Anything thing good can always be better. So goes one of the generally accepted truisms of life. This especially applies in ecommerce. Sure, you have a swath of loyal customers, but your sales rate could still be higher. Maybe adjusting your design or brand identity wlil help you get there, but how can you be sure? A/B testing, also known as split testing, compares two versions of a single webpage to determine which performs better or leads to more conversions. Below are a few places where A/B testing can be used to strengthen your brand messaging and improve your sales. Testing Ease of NavigationOne of the first things you’ll want to do is test the navigation on your site. Do your current placements encourage or prevent consumers from searching for their favorite items, clicking your ‘About Us’ page, or examining your top products? Putting the navigation bar into an A/B test will let you know if your buttons are effective at keeping traffic on your site, or frustrating and driving customers to your competitors. Evaluating Your Website and its ThemeSometimes you want to overhaul your brand identity, or your theme or, well, your entire ecommerce site. This is risky, as it could either alienate your most dedicated customers or inject your e-store with some much needed energy. Ecommerce website theme providers, like Shopify, make it easy to swap and customize layouts. Couple this with the fact that Shopify offers a number of split-testing add-ons, and you’ve got yourself a way to experiment without a lot of time spent coding and troubleshooting. Choose Your Words WiselyIt’s also important to test your copy. For example, if your product description reads: “made in America, 100 percent cotton, image front and back” you might want to get creative. Try using language that demonstrates your brand identity and value: “designed & engineered in America, 100 percent premium cotton, high definition artwork on front and back, perfect for a summer barbecue by the pool or a late-night dance party.” Testing ImagesA picture is worth a thousand words, but is it telling customers the right story? Try experimenting with your images to see what results in better conversions. Sure, you have attractive models for your alternative clothing brand, but you are uncertain if these images are performing better than photos of mannequins would—which are much cheaper to produce. While there are dozens of online guides on the subject, each ecommerce store is different and the only way you can be certain is with A/B testing. Evaluating Accent ColorsSometimes the little things make the biggest differences. Look at your front page. Does it have a ‘call to action’ such as blue “Flash Sale” or “Subscribe” button? What if you changed the accent color to something more eye-catching like red or yellow? A/B testing would quickly determine whether these changes are beneficial. Tracking Promotional SuccessSplit testing can also be useful for determining the strength of various offers and deals. Begin by creating a single promotion and wording it in two radically different ways. Then place the promo on your homepage in two different places. After a set period of time, compare the two variants to see if one resulted in more conversions. That way you’ll know for next time, too! Tweaking Your Checkout PageLast, but certainly not least, is your checkout page. This one is tricky because you want to keep your branding, but you also want to provide a clear path to checkout so as not to distract shoppers during those last crucial moments. Why not create one branded version and one plain version to settle the matter once and for all? Developing a theme or brand for your ecommerce business should be treated as an ongoing process to help you keep pace with society’s changing tastes. The good news is that with A/B testing, you can continuously experiment with your ecommerce store for the best results possible. The post How A/B Testing Can Help You Strengthen Brand Messaging appeared first on Design your way. from http://www.designyourway.net/blog/misc/ab-testing-can-help-strengthen-brand-messaging/
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You could have the best or the worst design idea, but you’ve no way of knowing which until you see it in action. That’s where prototyping is a big help. Prototyping helps bridge the gap between your design concept and the ready-to-go product. Prototyping shows you early on what works and what doesn’t. It gives you the ability to explore options and iterations that can speed up the design process. Also, it provides you with an opportunity to deliver the best possible product. There’s no shortage of prototyping tools, and picking the right one can be a gamble. Limit your choice to one that supports rapid iterations, and does so with ease, and you’ll be fine. 3 of the best: Proto.ioProto.io is the perfect prototyping tool for designers, entrepreneurs, developers, and product managers. Whether you want to create a low-fidelity prototype, wireframe, or mockup to illustrate a design concept and solicit feedback, or build a high-fidelity prototype of a web or mobile app that looks and feels like the real thing makes no difference as far as this useful tool is concerned. It’s easy to use, and requires no coding or design skills; so you can get started building a prototype right out of the box. You’ll quickly discover how easy it is to build animated, interactive prototypes for user testing and design signoff prior to product development. Proto.io allows you to conduct design, prototyping, previewing, testing, and collaborating from a single platform. The new latest version, Proto.io 6, has a number of nice features, including an intuitive, easier to use interface, single-click sharing to share your prototypes with key stakeholders, new state transitions, and new apps for iOS and Android for viewing your prototypes on the intended device, as well as on your web browser. Design Systems by UXPinUXPin is more than a prototyping tool – it’s a full-stack UX design platform. You can prototype, create a design system, and generate documentation in one place. It’s the only product we’ve seen that isn’t just useful for prototyping, but handles the entire design process. Useful features include: 1. Design systems + automatic documentation Create a design system with Sketch or UXPin assets. You can set Symbols that auto-update everywhere. Add documentation to design systems elements (like code snippets). When you update the documentation, the changes sync across projects. 2. Developer handoffs Auto-generate specs, CSS code, and style guides for designs in UXPin or from Sketch. 3.Powerful prototyping + integration with Sketch/Photoshop Includes thousands of built-in elements, built-in interactions, custom interactions, and custom animations. 4. Design collaboration You can co-design in the same file in real-time and assign feedback to people. Fluid UIFluid UI is a wireframing, mockup, and prototyping tool well suited for a wide range of users including designers, product managers and entrepreneurs. Features include built-in component libraries for wireframing, material design, web, and iOS. You can also upload existing designs. Testing on mobile is facilitated by using their dedicated Android and iOS apps. Communication and collaboration is one of Fluid UI’s biggest strengths. Use integrated video hangouts and collaboration to share information with product owners, fellow designers and developers without ever having to leave the tool. Fluid UI offers a “free forever” plan for a single project up to 10 pages in size. Solo and Pro plans allow 5 or 10 projects, respectively; unlimited pages and uploads, and access to all libraries. The Team plan can be used for an unlimited number of projects and live team collaboration. Users include Dell, eBay, MasterCard, Oracle, Samsung, Symantec, and Google. Why Prototyping is so ImportantYou may be tempted to dive into a project and start creating your design. However, it’s always prudent to periodically test your ideas from the beginning of the process to the end. You need to ensure you’ll accomplish your design goals. Prototyping helps ensure you’ll deliver a product design that looks good. At the same time, it will admirably serve its purpose. Prototyping gives you greater insight as to how your design is progressing. It also provides you with heads up should your design approach, or the design itself, need to be modified. 1. Define, refine, and evolve. Prototyping can sometimes appear to be a tedious process. But it’s invariably an immensely beneficial one. It involves building a progression of prototypes. You can work your way through your design’s requirements at the same time. Rapid prototyping is an excellent vehicle for speeding up the design process. It also is a great way to ensure the final iteration closely resembles the intended product. 2. See what works, and what doesn’t Brilliant ideas sometimes fall flat when attempting to translated them into effective designs. Prototyping provides an excellent way to uncover those “fatal flaws” that can set a project back to ground zero, and can also assist in finding a remedy. These flaws typically become visible during low-fi prototyping. 3. Identify problems that would have been missed. Not all problems fall in the fatal flaw category. Some issues go undetected until it’s time for the development team to take over. Other come up after a product goes into production. These can be costly to troubleshoot and fix. 4. Collaborate and communicate Prototyping speeds up the design process and condenses it as well. Therefore, it prevents the need for excessive communication and consultation. Since changes can be made on the fly, you’ll avoid the delays inherent in phone tag or communicating via email. ConclusionPrototyping is more than a design aide – it often speeds up the design process. However, its value lies in the ease in which design errors or irregularities can be caught early on. Rapid prototyping works best when combined with real-time collaboration. It eliminates the need for excessive communicating to get feedback or resolve issues. The 3 tools presented here are extremely user-friendly. Each will enable you to progress quickly from design concept buy-in. It leads you straight to user testing and design buy-off. The post Best Prototyping Tools and Resources for Designers in 2017 appeared first on Design your way. from http://www.designyourway.net/blog/resources/best-prototyping-tools-resources-designers-2017/ How do you pick one of the many CDN providers that are available? It isn’t easy and that’s for sure. Check out this article that provides CDN solutions and tips on choosing one. CDN, meaning content delivery network, is the common name for proxy-servers and data centres distributed on different geographical locations, and used to make service highly accessible and functional for all end users. Much of the content available on the Internet nowadays is distributed with via content delivery networks, including a variety of downloadable objects (software, documents, media), web objects (text, graphics, and scripts), applications (web portals, e-commerce services), on-demand and live streaming media, and, of course, social networks. What is a CDN provider?The CDN term brings under the same roof all types of content delivery, including software downloads, streaming, web/mobile loading acceleration, transparent caching, performance measuring services, load balancing, licensed CDN, multi CDN switching, cloud intelligence, and many more. Certain CDN vendors also offer services beyond their industries, among which data security and WAN optimization. Who should use CDN services? Popular CDN providers target mostly online portals, brokers, retailers, banks, and similar businesses. In fact, CDN servers make sense for every webmaster trying to enhance online performance nowadays, as the pricing plans are very flexible, and there are even free services to consider. What matters the most when trying to make content visible is location. The common problem is having all content located in a single place, as this also means lowering the quality of the experience of users located further from the server. Let us give you an example: When a website has all of its content located on a New York server, it will take much longer for China users to load a page than it would for ones located in Philadelphia. There is nothing strange about it – the law of physics takes its tool, and content simply takes time to arrive to the desired destination. CDN architectures are usually very diverse, but there are few core components present in each of them:
How do CDN providers work? The nodes will be deployed on several different locations (commonly over different backbones), and will allow you to improve the loading time of your pages, and cat bandwidth costs in half. They will also make your content globally available, depending on the CDN’s architecture and number/type of available servers. Certain CDNs come with a very large number of nodes and servers, as well as thousands of remote presence pints (PoPs). What type of content can you distribute with a CDN? Let’s check:
