other hand, Google already have a open platform called Google Co-op, where anyone can create custom search engine. As per Google Co-op,

“Google Co-op is a platform that enables you to customize the web search experience for users of both Google and your own website.”

Google also offer Google Subscribed Links which in their own language they define as:

“Subscribed Links let you create custom search results that users can add to their Google search pages. You can display links to your services for your customers, provide news and status information updated in near-real-time, answer questions, calculate useful quantities, and more”

The challenge

However, both the services that Google offers, has a great deal of focus on promoting Google, Google Search & Google Subscribed Links. Again, they are not directly making any change in the Google Search (at least it has not be publicly explained how it will effect user experience of a normal search).

Therefore, Google Search or Yahoo Search cannot be termed as true “user contributed” or “Web2.0″ as described by Tom O’Reilly. People won’t contribute unless they see that their contribution is making a positive impact in the search pattern and it is visible. In the current state both Subscribed Link and Yahoo Open Search will only help if a user wants to use the enhanced engine. Most Internet users will never switch these engines. Even if they are told the benefit of the plug-ins, how are they supposed to select the ones which will help them from a collection of thousands of user contributed plug-in channels? And what happens when new plug-ins come out?

Suggested solution

If search engines want to go the Web2.0 way with user contribution enhancing the overall experience and defining the way search engines display results, they need to bring user contributions to the mainstream. I feel that themed searches are the way to go. Google / Yahoo shall classify a particular user contributed plug-in into a theme. When a visitor wants to search for a business, he may choose a “Finding a business” theme. On a contrary when a visitor wants to learn about the subject he may chose the “Tutorial” theme.

Let us see an example.

We search for a very competitive keyword – “web design”. This is the result we get.

If you see, there are three different intents that the search result satisfies. A person might be searching “web design” because he:

• Want to find a web design company (blue marker)
• Want to learn web design (red marker)
• Get web design resources (green marker)

All three intents are very different. Most people do not type-in their intent in the search box to make it a specific search, because they are not specialists in using search engines. Therefore, a search engine should suggest a possible intent and display results only related to the given theme. The theme model can best work when they are formed based on a collection of user generated plug-ins. Thus user generated content can find its way to the end user in an organized way.

It goes without saying that pulling in the user generated content directly into the main search result has its challenge of weeding out spam. But this seems to be the most logical way as of now. 

 

Few months back, one of our ventures Design2Please.com had been covered by ArtzMania.com, a popular e-magazine amongst designers and design lovers across the globe. We are honored that ArtzMania has featured our portfolio in their e-mag. Thank you! It can be downloaded here (Magz issue > Issue 6, 34MB, .exe)>>

Notes:
Design2Please.com is the affordable web design services venture of Indus Net Technologies. A team of 90+ full-time web designers are working for this venture and  serving more than 1500+ clients spread over 35+ countries. We are serving in 2 modes: fixed cost web design packages and full-time or part-time dedicated hiring.

One of our ventures, Hire-a-Designer.com, recently got covered by CSSMania.com. CSS Mania is a very popular website which lists great website designs. We are thankful to CSS Mania guys for considering our website and featuring it on their site. You can see it listed here >>

Notes:
Hire-a-Designer.com allows you to hire designers on full-time, part-time or hourly basis. This model is can save you atleast 22.5% of cost against any fixed price quotes calculated even at $12/hr.

Unlike the freelancing project portals, we are accountable for the results and ensure that only qualified designers work for you. The designers that you hire will be our full-time employees and they will work exclusively on your assignments for the duration of the contract.

Proper project management is key to a successful project. To manage multiple projects and teams which are geographically spread across the globe, you need a quality project management tool.

As a web development company, we looked around for some quality software which serves the purpose and does not burn a hole in the pocket. Here is our pick!

Basecamp HQ:- A nice, minimalist simple to use software true to the philosophy of 37signals, the company which built it. This software is only available in a SaS (software as service) model. IMO this software best suits small projects which are communication centric. It lacks version control, task management, project tracking along with cost-benefit analysis.