The size of each content piece is different. Therefore, it is very difficult to estimate for how long it would travel starting from the point of origin and moving to the end user. This period if officially known as latency (the faster web content loads, the lower the latency will be), and it is measured in milliseconds. The challenge of optimizing latency is becoming bigger every day, with more and more content being invoked from mobile devices. Here, the latency factor is even more important, and should be worked upon with an aggressive, and very advanced optimization strategy. Google and Yahoo have prepared a number of useful studies that confirm latency being a leading success factors, as websites lose as much as 10% of their conversions for each additional second of loading times. This is why all leading websites use CDN services, and deliver content in a very optimal fashion. Here are some well-reputed CDN providers you should consider: CloudFlareCloudFlare is an excellent alternative for those looking to accelerate and protect their sites. It is a part of a large productivity community, and owns a global network where it routes your web traffic. A distinctive advantage is that you have all particular pages optimized for fast loading and excellent performance, with all abusive crawlers, bots, and similar threats being kept out of the way. CloudFare is not challenging to install or maintain, and also comes with an analytics suite to help you understand how your business is progressing. Its functionality is expandable, and you can always contact the vendor for interesting apps and additions. BelugaCDNBelugaCDN has been on the market for only two years, but it gained extreme popularity for offering pay-as-you-go services. Their POPs are distributed on 5 continents, and they posses one of the most robust IPv4+IPv6 networks. AccelaAccela is a CDN provider currently powering millions of transactions of public providers and agencies worldwide. It is best known for helping governments establish a connection with citizens, and shorten a number of complex administrative procedures related to asset management, public health and safety, licensing, land management, and more. The CDN is also one of the pioneer networks in the niche, with years of experience in powering civic excellence. Akamai TechnologiesAkamai Technologies is certainly a name that rings a bell, namely a popular and very adaptive CDN solution that meets the needs of any business. They will also cater to varying internet condition, and provide your customers with unparalleled performance, online experience, and security. Amazon Web ServicesAmazon CloudFront is another popular content delivery service, tightly integrated with the rest of Amazon’s productivity batch to ensure a seamless transition of content. It targets both business owners and developers, helping them distribute content at the best latency rates, and putting in place and admirable data transfer tempo with no long-term commitments. Bit GravityBitGravity is one world’s largest and best known content delivery networks, and a tool fully optimized for HD live streaming and delivery of on-demand video content. It was founded 11 years ago, and has been broadening its capabilities day-by-day to become easily applicable in different organizations around the world. Satisfied customers share that the network helps them serve top performing video content, organize reliable streaming events, and broadcast content 24/7 in high definition. CacheFlyCacheFly is another CDN provider known to deliver ultra reliable and high performing content, and one that has been on the market for more than 10 years. It was this company that first introduced TCP Anycast (2002), and transformed it into a do-it-all CDN service. At the moment, it operates in more than 80 countries, serving an average number of 2,000 customers that love its reliability and scalability. IncapsulaBeing one of the top application-aware CDNs on the market, Incapsula uses advanced networking, content optimization, and dynamic caching to boost the performance of your website. It also makes use of various advanced security techniques (monitoring notifications, for instance), and protects your content from DDos attacks, misbalances, and failovers. Incapsula also accelerates outgoing traffic, and makes performance at least 50% faster consuming at the same 60% less bandwidth than the usual. You will devote only few minutes to install it, as you’re not supposed to change your hosting provider in order to use it. There are no long-term commitments, and you can turn off the CDN any time you want. EdgecastEdgecast is touted as a really global CDN built to optimize, secure, and accelerate website performance. Throughout the years, it proved in many occasions that it is capable to handle sudden traffic spikes, and accelerate the performance of popular web tools which often face security threats. It will serve both for static and dynamic content coming from optimal locations, and deliver it faster than you could possibly expect. The tool also incorporates a smart analytics suite, which keeps you updated on the server’s performance, collects user demographics data, and measures bandwidth utilization. Therefore, Edgecast and its Flash, HTTP, and Silverlight streaming capabilities are your safest bet for delivering rich media content on demand. CDN77CDN77.com focuses on customers, providing them with the flexibility and transparency they need without long-term financial commitments. It is present at 30 different locations worldwide, and specializes in consistent, quick, authorized, and latest technology delivery for all devices. There is a free 14-days trial for readers interested to test their services. QUANTILQUANTIL was established in 2012, and focuses on live stream delivery ever since. It supports L-HLS, RTMP, HTTP FLV, and HTTP TS. Using it, you will also benefit from a fully-featured IPv4 and IPv6 network (a joint POPs network) that functions in over 34 countries worldwide (mainland China included). LimelightLimelight (NASDAQ: LLNW) has a 15-years tradition of notable market performance. The huge, super-capable CDN network also has many POPs distributed on different continents, and distributes live and on-demand content and web acceleration services. StackPathStackPath, on the other hand, was established only in 2016, built on the basis of MaxCDN’s platform. Experts estimated as a very promising, high-performance global provider that prides itself with top notch security (an integrated app firewall). At the same, StackPath streamlines delivery and keeps things simple, affordable, and very transparent. They belong to the category of providers whose support is available 24/7/365, and they also make sure that each user receives fully documented API info. FastlyFastly has been active since 2011, but grew to be one of the most mature and popular CDN providers. They offer an array of different services, among which private CDN and streaming media delivery. What you will like the most about it is it being a ‘real time CDN’, which means that the platform can deliver instantly even uncacheable content. Level 3Level 3 is the owner and main operator of Tier 1; with its own POPs distributed everywhere in the world. The CDN focuses on delivering videos and similar large objects, and belongs to Google’s Cloud Interconnect network. LeasewebLeaseweb joins the list of established, enterprise-grade CDNs with years of experience and excellent performance. Before they launched a dedicated CDN network, Leaseweb’s experts delivered exclusively hosting services. Nowadays, they claim to have the most affordable prices among all of their competitors. ChinaCacheChinaCache, or as it is publicly traded NASDAQ (CCIH), was founded some time in 1998, which means it is officially the first CDN in this country, and one of the most experienced and knowledgeable provider to work with. Despite of being predominantly focused on the Chinese market, ChinaCache serves many multinational clients, and learns from them in order to improve the service is provides. SwarmifySwarmify is best known for reducing websites’ bandwidth, loading assets in an efficient manner, and being compatible with virtually any hosting solution or CD network. It will give you an unlimited number of POPs, as well as hyper-local connectivity. You will also like its unique Hive Cache technology, which notifies you whenever a new visitor lands on your website, and signals the rest of the swarm whenever an asset is being moved or it expires. In such way, it automates cache expiration, and puts in place predictive loading to detect the most popular images for your visitors to preload them in the background. It also pays a lot of attention to security, and encrypts all of your communication. Google App EngineGoogle App Engine provides you with the unique possibility to build and run your apps within Google’s infrastructure, which means that sudden changes in your traffic rates or data storage will require minimal adjustments instead of tedious work. There will be no servers involved – all you need to do is to upload our app, and you’re ready to go. Google App Engine puts in place smart load balancing and automated scaling, and offers persistent sorting, storage, and transitioning of asynchronous task queries to make content work outside of the scope of users’ particular requests. At the same time, you will have the peace of mind that all your applications are running in a safe and reliable environment, and that growing data loads won’t affect their performance. Google App Engine integrates tightly with similar cloud services, and offers open API to let you connect it to any third-party system. jsDelivrjsDelivr is best known as a free and open-source CDN solution that allows virtually anyone to host and distribute fonts, CSS, jQuery, and JavaScript files. It is sponsored directly by CloudFlare and MaxCDN, and it combines the best of both platforms. You can use it to balance traffic loads based on how users are performing (the feature is called Cedexis), and improve uptime with even two fully-operational CDN instances. This means that even in case one CDN provider goes down, traffic will be transferred to the other, and no conversions will be lost. Another handy advantage is that jsDelivr hosts all files on NetDNA servers’ push zones, which means you need a whitelisted IP address to access them. At the moment, it operates on more than 42 POP locations around the world, all ready to handle unlimited HTTPS access and traffic, and protected in line with DDoS standards. CDNvideoCDNvideo was first introduced in April 2010, to become one of the leading CDN service for CIS and Russia. It is particularly well-known for its knowledgeable, 24/7 customer support. MaxCDNMaxCDN works with a number of SSD-loaded servers that are fully optimized for speed, and enable you to work with your own rules, and determine how content is about to be distributed. The company owns servers at multiple locations in the world (90 countries total), and thus has an admirable peer capacity to handle heavy content loads. An interesting possibility it provides is to lock content down using any of their secure tokens, or apply their REST APIs to connect the network to your resources and applications. You can always purchase an extra plugin to make the platform work with a particular CMS (Drupal, WordPress, Magento, etc.), and you will have all of your content secured with built-in SSLs. MaxCDN is also popular by its best-path routing which keeps the speed and performance rates of your site consistent under all conditions. CDNsunEver since 2012, CDNsun has been assisting businesses to accelerate their online performance and please their customers. The core mission of this service is to make CDN available even to on-budget users, providing at the same time enterprise-grade reliability. It will offer latency acceleration, fast software/game delivery, and on-demand and live video streaming. Tata CommunicationsTata Communications is a global, fully-featured CDN suite acquired by BitGravity in 2012. The service uses Tata’s worldwide infrastructure (i.e. the infrastructure of the largest and best known Tier 1 network so far) to peer relationships and enhance performance. You should also consider the service because of its flexible pricing scheme. Best CDN services for streaming contentVideo streaming is among today’s most popular web trends, and one that is nowhere close to disappearing from users’ preferences. People enjoy more and more consuming content this way, and stay alert for all new trends and technologies. CDN services also help distribute video content, be those general-purpose one that include streaming as an on-demand module, or such entirely devoted to it. Video content is usually perceived as the largest and most cumbersome type to distribute and download, which requires these CDNs to be special in a certain way. Akamai, for instance, is a popular KMC-empowered CDN used to broadcast live streams. It comes with preinstalled encoding software (FMLE, for instance), that will encode your camera’s signal in real time, and send it through using secure RTMP connections. Next, you can use your Kaltura Player to enable the real-time broadcast on your website. The settings and metadata of your live stream are managed in the same way you manage regular VOD content, and you can access them in the KMC. With a CDN in place, you will ensure impeccable experience for all viewers, regardless of where in the world they might be located. Some experts argue that live video delivery may be slowly disappearing from the scene (to the benefit of HTTP streaming and ABR services), as it cannot be cached in the same way as previously recorder content. The favourable option in the case would be progressive downloading, unlike cases where you must download complete clips directly to your server. This may still work for games, large desktop apps, or movies (there, users accept downloading times by default), but won’t be that tolerant for content that doesn’t ‘weigh’ more than 1 GB. Progressive download broke out of its almost full anonymity with the development and expansion of YouTube. What happens while watching a YouTube video is that you’re actually waiting for the CDN to launch a progressive download, but are able to watch the file after only 3-5 seconds. YouTube does this assuming that it can rely on your internet connection and available space to download the whole piece of video content, and has few additional mechanisms at stake for those that won’t be able to meet these conditions. For instance, with a connection that outpaces standard-definition bitrates, the clip will be fully downloaded before they’re halfway through watching it. The biggest achievement of streaming technology is without doubt HTML streaming, a method tightly associated to ABR delivery and encoding. For the purpose, this type of streaming makes use of entirely generic HTTP servers (commonly Windows or Apache ones) in order to play on-demand videos the same way it displays the rest of the content (text and image files). The role of the CDN here is to add adaptive bitrates, and to fragment the stream into separate chunks (2 to 10 seconds each). Consequently, there will be several discrete streams for different bitrates, and the user’s video player will capture and use feedback automatically. On the provider’s behalf, this means detecting the optimal network speed, and delivering video content instantly. Streaming servers, on the other hand, will provide the content as soon as it is requested, but will only provide the bits that were demanded by the user. This may sound as a reasonable option for a content owner who prefers paying CDN services per bit, as he won’t be expected to cover the entire download for users who’ve abandoned watching halfway (without considering the speed of their internet connection). Another trend that is gaining momentum is 4K Ultra HD, a whole new resolution format that is improving month by month. Its impact is huge, given that it is currently remaking the entire perception of how the visual media industry should operate, and paying a lot of attention to what customers need and expect. The core of this format is high resolution and great quality for content owners who’d like to see their ultra HD pieces broadcasted worldwide. 2015 noted the first 4K screen display mobile phones, and it is already hard to imagine a device that is unable to render ultra HD video in a native resolution (3840 x 2160 pixels). For 4K streaming technology to proliferate even more, work should be done with high-speed Internet connectivity. 4K streams load massive chunks of data, and content broadcasters must be ready to adopt those. This is why 4K service providers are also contributing to faster connectivity, and looking to ensure at least 25Mbps of internet speed for every household (this is the bare minimum needed to enable HD video streaming). Aware of the work that has already been done to make Internet happen; we don’t have the slightest doubt that this will soon be a fact. CDN services for developing and emerging marketsMarkets worldwide that pride themselves with certain characteristics of developed markets, but still don’t meet all standards to be qualified as one, are those we call emerging markets. The category also considers markets expected to improve in the future, or such where development was slowed down for a specific reason. Markets that are slightly slower in their development can be qualified as ‘frontier economies’, including China, Brazil, and the leader India. Back in 2008, India’s e-commerce market was estimated at $2.5b billion, but noted significant increase during 2011 ($6.3 billion) and 2012 ($14 billion). 75% of this amount can be ascribed to travel related service providers (flight and railway tickets, rental booking, web mobile recharging, and more). Online retail services account for approximately 12.5%, on a market with more than 10 million online buyers and a growing internet usage base. In June 2014, the internet users’ base was estimated to 250.2 million buyers, which revealed a whole new world of mobile e-commerce opportunities. The total number of transactions conducted via mobile devices for a single digit one just few years ago, while nowadays, companies are reporting even 50% of their profits coming from mobile transactions. Basically, 50% of all 260 million internet users in India prefer accessing content from mobile devices, and more than 14% of them pay only in this way. With more and more users in rural India getting grasp of the Internet world, this number is only expected to grow in future. Let’s give a look to the Brazilian CDN market: The estimated growth by 2019 is even $192.4 million, at a 13.9% CAGR for the entire forecasting period. The reason for such expansion is the enhanced use of Internet-empowered devices, including foremost smart phones and tablets. Internet consumption is also growing continuously, and the need for a more effective CDN solution has simply imposed itself. China does not only have the largest population in the world, but can also flatter with the biggest number of active internet users (550 million overall, or 1 of every 5 active users in the world). For China, this means that nearly 50% of all its inhabitants are using the internet, and that this percentage is only continuing to grow with mobile browsing taking over it. Leading CDNs are seriously challenged to deliver content to China, not only because of the number of users, but also because of the unique requirements and legislation of the country. For a content owner who wishes to make his services available to Chinese users, CDN may as well be the only way to accelerate delivery, and ensuring that the website is fully responsive. As expensive as CDNs happen to be for such cause, the presence of a good one breaks even easier than investing in modifications to one’s own local. Why do we believe that China has a huge potential to grow its online revenue? These are the 5 main reasons:
Our next station is the Middle East and Africa, where content delivery network markets are also expected to reach incredible heights (an estimated $0.45 billion by 2019, at a CAGR of 15.6% for the entire forecasting period). The same as in China, these markets can boast with a growing number of smartphone users and Internet shoppers, which is why the countries embrace CDN technology to help them grow. CDNs also make service delivery more proficient, as long as they respond to the limitations in quality delivery imposed by the regions’ legislature. Put into perspective, all these numbers show us that CDN markets are growing, and reveal the great potential of economies and markets we describe as ‘emerging’. Thanks to CDNs, web content and data can be provided from various servers at a time, and this works just ideally for countries where the IT infrastructure is not exactly the best one. CDNs also help serve users in a timely and proficient manner. CDN and DNSIn case you don’t know what such pairing can do for you, it is time to learn. When associate with a CDN service, managed DNS solutions achieve top performance, flexibility, and reliability. DNSs (or domain name systems) are hierarchy networks and naming methodologies for Internet resources (public and private ones). They gather and organize the data coming from several domain names, and assign it to different participating entities – thanks to them, all complex computer hostnames are translated to human-friendly IP addresses, and can be modified easily and quickly. DNSs maintain your connections with customersA DNS is the beginning of each user’s interaction with your website, and must function impeccably to ensure he/she can access your content. This means that you must manage your DNS solution to reduce the possibility of a complete network outage. You will be expected to choose between professional DNS and CDN providers or the so-called ‘indie’ ones, in which case we recommend the later (in this scenario, you lose less when a combined network goes down). A good reason to consider a combined DNS/CDN solution, on the other hand, is that it will provide the best possible website performance and content delivery, and make sure users enjoy their browsing experience. Such combinations also make governance easier for you, as you have the flexibility needed to update the site. Here is what DNS/CDN combos can do for you:
As we discussed previously, the DNS query is each user’s official encounter with a website, which means that upon his arrival on the landing page, tenths of different DNS queries are triggered to locate a good source for each piece of content. If the DNS is poorly managed, loading times will be very slow (29% of all loading time factors are ascribed to DNS performance), and users will end up leaving the site and causing great loss for your business. When done right, on the other hand, the DNS allows you to distribute traffic on several CDNs instead of one, and will optimize content delivery even when an invoked CDN is fully dysfunctional. Amazon and Google prepared various studies on loading time effects, and concluded that a 1-3 seconds prolongation of a site’s loading time may lead to a 7% decrease of its sales. DNSs systems are very scalable, and will grow in line with your business. Managed well, they will also be open to all sorts of updates and innovations, and you will find them incredibly useful for boosting revenue and reducing abandonment rates. At the end of each successful DNS applications story, there are also many satisfied customers that enjoy browsing for content. Indeed, first impressions matter! Why use a paired DNS and CDN solution? These are the main reasons:
In most cases, it will be the CDN provider to offer you a dedicated DNS infrastructure, and implement and manage it on your behalf. Certain CDN providers have developed their own internal DNS network the support the core service they provide, but you shouldn’t expect them to provide the same scalability, flexibility, or performance of an independent DNS service provider. On the opposite, managed DNS solutions complement CDNs by extending the website’s reliability and optimizing its performance, which makes them ideal for brands and businesses of all sizes. They commonly offer advanced load balancing, global footprints, and a variety of routing techniques that reduce latency, maximize access to content, and cut down the website owner’s costs. Basically, DNSs separate online businesses from their consumers in a way which suits both sides, which e-retailers find extremely useful to improve end-users’ experience. It is internet performance solutions that do the heavy-lifting of impeccable content delivery, and also help understand customer demographics and behaviour in order to run a successful business. From this point of view, we can easily conclude that the benefits of pairing DNS and CDNs are virtually endless.
Using CDNs to monitor web performanceThe universally accepted truth is that content delivery networks help enhance the performance of a website, as they accelerate the services it provides, and make its content widely accessible. CDNs also have a dramatic effect on end users’ experience, and help sites rank better on search engines. With all things put into perspective, it is not difficult to conclude that a CDN is a smart investment, but the challenge you will definitely face is deciding which one is the best for your website. Many factors and benchmarks will influence this decision, so it is about time to start looking at each of them: Monitoring of server side performanceThis is a testing method used that simulates actual data requests, and then estimates how long it takes for a page to respond to it. You can use it to determine an average response speed (not a perfect one), as the method doesn’t take into account the time needed for the document to be delivered, and doesn’t consider the actual length of the files. This is why we categorize this method as a very unreliable one, as its results are always few second faster than the genuine loading time. Monitoring of synthetic transactionsAs you saw, server-side monitoring has few difficult-to-overcome drawbacks, which is why we recommend a different testing method. The monitoring of synthetic transactions also tests predefined data requests, but such coming from actual browsers and emulators, and different locations at a time. Experts often qualify this method as being as close to an actual measure as possible, but you shouldn’t exclude the possibility of its results being inaccurate. The reason why this method fails is that you can’t test it for locations where your visitors will be coming from, but rather random ones, which means you’re still undermining the physical distance factor. Measuring the performance of few usersCompared to the previous two, this method provides a much more accurate and faster way to measure sites’ performance, as it selects actual end users, and calculates how long pages take to display to them. Afterwards, it comes up with average numbers, and allows you to make conclusions on how your content delivery can be improved. Measuring the performance of each end userThis is by all means the best and most accurate method you can use to measure your website’s performance. What it does is to collect data for all users, and measure all actual transactions across the network. In such way, it provides you with almost 100% accurate loading times, observed from the network’s, server’s, and application’s perspective. You should keep in mind, however, that this method is really difficult and expensive to administer. A good alternative we suggest is Last mile testing, which despite of all of its shortcomings, still manages to measure content delivery from the CDN servers to the end user’s device. It is packed with advanced connectivity services alike those needed to deliver content, which makes us believe that it is capable of depicting the real picture of how users interact with your content. Depending on your specific requirements, there are some additional and very important benchmarks of CDN configuration that you should consider:
As simple as that: The more points-of-presence your CDN provider will offer, the more customers and bandwidth that CDN will be able to respond to.
For those of you looking to target a specific continent, or make content available all around the world, it is essential to choose a global CDN that covers all those markets.
According to the rule of thumb, you should choose a CDN provider whose services have been acquired by organizations similar to yours. There is little scientific proof to support this claim, especially considering the influence of pricing which may allow/obstruct a company from upgrading to a good CDN. If you have the possibility to get any CDN you wish, look for a fast and efficient one. To monitor cloud performance actually means to measure the quality of service being provided to end customers. There are several components in this process to be taken into account (both front end and back end), as it is the entire IT infrastructure between the provider and the user that dictates the quality of delivery. This is why it is quite often that reports on the provider’s and the consumer’s end turn out to be different. It won’t be enough to move your system to the cloud – you will also need an adequate monitoring tool, and a smart performance strategy as you’re entering this market. Such tools can be purchased by third-party providers, in which case we recommend you to go for a combo package instead of integrating few different products. With all factors taken into account, you will be able to make the most out of the online acceleration services you’ve purchased. Choosing a good content delivery networkWith a website that attracts visits from different regions in the world, purchasing CDN services is a very smart decision. CDN services are also made very affordable nowadays, and you won’t have to double up traffic to cover for your investment. It is only recently that the CDN market expanded towards small and midmarket users, and that made these services even more popular. You will most certainly be overwhelmed by CDN solutions and it will take a while to choose one that would work the best for your business – for the purpose, you ought to be familiar with all details, and have some helpful guidelines in mind. Small and medium businesses find it particularly challenging to get to a good CDN, as they don’t have large and proficient IT departments, and were hardly required to follow technology developments all the time. We recommend them to prepare a clear list of needs and preferences before they turn to a service provider. Everyone choosing a CDN for the first time should pay attention to these four factors:
There are two main functionality questions your provider should respond to:
CDN services are very different from each other, but there are some basic functions that are typical for all of them. These are Gzip connections, Origin-Pulls, and CNAME for secure web pages.