Overall, very easy to easy and adapt, but reporting is not up to the mark. If you are a small business and you do most of your project management yourself, this can be a good choice for you.

Intervals:- It seems to have picked up the baton where Basecamp HQ has left. It also works on a SaS (software as service) model. It has more features (specially in terms of reporting and role management) than Basecamp HQ, thus making it suitable to manage complex projects across a large organization.

Overall, it is a good attempt to overcome the shortcomings of Basecamp HQ. However it needs to improve on its usability. It also needs to provide staged progression in terms of features and complexity so that small businesses can adapt the system. I am sure that this software will become popular as they keep improving and become old. For a SaS model company, time-tested reliability is more important than anything else.

Ace Project:- A comprehensive project management software with user friendly interface and short learning curve. It has different licensing policies and therefore you can rent or buy off (with our without source code) the software to suit your organizational needs. This software is around for quite some time and therefore seems to be reliable.

It has decent reporting capabilities, but not as good as what Intervals claim to have!

Dot Project:- The best free open source project management software that I have come across. This software looks flexible and extendable. You can plug in various modules, including Mantis (for bug tracking). The usability and reporting leaves much to be desired. So if you are looking at free project management software with access to source code, Dot Project is a good choice.

Conclusion:

There is nothing called a perfect project management software. The usage, the users and the desired result determines the one which suits best for a given organization. So take your pick from the above mentioned toolset.

 

Apart from doing software / web development on Open-source platform, Indus Net Technologies also customize and implement open-source products for clients on demand. Some popular (and free) open-source products are SugarCRM, Drupal, osCommerce for CRM, content management and e-commerce respectively.

IMHO, these are some limitations that I have observed. It is important to know them before initiating a project. These are not very serious in nature and using free open-source products remains a good option for many small and medium sized enterprises around the world.

1. Like any product, it is very important to align the product with your workflow and/or requirements. You must fit the product into the organization by making necessary changes. Therefore a gap analysis should be done and the effort must be estimated for aligning the product as per the current work-flow and/or requirements.

2. Most free open-source products lacks in usability. Therefore if you are doing a major implementation which will be used by thousands of people and you are going to pay for their time, you must consider a major overhaul of interface by involving a usability consultant from your vendor. Otherwise you will end up spending a lot of money.

3. Most free open-source products have very poor reporting system. These reports are not good enough to run a business as they fail to provide any insight into the business function that you are tracking. They should be re-done as per your company requirement aligned with your key measurement matrix for the given business function.

4. The programmers who can change the software as per your needs are the code-hackers types, who love to dive into an existing system architecture and make small changes to achieve the desired results. Therefore you must identify and hook up with the right programmer / programming company (like Indus Net Technologies – a bit of shameless self promotion) to get it right.

5. It is a myth, that implementing open-source software is free. Software code is free, not the hard work of programmers and analysts which goes behind implementing it. And you need the later to successfully implement it in your scenario and reap the benefits of the solution. Yes, it considerably reduces the cost, improves reliability and gives you a head start from where you can take informed decision about your IT needs.

Do not get me wrong. I am only listing the limitations. The benefits are well-known and they out-live the limitations any day. However it is very important that these limitations are known before proceeding.

Feel free to discuss / debate!

 

Adobe has revamped the Photoshop logo with a new tagline (“See What’s Possible”) to match the feel of the software. It will be released soon with their new product set. It’s nice, bit web 2.0ish, but not sure how they will manage it in b/w!

Adobe press announcement says:
“To represent this rich family of products, Adobe is introducing the Photoshop visual logo. This logo will soon appear in all Photoshop-related marketing, so keep an eye out for it. The Photoshop logo on a product, service, or technology, represents the rich legacy, technical quality, and attention to detail that has made Photoshop the gold standard in digital imaging.”