Add these functions to your list of requirements:
Once you’ve determined all basic functions and requirements, give a look to the CDN’s performance: The key here will be speed. You must know in advance how much it takes for your CDN to deliver files to end users, and be familiar with the following KPIs: latency (measured in milliseconds) and throughput (measured in kbit/s). The provider should be clear on the minimal, maximal, average, and median value of each KPI, displayed for a larger period of time, and measured in conditions of peak and heavy traffic and normal one. Keep in mind that the location of your server won’t be decisive – delivery may still be very slow, especially if:
Certain CDNs are fully tuned to impeccable performance (SSD hard drives for instance), and will meet all of these criteria up to your expectations. They will display content immediately upon request and distribute the bytes very fast, and this is how you can recognize them:
If so, you have likely discovered an ideal CDN for your needs. CDN providers pricingMoney will of course be a primary concern when choosing a CDN for your business, and there is a lot of thinking to do there. You will find all sorts of packages and promotional prices, and you need to collect as much payment info as you can in order to make a wise decision. The common and most recommended scenario is custom pricing – find a provider of interest, share your budget details, and he will tailor an individual package that caters to the size and needs of your company. Providers that don’t adhere to the quote pricing trend usually offer several different packages targeting verticals and firms of different sizes. Once you’ve settled the payment question, consider the customer support offered by your vendor. The best possible version is to have a CDN provider who is there for you 24/7/365, available either via email, phone, or live chat. Availability, nevertheless, is not the only criterion that matters:
Have in mind that you will be building a business relationship with your CDN provider, and that you will rely strongly on each other. This is why it is important to get as much information as you can, and get a feeling of how that partnership works before it has even begun. If you liked this article about CDN providers, you should check out the following as well:
Ending thoughts on CDN providersCDN services help website owners accelerate the delivery of their content, rank higher on search engines, and boost customer loyalty all though a single solution. As imposed by our ever-developing web community, internet has reached the point of realisation – the ultimate value of today’s brands can only be measured through the prism of customer satisfaction. That’s what CDNs do the best, and we’re only scratching the surface of their potential at this moment. With their value in mind, we can safely assume the CDN market will become the flagship tool of emerging and developing markets, with the age of streaming already enhancing processing speed and giving customers a flawless video experience. Where will CDN services be most useful? Let’s summarize:
Optimized delivery is not entirely a collateral benefit. As a website owner, you probably know that search engines dislike websites with long loading times, and will likely penalize poor performers. Their favourable sites are such that operate on various locations and still load content fast and without compromising users’ experience. On the owner’s behalf, a good CDN also helps avoid service disruptions, and to provide mobile-friendly content. As you concluded by now, there is no need for second thoughts – you will either follow the trend, or be left behind it. The post CDN providers: The best you could pick appeared first on Design your way. from http://www.designyourway.net/blog/resources/cdn-providers/ More than 5 years ago, when I started to steer my design career towards the technological dark side, interactive prototypes weren’t as popular as they are now, but you could find some of them on the Internet. They were mainly simple animations about new ideas for interactions. What fascinated me most was how these animations communicated an idea in a way that a simple image or a detailed explanation couldn’t. I hadn’t been aware of the full potential of an interactive prototype then, but I put my efforts on making my own animations. Using After Effects and some other complex tools, I did some experiments. Once I finished my first animations, which weren’t nearly as cool as the references I had, one thing was clear to me; my results weren’t worth the effort it took to make them. After many years, my conclusion about time spent vs. outcomes is still the same, but now I know more accurately why. In addition to that, things have changed a lot in this field, new tools have appeared in the market and the prospect for interactive prototypes is brighter than ever. So, it’s time to review what is the deal with these kinds of prototypes. What is its role in a Design process? How can we build them in order to get positive outcomes? Throughout this article we’ll try to analyze this by answering 3 simple questions:
Let’s get started! WhatI don’t know if this happens to you, but when I don’t have a clear idea in my head, I usually try to say it out loud, it helps me to clarify certain concepts, so let’s try to do the same here. As I described earlier, these animations communicate something which is difficult to explain in other ways. Based on this, we can conclude that an interactive prototype is mainly a communicational tool. What many of these animations try to show are new solutions for recurrent UX problems. The years when these animations began to gain popularity is not an accident, remember, UX problems were a constant issue when mobile software was in its earlier stages. There were a lot of new behaviors to address given the new conditions of interaction between users and more personal devices, this created the need for new solutions to improve the UX — keyword being “experience”. Interactive prototypes are communication tools to improve user experience! But we are still missing one more keyword: “simulation”. Through animations, we are not solving the problem directly — we shouldn’t — , we are not even designing a specific solution to code, we are testing assumptions. This “testing” practice, is what I call a simulation of an experience. In the next paragraph I’ll explain more in detail why I think this simulation is important, but to wrap up this part, we could say that an interactive prototype is a communication tool where we simulate user experience. Now. Is this important? Of course it is! I can’t emphazise enough the importance of the practice of simulating experiences using tools, so just to understand the impact it can have, let’s review a little bit of history, going back to 1968. Yes, interactive prototypes are that old! Please pay attention to the following video because it explains an important part of the design history:
This is Alan Kay’s Dynabook. Alan Kay is one of the most important figures in the technology design field. Based on this prototype, which as you can see was just a bunch of pieces of paper, he established the foundations for the work he later developed in Xerox PARC. The lesson here is: Alan was one of the first engineers of the past generation to notice the importance of simulating experiences in order to have a clearer vision about the future, a vision that can be communicated to his colleagues. Sharing that vision, he was improving the way iteration is performed, and how this iteration helps to create better products. If you haven’t realized the importance of simulating experiences yet, think about this: This was a guy showing something very similar to a tablet created back in 1968, 17 years before the first computer with GUI appeared on the market, almost 40 years before the first iPad. So, yes, simulating experiences is highly important for a product design process because it addresses one of the key objective we have to accomplish; to provide good experiences for the user.
Side note: this is probably my favorite quote by Kay, although at risk of being called out, I will expand this sentiment a little more: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it, and the best way to invent it is experimenting”. WhenIt’s a little bit difficult to determinate when an interactive prototype should be used in a design process. So take this just as a personal opinion. Giving we get to the conclusion that interactive prototyping is a practice of simulating experiences, it has a high value at the moment of sketching experiences, when the product is just a bunch of problems to solve. Companies have different names for this kind of phase: planning, strategy, design, etc. I prefer to call it “sketching phase”. Bill Buxton in his book “Sketching User Experiences” defines the practice of sketching as the foundation for a design iteration, he outlined some principles to recognize if what we are doing is a sketch or not:
So, when I’m talking about interactive prototyping inside a sketching phase, it has to follow the same principles. Mainly regarding the last point. The simulation of the experience we are trying to create should suggest and explore rather than confirm a solution. There is an important challenge in terms of how “cheap” it can be. Making an animation even with the technologies we have now still has a relative high cost. Here is where these efforts need to be combined with other techniques, like actual sketching, starting by drawing in a piece of paper in order to increase through the exploration the amount of possible solutions, and also in order to reduce the inevitable bias we are going to get if we prototype something as a solution directly. I’ll explain in the following section a more detailed process to do so. Although the general recommendation is to use this technique as a way to explore and simulate solutions in early stages, there is a secondary use. As I described at the beginning, animations have a huge potential as communication tools. I’ve seen through my career how many companies struggle communicating requirements, this problem has created the need to come up with more tools to make this communication of requirements easier and effective, but many of these tools are still based on written descriptions rather than interactive simulations. Here is where an interactive prototype can play a major role as a way to show directly and in a more interactive way a designed solution, so engineers or whoever is going to develop it can understand it deeply, reducing risks of miscommunication. A hint: all the developing processes have a ‘bug rate’, which is the time developers spent solving bugs. I don’t have the numbers but in my experience many of these bugs are the result of miscommunications. If there are effective ways to reduce this rate, it will definitely be worth to invest time in it. HowDisclaimer: the core of the following process I’ll try to use as example, is iteration, you know, a communication tool is made to be used in a communicational environment, something that you can’t do by yourself. I don’t have a design team available right now in my pocket, so in the moments where an iteration is needed, I will put an <Iteration> label. 1. Be really aware of the problemThis initial part seems simple but it can be a little bit more complicated. There are plenty of problems you can recognize when you’re working on a new product’s design. But recognizing a problem is not the same thing that being aware of the problem, because this also means to understand it deeply in order to know how it will affect the user’s needs, or in other words, it’s not just to know what is wrong with something, it’s also to understand whyis wrong, and what is the need we are going to address behind the problem. Let’s imagine we are working in a chat app. There are plenty of chat apps in the market, so we want to create something different in terms of experience — alert: In this case ‘different’ doesn’t mean just something new, it means an evolution of what the user has right now available — . I’ve run a simple research using google, looking for the most common complains about chat mobile experiences. I found an interesting one:
Why is this interesting? Because none of the most famous chat apps are trying to make things in a different way in order to give a better experience for this ‘problem’. All of them have the classic system of 2 layers: A list of users, and the individual chats. But jumping between conversations is a very common practice from an user perspective. <Iteration> Once we have the ‘problem’ over the table is time to iterate with your design team, a good started point is trying to answer some basic questions; Is this problem a real problem? How does this complain affect the user’s behavior? How is the user behavior in this specific situation? What are all the variables we need to consider? Do the outcomes be worth the investment of exploring a solution?, etc </iteration> To move on in our example, let’s assume that yes, this is a real problem, that its solution will provide a high value to our product and it will improve the user’s experience. 2. Sketching time!Let’s split the sketching exercise in 2 parts, first I’m going to test through drawings some foundations of the user’s behavior when he/she is interacting with a mobile device, this will provide a context before to sketch possible solutions — sorry for my poorly made drawings btw — . What I’ve done here is to outline the basic user’s behaviors using a chat app, trying to put over the table more questions: What is the most common position of the user’s hands when is using a phone? When he/she is chatting? Are the current solutions considering this? What are the constraints we need to consider before to sketch solutions?, etc <Iteration>Again, we need more iteration here, not to answer those questions directly, but to generate hypothesis based on them. And that’s the second part: My selected proposal This is my personal proposal; a simple bar at the top of the screen that can inform us who are we talking with, showing us other open conversations in the same screen. Using swipe gestures, we can jump to the next one, like a simple photo gallery. This is just one option after many drawings I’ve made, Why did I choose this one? Because based on the behavior I’ve analyzed, considering the reachable areas and natural gestures, it seems to me the more logical one. The process to make these drawings is easy and quick, or in other words, cheap. This work should be just a very small part of the whole iteration we need to perform among the team, in order to generate a larger amount of possible solutions </iteration>. Nobody is paying me to write this article, so I picked the one personally seems most promising. What option is the most promising? The one that generates more questions! Not because is the craziest one, but questions in a sense that can create the need to be tested ‘in the wild’, in order to clarify the assumptions we are making with our proposals. Here is when the need for an interactive prototype appears and the creation cost of it is justified. 3. ExecutionNow is time to build the prototype. I’m going to use Framer because is the tool I’m most familiar with, and considering its features, it allows me to do it relative quick. Before to jump there, I need to have accurate instructions to not waste time coding. So this is the plan: Ok, now the idea is clearer — at least for me, as I said, I’m working on improving my drawings — Now I can imagine in my head how to code it. I’m not going to dive into each line of code, mainly because I’m not an expert in CoffeeScript and I’m ashamed of my code. But if you want to see it personally, here you can download it from my GitHub. And.. (drumroll), here is the result: Here the Framer prototype. I know, a little disappointing, isn’t? Maybe you expected a finished design. I could do it easily, not because I’m a very skillful designer but because I don’t have a interesting life and I prefer to spend my weekends doing stuff like this — you’re welcome — . But that’s not the point. This is a dangerous area. When we are prototyping interactions in order to get UX conclusions, very often our inner visual designer appears. If our objective is to work on UX, UI design doesn’t help at all because it’s distractive. Don’t get me wrong, a good UI design is important, it complements the UX and adds huge value to it. But if our objective is to test a behavior, it’s in our hands to drive the focus towards to it, making the prototype as simple as possible. Do you remember the sketch principles? This is the time to apply them. Anyway, just for fun and to show you the secondary use of a interactive prototyping as a way to communicate requirements, let say we’ve completed the whole design process, this prototype has passed for all the iteration sessions and have reached a point where we’re all agree this is the solution to code (warning: It doesn’t mean this should happen, actually if something like that happens, we’ve done the things wrong). Applying UI design, it could look like this: 4. Simulating the experienceYou could think that’s it but we are not yet. What I’ve built is just a tool for a simulation, now we need to experience the simulation. One of the reasons I’ve used framer is because it gives me the opportunity to easily run a test in my phone, as a real app. We need to do that in this part, we need to play with the prototype. Not one time, not just few minutes, not just us. There are different protocols to evaluate a testing phase, it depends on many factors, but in this case let’s do the things simple. I’ve used this prototype for 3 days. Once I had the need to send a message to someone using other apps, I also opened this prototype and played with it. When I’ve been chatting with more than one person at once, I did the same. The idea was to manipulate the prototype under the same environments and circumstances than when I have a real need to chat. This is just a simple protocol, but if you’re working in a bigger product, which involves larger audiences, it will worth to write a more detailed one, with specific metrics to be able to measure the results. I also recommend to record the manipulation of the prototype. Keep in mind that we are not just evaluating how the solution works, we are analyzing how the solution works for the user.
5. Measuring resultsAs I mentioned, there are a lot of metrics we could outline to measure results, in this case what we are trying to answer is a simple question: Does it work better than the current approach? But we are not looking for a Yes or No answer, because is not the answer what it matters, is the amount of conclusions and content we can generate based on the question I’ve put over the table. Probably this is the second time where iteration is highly important. At the beginning we had iterated in order to set the problem and to generate a large amount of possible solutions, now we need to iterate in order to analyze the result of the simulation experiments. What is the user reaction to this new behavior? Is it an improvement? What risks we can notice? What are the improvements we need to do?, etc. Final ThoughtsWhat kind of article is this? Having as a final result more questions! Well, that’s the point. Bill Buxton in his book I mentioned earlier explains it in a simple way:
What I think Buxton is trying to tell us, is that design is not the process to generate the right solution, is the process to explore and analyze alternatives. Our creativity and collaborative work will allow us to explore a large amount of alternatives, and you could think that the process to chose one of them is the biggest challenge, but if we’ve performed the iterations having a good amount of alternatives and using the right process, the answer for which path to follow will be quite obvious then. Thanks for reading! PS: Cheers to the Framer Team, the last update of the tool helps a lot to make these prototypes cheaper. Great work! The post Designing interactive experiences appeared first on Design your way. from http://www.designyourway.net/blog/user-experience/designing-interactive-experiences/ Risograph style, noisy gradients, spreckled gradient tutorials. I’ve researched them all but I couldn’t find a good, free tutorial that explains properly how to create these styles in Photoshop. So, here is my take on it. In preparation of this tutorial I have been playing around with a few different techniques on how to create them in Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 (it should work the same in every version from CS3 upwards). So here are the different techniques on how to create awesome looking noisy Gradients in Photoshop:For the sake of simplicity I will use a simple black-to-white gradient for this tutorial. Just to show the difference, I also included the most used and easiest method to create a noisy gradient. The Blend Mode Dissolve (1). As you probably already noticed it doesn’t look very good. There are some applications for this blend mode, but not for the effects we are aiming to create here. Bitmap Shading/Bitmap Gradients(2)One of the coolest method that got a lot of steam in the last year is the use of the Bitmap color mode in Photoshop. There are many different possibilities you can play it with, enough to warrant a tutorial on it’s own. For the sake of simplicity I will focus on one of the simpler ones. This style is commonly used by Graphic Designers and Artists around the world. 1. Duplicate your layer into another image For this step, you can either just use the individual gradient layer or the whole image with the “Apply Image” (image>apply image) function 3. Convert it into bitmap with Diffusion Dither(image>mode>bitmap) There are a a lot of awesome options but for this tutorial we will use Diffusion Dither. Don’t be afraid to try out the other methods, there are a lot of cool options. You can even create your own texture to use! Now here is the tricky part: You will need to play around with the DPI of the image to get the desired effect. I usually just use a value around 60–75% of the original PPI of the image as it works best for the style I want to achieve. But as always experiment with it and see what works best for you!. 4. Resize the Bitmap image (image>image size) This step is really simple. Just go to image size and resize it back to it’s original PPI (in this case I used 300). If you do this while still in bitmap mode Photoshop will keep the pixels with sharp edges, if you convert the image back before resizing it the pixels will blur a bit, giving a round effect if you play around with contrast after. 5. Take the layer back into the original file There you can play with contrast, different colors, blending modes and generally fit the gradient to your individual design. Risograph-Like gradient effect with noise(3)The Method I used in most of my 36 Days of Type Letters is a bit different than the first one. Here we will play around with the noise filter in photoshop. 1. Create a new project at least twice in size of your original image If you want to add the effect on the whole image, choose at least twice the size of your artboard. If you simply want to apply it to one gradient you can just get the size of that and double it. It isn’t important to match the numbers exactly it just has to be a lot bigger than the original gradient. Twice usually fits well for me as you might run into problems with your computer performance really fast if you create huge images. Make sure the DPI of the new image matches up with your original image. 2. Apply noise on the new, bigger project Use a white or black layer and apply the filter noise on full strength and make sure you have the Monochromatic box ticked. As always you can play around with the settings but those are the ones that work best for my personal workflow. 3. Copy the layer back onto your original file, scale it down and set it to overlay This is a really important part as it will make or break the effect.Scale the layer down as much as possible while still covering all edges of your artboard or gradient. The whole trick in this workflow is using noise with bigger detail than the standard one. Now that you’ve done that, set the Blend Mode to Overlay. Others will work too but I most often use that one. 4. Increase the contrast of your project/gradient Now the only thing left to create this effect is increasing the contrast over the gradient by a very strong margin. I usually use Gradation Curves and just go crazy with them. Voilà, there is your effect. Extra tips and tricks
Create Spreckles with mezzotint(4)This method is the easiest one but you also have the least control over it. I hope these quick methods helped you, let me know if there are any questions! I would love to see the cool designs you came up with using these methods. Send them to me directly via mail Originally published at Stefan Hürlemann -- Designer. The post How to create noisy, risograph-style gradients and textures in Photoshop in 3 ways appeared first on Design your way. from http://www.designyourway.net/blog/resources/tutorials/photoshop-tutorials/noisy-risograph-gradients/ Looking for audio editing software? We have some of that in here, both free and premium options for you to check out. An advanced sound editorial manager is characterized as a PC application for controlling digital sound. As a multimedia maker, we usually utilize the audio editor for recording sound, alter the length and timeline, blend numerous sound tracks, add basic effects for sound improvement and make conversion between various sound file formats. How to Select Audio Editing SoftwareSound editing software is a moderate and basic approach to record and edit sound. Regardless of whether you are searching for a sound editor to record your podcasts or you have a box of old vinyl records and tapes that you need to digitize and re-establish, audio programs have the instruments to fulfill those and numerous other sound editing tasks. Besides being moderate and easy to utilize, most sound editors have an inborn capacity to restore terrible simple recordings to higher quality sound. Majority of the expert audio programs in our review give tools to get rid of hum, hiss, pops and clicks pops that are related to terrible recordings. Sound editing programs are awesome apparatus for podcasters. Most sound editors enable you to record maybe a couple sources of sound at the same time. The amount of tools you need is small, which is a benefit to owning sound editing program contrasted with a digital sound workstation (DAW). You only need a USB mic, a sound editor and something to say, and you will be en route to recording a podcast. In the event that you need to discover more data on sound editors or podcasting, check out our other articles on sound editing software. Sound editing software seems to be identical to DAWs, yet they are two distinct units. DAWs can record a boundless amount of sound sources at the same time. DAWs as well give numerous effects, plugins, and virtual tools to assist in the creation of music. The drawback to DAWs is that even the preliminary versions of DAWs are costly contrasted with expert sound editing programs. A preliminary DAW version will run at the minimum rate of $100, while you can buy an expert level sound editor for less than $50. On the chance that you are searching for an expert grade DAW that can cost $550 upwards and gobble up a significant part of the storage available and memory on your PC, something a sound editorial manager will not do. On the chance that you are searching for a program that is more effective than these sound editors, you can visit our Recording Studio Software website for extra recording alternatives. Here’s our compilation of the best free audio editing software. AudacityThe first from this audio editing software list is Audacity. Audacity is an open source and virtually free music editing software. It enables you to record live sound, change records and tapes into CDs or digital recordings, alter Ogg Vorbis, AIFF, WAV, or MP3 audio files. You also can cut, duplicate, splice or combine sounds with Audacity. Incorporated effects are provided to get rid of static, hum, hiss or other steady noises in the background. Mp3DirectCutMp3DirectCut is a quick and broad sound editor and recorder for compacted mp3. You can specifically cut, copy, paste or change the volume without needing to decompress your documents/files for sound editing. By using Cue sheets, Auto cue or pause detection, long files can be effortlessly divided. Music Editor FreeMusic Editor Free (MEF) is an esteemed free audio editor. MEF assist you to edit and record sounds and music. It gives you a chance to make and alter music, voice and other sound recordings. When editing sound files you can remove, copy, paste components of recordings and, if needed, apply effects such as like reverberation, amplification and noise lessening. WavosaurWavosaur is one of the best free audio editing software for altering, recording and processing sounds, mp3 and wav files. Wavosaur has every element suitable for sound editing (cut, copy, paste, and so on.) create music loops, break down, record, and carry out a batch conversion. Wavosaur bolsters VST modules, ASIO driver, multichannel wav documents, continuous processing of effects. The software does not have an installer and does not write in the registry. Utilize it as a free mp3 manager, for acing sound design. Traverso DAWTraverso DAW is a GPL authorized, cross stage multitrack sound recording and altering suite, with a creative and simple to ace User Interface. It’s suited for both the home user and expert and home, who have a need for a strong and strong DAW. Inclusion and expulsion of effect plugins, moving Audio Clips and making new Tracks amid playback are all flawlessly protected, giving you immediate remark on your work! ArdourArdour is a computerized sound workstation. You can utilize it to record, alter and blend multi-track sound. You can create your own CDs, blend video soundtracks, or simply explore different avenues regarding new thoughts about sound and music. Ardour capacities include recording from multiple channels, non-damaging altering with boundless fix/re-try, full mechanization bolster, an intense mixer, boundless tracks/plugins/busses, timecode synchronization, and equipment control from surfaces such as the Mackie Control Universal. In the event that you’ve been searching for a tool comparable to ProTools, Pyramix, Nuendo, or Sequoia, you may have discovered it. RosegardenRosegarden is a balanced sound and MIDI sequencer, score editorial manager, and multi-purpose music creation and editing condition. Rosegarden is a simple to-learn, appealing application that is compatible with Linux, perfect for authors, performers, music understudies, and little studio or home recording situations. WavePad Sound EditorWavePad Sound Editor gives you a chance to make and alter music, voice and other sound recordings. When altering sound documents you can cut, copy and paste sections of recordings and, if needed, apply effects such as amplification, reverberate, and noise lessening. WavePad fills in as a wav editor or mp3 editorial manager, however it also supports various other file formats like gsm, vox, genuine sound, aif, au, ogg, flac, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Sound EngineSoundEngine is the best apparatus for individual use as it allows you to effectively edit a wave data plus the fact that it has several functions necessary for a mastering procedure. DJ Audio EditorDJ Audio Editor is anything but difficult to-utilize and efficient sound application which enables you to perform different operations with sound data. You can make and alter sound files professionally, also showing a waveform image of sound filesmakes your work quicker. Audiobook CutterAudiobook Cutter divides your podcasts and MP3 audio books in a quick and easy to use way. The divided documents can effortlessly be utilized on portable MP3 players due to their little size. Their span permits smooth route through the book. The points of split are automatically determined depending on silence detection. LMMSLMMS is a free music editing software which serves as an option to business programs such as FL Studio, which enable you to create music with your PC. This incorporates the production of songs and beats, the union and blending of sounds, and organizing of tests. You can mess around with your MIDI-console and a great deal more; all in an easy to understand and present day interface. MP3SpltMp3Splt-venture is a great tool to divide ogg files and mp3 choosing a start and an end time position, with no need to decode. It’s extremely helpful to divide big mp3/ogg to make smaller files or to divide whole albums to get unique tracks. On the chance that you need to divide an album, you can manually choose points of split and filenames or you can automatically obtain them from CDDB or from .cue files. It also enables automatic silence split, which can be utilized to fine tune cue split points/cddb. Tracks can be extracted from Album Wrap files or Mp Wrap in no time at all. QTractorThe last audio editing software in this article is Qtractor. It is a MIDI/Audio multiple track sequencer app written in C++ with the Qt4 structure. It works on Linux, where the Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK) for sound, and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) for MIDI, are the fundamental foundations to advance as a genuinely featured Linux desktop sound workstation GUI, uncommonly devoted to the individual home-studio. Ending thoughts on audio editing softwareThere are endless ways that advanced sound editor can be utilized, and luckily there are a lot of free and good computerized sound editors available to assist you with your own usage. If you liked this article about audio editing software, you should check out these as well:
The post Audio editing software: The best free and premium options appeared first on Design your way. from http://www.designyourway.net/blog/resources/audio-editing-software/ Searching for WordPress themes for musicians? You’ve come to the right place. There are 46 of these in here and if you’re looking for one, this is the place where you’ll find it. WordPress is, by far, the best option if you want to build a website, but don’t want to struggle with code and building everything from scratch. It has become a patron of creatives, from blog writers to musicians, as well as young entrepreneurs. You get the ultimate canvas, which you can then customize with ease. You get a lot of themes to choose from, for various purposes, from WordPress themes for architects and photographers, to WordPress themes for musicians. Your internet profile is one of your most valuable assets in the online world, and your website can give you a competitive edge. If you’re a musician, you will need one of the popular WordPress musicians themes, as they let you create a website with ease. Any artist appreciates elegance, and there’s no better way to express it than with a musicians WordPress theme. You will find plenty of musicians WordPress themes on the market, so all you have to do is pick one of those musicians WP themes, and work your way up from that. A selection of the best WordPress themes for musiciansAQURA – Get hostingAQURA is an enchanting and easy-to-use parallax Music, Bands & DJ’s WordPress theme that allows you to tell your story in a dynamic, narrative and enjoyable way, making it perfect for musicians and DJ’s. Colibri – Get hostingWe’ve learned that many musicians use social media to fill the content for their official websites, mostly because they don’t have time to update it. And who likes a website with very few content or, worse, with outdated content? MESH – Get hostingMESH WordPress Theme allows you to play music continuously, sell tickets, book events and includes 6 months support. We’ve MESHed together all the key features needed for entertainment websites. MESH is perfectly tailored to meet your multi-media needs and innovates on every level. Give it a try and convince yourself. Muziq – Get hostingMuziq is a WordPress theme for music bands, professional deejays, singers and for any artist related with the music industry that want to show his talent and sounds to the world. Literally within minutes you can build complex layouts with drag and drop interface without touching a single line of code. Odio – Get hostingOdio is a professional and easy-to-use One-Page / Multi-Page Styled Music WordPress theme. A theme dedicated to music lovers, music bands, musicians, DJs, producers, film makers, labels or organizers of events and festivals. Perfect for the entertainment industry. Rock4Life – Get hostingEvery band and musician needs to have an effective website. Rock4life is a responsive wordpress theme that perfectly suits your Bands / Musicians website. TheMagic6 – Get hostingTheMagic6 is a WordPress theme with functional modern design best suitable for music bands, dj’s, singers, artists, radio, events and entertainment websites. The theme includes 2 homepage layouts allowing you to give all the necessary information about band’s compilations, discography or any music event. With TheMagic6 you can showcase your photo and video galleries of the held or planning events. Drury Lane – Get hosting“Drury Lane”, wordpress.org theme, was done especially for musicians, bands, artists and can be used by record labels as well. It is simple in use, based on default WP functionality (no custom post types, no page builders), comes with splash page (traditional feature of musicians’s websites), has two parts sliding home page and comes with a number of small custom plugins written especially for this theme. Steve Cadey – Get hostingAnother one of these WordPress themes for musicians is Steve Cadey. This one is a responsive WordPress theme for music and event sites that incorporates many perks and features. Its trendy design can not only meet the aesthetic standard but also live up to music industry’s demand. The glowing effects for flat button when hovering combined with amazing high contrast color will stretch your creativity and passion for music. Lucille – Get hostingLucille is a beautifully designed WordPress theme, suitable for musicians, artists, music bands, producers or anyone working in the music industry. Lucille theme is extremely flexible, intuitive and easy to use, packed with premium features and plugins, making it a powerful and complete solution for the music industry. ZONA – Get hostingZONA is a new WordPress music theme concept built precisely for Musicans, Bands, DJ’s, Producers…and other individual creative folks. ZONA was made using AJAX – now you can be sure that music won’t stop playing during page browsing. Theme comes with Visual Composer for easily managing your content. If you are searching for innovative, modern and clean design, ZONA is definitely for you… Solala – Get hostingSolala Music WP, Music WordPress Theme, powering your new music, band, artist, music industry, fanclub website to new heights. Responsive, fast, interesting interaction feature packed & supported by top authors. Playbit – Get hostingPlaybit is an awesome looking modern music WordPress theme with special features. Playbit suitable for artists, music bands, musicians or anyone working in the music industry. It is very flexible allowing you to customize according to your needs. SIGNATURE – Get hostingSIGNATURE is the flagship WordPress Theme from Designova, an amazing portfolio theme with a collection of 26+ unique demo variants (26+2 new demos added, more demos are coming soon) that can cater the website needs of all creative people & business, designers, freelancers, artists, musicians, photographers, illustrators, actors, DJ’s, stage professionals, make-up artists, any kind of online shops and literally every possible creative websites. Noisa – Get hostingWe’re proud to present to you the powerful, sharp and incredibly diverse WordPress theme built precisely for Musicans, Bands, Net Labels, DJ’s, Producers… NOISA was made using AJAX technique – now you can be sure that music won’t stop playing during page browsing. It is a great way to present your music at the highest level. Jarvis – Get hostingJarvis is a powerful WordPress theme with a modern festive design developed specifically for any kind of Night Club, Concert or Festival. The theme can also be a good choice for lounge bar, any event or party website. Jarvis can be used for showcasing your DJ or musician career and can be interesting for club music fans. SPECTRA – Get hostingSPECTRA is another on of the WordPress themes for musicians presented in this article. It is a great way to present your work at the highest level. It’s a music and events theme, made using AJAX (continuous playback during page browsing) suitable for DJ’s, producers or individuals portfolio. The new, top-notch, SCAMP music player with soundcloud API support is included! SPECTRA uses Visual Composer (amazingly flexible), DISQUS comments, MailChimp newsletter, Contact Form 7 and the latest HTML5 and CSS3 technologies Applause – Get hostingApplause Responsive onepage Bands & Musicians theme ,Build with Bootstrap framework unique minimal design ,Using html5 & css3 .WordPress theme for all who love music, such as music bands, musicians, DJs, producers, labels or organizers of events and festivals, do this. This very strong theme that offers perfect organization of all necessary data such as Events, Audios, Galleries and Videos.And Audio player is Unique . MusicPlay – Get hostingMusicPlay is a powerful and responsive Music Band & DJ WordPress Theme with pretty much advanced features like display Artists, Albums, DJ Mixes, Photo Gallery, Video Gallery and Events each with its own post type. It has all the features what you need for a music band theme. SevenHills – Get hostingSevenHills is a WordPress theme with minimal design best suitable for Summer Camp or Outdoors Activities website. The theme includes 2 homepage layouts allowing you to give all the necessary information about your camp services, facilities, activities, events and programs. Pantone – Get hostingMusic is our passion!! Pantone is an awesome looking music WordPress theme suitable for artists, music bands, musicians or anyone working in the music industry. The template has a modern design and is very flexible allowing you to customize it according to your music style and to your needs. Pantone music WordPress theme features a full screen slider, responsive masonry archive layout, custom post types for discography, events, photo gallery and videos. Sound Stage – Get hostingSound Stage is here, and if you’re a musician, artist, music producer, or webmaster; then I’m sure you’re gonna like it! Let visitors hear what you’re all about using the theme’s slick audio players, and tell them all about your upcoming events. Rockit 2.0 – Get hostingRockit 2.0 is an html template specially designed for Bands and music websites. This template is easy to modify and ready to be up and running out of the box. Theme is fully Responsive Design, Easy to changeable Color skins with custom graphics. Rockit2.0 is Compatible with all new browsers. Well defined Documentation Included with in the package. Morning Records – Get hostingMorning Records theme has minimal design especially made for Sound Recording Studio. The theme can be also interesting for Music Label, Music Producer, Musician, Band or any website in Music Industry. With lots of customizable features you can promote your sound design services. Morning Records is fully compatible with the latest version of WooCommerce to allow you selling equipment for recording studio. Protégé – Get hostingShow off your work with this easy-to-customize and full featured WordPress Theme. When purchasing this theme, you will receive a detailed help file along with additional features like Unlimited color schemes and eCommerce. Sound Blast – Get hostingSound Blast is a wordpress theme especially designed for Bands and music websites. This theme is easy to modify and ready to be up and running out of the box. This theme comes in 2 pre-made color variations. Whereas, it will only take one minute to create your desired color schemes by using theme options SONIC – Get hostingSONIC has been built in cooperation with actual musicians who know exactly what a band needs. It has a lot of layout, style and appearance options. It is fully customizable and doesn’t require any web development experience. Simply click the customizer buttons and see how your website looks in the live preview. Sonik – Get hostingThis powerful responsive music wordpress theme has all the tools you need to build a professional music website. With more than 12 custom post types, it allows you to create any type of content related with the music business. Grand Portfolio – Get hostingGrand Portfolio is a portfolio focus design tool. It provides responsive clean and minimal WordPress theme for creative portfolio web site. Using the latest WordPress technology and support various of popular WordPress plugins. Grand Portfolio support responsive layout so it looks great on all devices. Flycase – Get hostingFlycase is a professional and easy-to-use Music WordPress Theme. It is highly and easily customizable, ready for all devices, simple to set up and e-commerce ready. A Theme dedicated to Music Lovers. Whether you are a profesional or not, your theme includes all features you need for your band or label, to present, promote and sell your work online. RoadRunners – Get hostingRoadRunners is a single-page music theme for WordPress. You can use it to store, update, and display information on upcomming gigs and artists. With its sleek, flat design and unique effects, its sure to impress your visitors! This theme is useful if you want to show off your musical talent as a musician, band, or artist. It’s also useful for Music companies to keep tabs on all of their Artists and Events. Montreal – Get hostingMontreal is a WooCommerce powered WordPress theme for musicians. Easily add music, shows, photos, and products to your site, along with standard posts and pages. Montreal uses a completely fluid design, which works on all devices and supports high resolution iconography. (WooCommerce powered!) Music – Get hostingMusic is an intelligent theme with unique features for the music industry. It’s easy to use, easy to customize and most importantly – it ads functionality not to be found in any other WordPress theme. Remix – Get hostingRemix AJAX is modern wordpress theme for music sharing, Multipage + One page theme with AJAX technique and with responsive layout built using 12 column grid system, Supports unlimited colours and sidebars, Suitable for music, band, club, party, event, magazine, classic, artist, jazz master, punk rocker, soprano singer, piano player, band manager or even a webmaster, etc websites. Slam! – Get hostingMusic WordPress Theme for music producers, djs and label owners. The perfect solution for any Musician and Music based business. 24 Color Skins + Visual Page Builder + Color Pickers. Compatible up to WordPress 4.2 U-Design – Get hostingU-Design is a powerful and user friendly theme. It could be used by people with no programming experience as well as advanced developers. You can build your site quickly, with confidence and with minimal effort. With such a powerful tool you can transform your site in seconds and have your project delivered on time. JamSession – Get hostingAnother one of these WordPress themes for musicians is JamSession. It is an awesome looking music WordPress theme suitable for artists, music bands, musicians or anyone working in the music industry. The template has a modern design and is very flexible allowing you to customize it according to your music style and to your needs. IronBand – Get hostingIronBand™ is the perfect WordPress theme for bands, musicians and DJs. Everything is in the details. The design is unique and comes with layered PSD. The theme includes all major features: Events & Gigs, HTML5 audio Player, YouTube Videos, News, Discography, Photos and Biography and even a Booking section. Everything’s there. EPRON – Get hostingEPRON – flexible, WordPress music and events theme. Available in dark and light version, including WooCommerce, is suitable for widely understood music industry. Basing on shortcodes gives you almost unlimited possibilities of adaptation to your specific needs. Can simply work as a standalone, creative portfolio as well! Also the best available slider (Revolution) is included. Darkroom – Get hostingDarkroom – Fullscreen Photography Studio theme for WordPress theme is a fullscreen photography theme. Minimal, responsive, fullscreen slideshows, videos and woocommerce ready so you can configure a shop a ease. The theme uses non intrusive user interface so your work is always at center of focus. Visitors can toggle fullscreen mode to display background slideshows or images on any page. Chords – Get hostingWith Chords you can build any entertainment related website (and more). Specifically designed for entertainers, solo artists, bands, event organizers, radio stations and all kinds of performers. Rockit Now – Get hostingRockit Now is a WordPress theme specially designed for Bands and music websites. This theme is easy to modify and ready to be up and running out of the box. The PSD files included have been customized to allow fast skinning. Crush – Get hostingHighly customizable, responsive and robust, Crush is perfect for freelancers, photographers, graphic designers, musicians and creative agencies. All features are thoughtfully implemented to make your experience seamless, not just with the theme but with WordPress itself. Replay – Get hostingReplay is a perfect theme for musicians, bands, record labels and any music business. It is easy to use and customize, comes packed with powerful tools for sharing and selling music, managing events and more. Live! – Get hostingWhether you are a professional or not, this theme includes all features you need for your band or label, to present, promote and sell your work online. Of course, it can be used for any other purpose as well! It is fully cusomizable and fits to any device, from very wide desktop screens to small smartphones. Pendulum – Get hostingPendulum – it is a modern WordPress Music theme which was created for the people who love music: DJs, producers, musicians, music clubs and for everyone who is fascinated with music as well. It is also possible to use the template for construction of the modern portfolio. If you liked this article about WordPress themes for musicians, you’ll like these as well:
The post WordPress Themes for Musicians (46 WP Themes) appeared first on Design your way. from http://www.designyourway.net/blog/wp/wordpress-themes-for-musicians/ Ever thought of using social media APIs? You should. They offer a lot of neat possibilities. Popular social networks alike Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, and Twitter are service APIs’ most devoted users. At the end of the day, developers have no better means than social APIs to expand the reach of their application, which is why these tools make absolute sense. This article will give a closer look to the social media APIs used by each aforementioned network, but before we get down to details, let us explain what social media APIs actually mean. How can social media APIs help you? To start with, they help display content on any app. This is how separate content units such as tweets, Facebook posts, or Flickr photos become visible to end users. Social APIs will also help distribute syndicated items, including retweets, threads, and many other. Basically, they work for both primary content and related details, and are used to display everything from Facebook users’ birthdays to photo metadata and locations. The biggest benefit of social media APIs, nevertheless, is putting content into a related service. Check out these social media APIsThe first one of these social media APIs is from Facebook. Facebook also offers API for developers to build applications that would be useful to members of this popular community. An app designed using Facebook APIs would have access to all profile information and social connections, and would allow the user to post activities directly on users’ profiles/newsfeeds, where permitted. Basically, Facebook APIs help give your app a more social context, and make use of your friends, contacts, images, groups, events, and similar data. All APIs are based on a RESful protocol, and trigger JSON responses. FlickrFlickr API will be useful to those looking to retrieve some Flickr photo sharing services through different feeds, including publicly available video, imagery, favorites, group pools, discussions, friends, and so on. The same set of APIs is then used to upload content of your own. What Flickr APIs are best known for is the support for a variety of protocols (REST, XML-RPC, and XML), and the fact that its responses are available also in JSON and PHP formats. Documentation, on the other hand, will be stored in 14-API kit libraries FoursquareThe V2 Foursquare APIs ensure that users will have access to all venues and locations in a company’s database. The offered APIs are: Real-Time API, Core API, Venues Platform, and Merchant Platform. They are all RESTful APIs which support JSON, JSONP, and XML. Why use Foursquare APIs? As developers like to put it, this system makes real world information more accessible, and helps build tools that enable easy collections, locate facilities all around you, and help coordinate your events. Therefore, Foursquare is the ideal companion for your trips, nights out with friends, dinners, and so on. Google+Google+ APIs are Google+’s official programming interface you can use to embed the social network on your app or website. This way, users will be able to communicate with each other using familiar Google features, but still remain as engaged on your website as you want them to be. Keep in mind, however, that the number of API calls your app can make will be limited by Google’s usage courtesy quota, and that in order to push the limits of that quota forward, you must make a request to Google’s Developer Console. You will be offered two types of API calls:
Each group imposes its own limitations, applying to all API calls that belong to that group. DailyMotionThere is almost no person in the world who hasn’t heard of DailyMotion. The globe’s leading video platform offers users both viewing and storage capacity, and targets primarily developers looking to deliver and integrate videos across different platforms (consoles, desktop, mobile, set-top boxes, etc.). Their APIs are flexible and powerful, and what is most important – very affordable. DeviantArtYou can integrate your app/website with DeviantArt in the following ways:
All APIs have been designed following open access standards; which means that developers can leverage them immediately from any of the off-shelf libraries. They are made simple and straightforward, but still provide a lot of interesting possibilities for creative developers. EventbriteEventbrite is another open API web service for developers, intended to let them create events and users, and pull those together in their apps/websites. Plenty of Eventbrite data will be provided to them, meaning that they can either modify existing templates, or create events from scratch. The APIs can also be applied to retrieve transactions, organize venues, and list attendees. GoodReadsGoodreads is, as passionate readers would agree, the best book-on-shelf API service to keep followers updated, link books by ISBN and similar methods, distribute author URL to friends and their friends, email news, and collect ISBN reviews. From a developer’s perspective, Goodreads provides unrestricted access to book data, and helps apps and websites dealing with books engage customers in a more social and personalized way. There are many ways to put Goodreads API in action, including the application of their Reviews Syndication which has an impressive record of 10 million reviews on approximately 700,000 titles. With the API, you will be able to display those reviews on your app/website, and then use Goodreads Connect to give readers full access to what you have to offer. GravatarGravatar is a specific API services users subscribe to in order to create unique profiles and avatars (they are called Gravatars). Gravatars are in fact small images that will follow the user from one site to the other, and appear next to your name each time you perform a particular action. The developer series of Gravatar won’t require app authentication (keep in mind that such will be needed for editing info in XML-RPC). Hacker NewsHacker News offers easily accessible programmatic iOS and Android APIs for web devices that have implemented Firebase. The APIs are used to make calls and retrieve updates, comments, news, polls, and even jobs, all distributed by unique identifiers. HTTP calls, for instance, return JSON responses with actual text pulled in from an article, as well as URL links and associated metadata. The APIs are available for free, but the company announced OAuth API as part of their future offer. ImgurImgur’s APIs employ a standard interface to expose the whole Imgur infrastructure in external environments. Basically, the user can transfer all valuable imgur.com functionality on his app/website, using at the same time a preferred programming language. Imgur’s APIs are in fact HTTP-request and XML/JSON-response RESTful APIs, alike those used by Twitter, Delicious, and Amazon’s S3. With only a bit of social API experience, you won’t be challenged to use them. Currently, Imgur offers its third version of APIs which use OAuth 2.0. Therefore, you won’t have to encrypt your requests, but simply send them to https:// via SSL/TLS. This doesn’t change the fact that your app must be registered and authenticated, even where users are not allowed to log in. Instagram is iPhone’s flagship photo sharing application where users upload photos and display them to friends and contacts, in a manner fairly simpler than the one of Facebook and Twitter. Instagram also offers open API for developers, used mostly for user authentication, management of images and connections, uploading media, and other similar operations.. KakaoKakao was established in Korea, as the state’s leading social network that pursues streamlined communication and gaming excellence. The services include Kakao Talk, Kakao Group, Kakao Music, Kakao Story, Kakao Album, Kakao Game, and many others. APIs are available only for Kakao Talk, in order to empower profile requests on other apps and websites. If you’re a Kakao user, for instance, you will be able to log into several different apps using the same credentials. LinkedIn can be described as world’s number-one social network for business users. It was established in 2003, and currently serves millions of users in more than 200 countries worldwide. The service aims to enable people to share contact details and establish important connections (a feature called Connections), manage record databases, and invite other users to join the platform. LinkedIn also offers API access to developers (RESTful), so that all contacts, jobs, relationships, companies, and interactions would be displayed by third-party providers. LinkedIn strives for simplicity, and thus allows you to read data in JSON and XML, at an aggregation and granularity level you’ve chosen. You will also get OAuth 1.0a in order to authorize users and make REST calls. In order to do so, however, you must be an authorized developer. MastodonMastodon is an open-source an absolutely free GNU server for social-compatible networks. You can also think of it as a decentralized and simplified alternative to expensive, commerce-first platforms, which nevertheless eliminates the risk of monopolized communication. Mastodon is so simple and hassle-free that it can be used even by non-professionals. PathPath reminds in many ways of Facebook and Twitter, but the main difference between them is that it makes networking and sharing absolutely private. You can share all types of files and information with selected members, and chat one-on-one. The platform’s API makes such functionality accessible from third-party apps and websites. Since there is no public data available, we invite interested developers to apply using the following link: https://path.com/developers/apply. In terms of authentication, Path implements an OAuth 2.0 layer with all open standards typical for 3-legged authorization. This gives all OAuth users the possibility to authorize their applications, and not disclose at the same time their usernames and passwords. Pinterest gives you RESTful APIs in order to integrate your favorite Pinterest Pin feature on other applications. Log in, and you will easily find all API info documented on their website. Once you’re done reading the terms and policies and you’ve agreed to them, you can choose and add a limited number of testers and collaborators to help developing your new app. Upon authentication, you will get direct access to the Pins, profiles, follows, and blogs. With the right object ID, you will also be able to retrieve old information, and fetch it in for authenticated and confirmed users. You will find this API easy to use, especially if using one of their clients’ SDKs (JavaScript, iOS, or Android). With Reddit’s API, users will be able to access all submitted and approved stories on other platforms and websites. Some advanced functionalities are also at stake, including detailed account and sub-reddit moderations. SnapchatSnapchat’s Partners service is used to establish a connection between advertisers and Snapchat’s user community. The primary goal is to make Snapchat advertising more engaging and creative, both during pre-campaign strategies and execution. TelegramTelegram is a platform designed for mobile messaging, famous by its highly encrypted delivery service that makes communication absolutely private. You can share messages, videos, and photos in private mode, and use the service’s open API to integrate such functionality to other application. Telegram will also provide access to advanced contact management features, among which checking phones, retrieving and sending messages, uploading videos, and more. TwitchTwitchTV is a service designed for video broadcasting and community chat. It supports a variety of interesting gamification options such as commentary, leagues, gaming players and personalities, tournaments, and more. Its APIs consist of JavaScript SDK and REST API, and secure instant access to all Twitch data (team info, channels, users, and more). Twitter offers two RESTful APIs as parts of its microblogging services. The first integration method is REST API used by developers to access key platform data, including statuses, user info, and timelines. The second type is Search APIs that help interact with Twitter Search and Twitter Trends. The supported data formats are JSON, XML, Atom syndication, and RSS, but you should remember that certain methods accept only specific combinations of those. TumblrTumblr APIs will help you read divers Tumblr data or write posts, which unlike those of regular blogs, won’t be displayed as newspaper columns. Tumblelogs are scrapbooks rather than journals, which as great as they may be, take too much time to format and prepare. Tumblr is far more suitable for long text posts which you can easily create, find, and share, attaching all sorts of documents, images, quotes, links, video, or audio that could be relevant for them. VimeoAnother one of these social media APIs comes from Vimeo. YouTube’s most serious competitor Vimeo offers open API used to upload, host, transcode, or play a variety of video files, and embed such on different websites and applications. You can also use them to enable community sharing, in particular for Vimeo Home’s filmmakers. The calls are RESTful, and the responses are JSON. VKVK may not be the most popular, but it is certainly the largest European social network that serves more than 100 million users at the moment. All members registered on the platform have a personal profile, and post statuses and images the way they do on Facebook and Twitter. The platform also enables chatting between members, and gives developers access to REST APIs in order to add or retrieve information. Sina WeiboSina Weibo is China’s most popular microblogging website, whose APIs give developers programmatic access to the CMS service. Using those, the user can both read and write any of the service’s aspect, including the blogs, users, tags, comments, topics, relations, and so on. The calls are RESTful ones, while responses in JSON. Training and installation info, however, is available only in Chinese. Whatsapp’s Chat APIs are called Daemon APIs, and use HTTP and websockets to let users distribute and receive messages from this platform to their personal applications. What the APIs do in the case is to collect sources from Whatsapp’s PHP-based Chat-API library, and let the two apps interact seamlessly even if they’re not written in the same language. WordPressWordPress.org collates and hosts all installable WordPress versions, including the open APIs which offer sets of calls exposing tools and informational assets. Among other resources, you will also get to use their intelligent stats and contributor information, as well as secret keys for theme and plugin access. UntappdUntappd is known by users as the ‘experience sharing’ mobile app, and accurate locator for friends and contacts. The platform’s API allow developers to access, organize, and present Untappd data to their consumers, currently in a read-only mode. All data must also be approved by Untappd’s team in advanced, and each user must log into the system in order to access it. For more details, contact [email protected]. YoutubeYoutube’s Data APIs make it possible to integrate any program, app, or website with the popular channel, and let users perform many of the operations they usually do when streaming content. For instance, the APIs will provide the very same capability to browse for videos, check related content, and even retrieve standard feeds. When authenticated as official users, they will also have the possibility to upload content, create and modify playlists, comment, and rate videos. The APIs are most useful for YouTube experience apps and platforms, as it gives developers programmatic access to all content and information that is available on YouTube. Responses are provided in XML. ZomatoZomato is the best known Indian guide on food, restaurants, and lifestyle. You will find its open API useful to let users access updated content directly from their app, and collect info such as restaurant listings, menus, discounts, galleries, location coordinates, reviews, and more. The APIs cover over 18,000 food and hospitality venues in India’s 10 largest cities, and rank those according to a variety of factors. With them, you can also make REST calls, and receive responses formatted in JSON and XML. If you enjoyed this article with social media APIs, you’ll like these too:
The post Social Media APIs That You Can Use appeared first on Design your way. from http://www.designyourway.net/blog/resources/social-media-apis/ If you were looking for a social media management software a decade ago, you wouldn’t have had many choices. However, things have changed in the past years. With the continuous growth of social media usage, where people are flooding them with experiences, recommendations and personal opinions, it is getting hard for a business to stay out of that marketing channel. They are simply losing customers every day that they aren’t present and using this marketing channel. Over half of the online adults (52% specifically) use two, or more than two social networks. Of all online adults 65 and older, roughly 56 percent use Facebook. More than half of the online young adults (53%), people ranging from 18 to 29, use Instagram. And, almost half of all Instagram users use it daily. It is increasingly hard to keep up with all those social media channels, and try to be presentable to all users. You also need a way to track how all of those channels and users impact your business. In the next three to five years, the interaction with customers over social networks is expected to skyrocket. You will need help to be able to manage everything, and nothing can help you better than some sort of social media management software. There are plenty of social media tools, and most of them are closely aligned with marketing automation platforms. These social media management tools will let you engage customers with greater care, monitor any conversations regarding your brand and scale your social media efforts as well. You will find such apps under various names, but some of the more common ones are “social media manager software”, or “social media marketing software (SMMS)”. This kind of software platform works best as an extension of your e-mail marketing efforts, social CRM and sales. As far as statistics are concerned, you will find the following benefits that have been noticed so far:
Social media management software to check outAs far as social media software goes, without further ado, here’s a look at the best social media management tools you can get today, to help you increase your marketing efforts, and, in turn, boost revenue. Sprout SocialWe begin this social media management apps list with Sprout Social. It is an excellent overall tool, as it lets you show both social content, as well as monitored keyword searches, all in one place. You will also find benefits in regards to social media management, with the excellent post scheduler and the fact that you can manage all your social messages with a mobile app, available both on Android and iOS. HootsuiteThe current leader in the field of social media management software. You will find everything included, from reports and monitoring, to publishing and features that let you work as a team. As a complete opposite to Sprout Social, Hootsuite has different streams for your social media accounts. This is more or less personal preference, as some like a unified stream or some want multiple streams for everything. AgorapulseThis is a multi-source toolkit. It lets you manage Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, and gives you plenty of functionality while at it. You get CRM, customizable reports, contest applications and monitoring. Everything is presented to you in real time, and in an inbox feature which resembles an e-mail service. Your past data, both fans and followers, as well as conversations, is stored as well. BufferThe first to introduce a queue publishing system for multiple social networks at once, Buffer are a pioneer in this game. With their system, which covers all social networks but Instagram, you can publish posts on a schedule without having to do it for every app separately. There’s also a free version of the software, which is potentially the best publishing system you could get at this point. SendibleWhether you’re in need of a Facebook marketing software, or software for any of the other 30+ networks available, Sendible has you covered. It lets you manage everything from messages, social content, profiles and accounts, engagement, promotion, and most importantly, monitoring and analytics. For agencies, there’s also a white label version. LithiumIf you’re after a tool that gives your brand the possibility to drive more engagement, and make your whole team more efficient, Lithium is one of the more powerful ones. It has a data-drive approach, which makes social marketing smarter and gives you a unified experience. It is one platform that can be used across various social channels, and give the customers a better experience as well. QwayaE-commerce companies, marketers and agencies should be taking a look at Qwaya. It is a Facebook advertising tool with a lot of options, some of which include campaign management, scheduling capabilities and Google analytics integration. Agency AnalyticsThis is an enterprise dashboard made to impress. It will save you a lot of time with the functions it offers, and you get some advanced SEO tools such as backlinks, audits and rank tracking. If you want everything to be even more complete, you can even integrate social media and PPC, as well as give your clients personal logins so they can see your campaign. TalkwalkerAnother one for the agencies and enterprises, Talkwalker will let you get insights to improve your marketing and understand social data easier. It boasts the latest analysis tools and software monitors, to let you have a complete overview on everything and get superior quality. The users also get the possibility of image recognition, data integration, global coverage etc.
HubSpotThis is a marketing system for businesses. It is an inbound Internet system which helps your business generate leads and lets people find it easier. Zoho SocialA single dashboard is all you need. If you agree, you should check out Zoho Social. It lets you manage your social networks, as well as track conversations and schedule posts on them, all from that single dashboard. Falcon.ioFalcon.io is another social media management software example that lets you manage your entire social media marketing campaign. Social media engagement, measuring data, publishing, you name it – Falcon has it. You can give your customers a more personalized experience, based on their customer profile. With the platform, you also get consultancy services, as well as their comprehensive support. Marketing 360Marketing 360 is a company that can help you a lot if you know how to take advantage of it. There are professional marketing services, as well as integrated software available, and organizations of all sizes can use it to their advantage. You get access to certified professionals, from developers and content writers, to marketing experts, and they’re all people who know what’s in today, and what’s not. There is a single software solution, but it comes with various modules that will let you optimize your marketing channels. You can use modules for SEO, for search engine result pages ads, etc. There are also some that let you display banner ads on websites, or control your reputation on the world wide web. DapulseAmong all the serious tools that you’ll see, Dapulse is actually one that is fun to use. You get a visual overview of where everything stands. Rather than having to-do lists, your entire team gets an opportunity to focus on the bigger picture. Dapulse focuses on solving the challenges that a regular person faces at work, and tries to make them more fun. There’s a 30 day trial if you want to try it out before you commit to it. MentionKnowing what people are saying about you online, and on social media, is very important, especially when you’re running a business. If you want to grow, you will need that user feedback, and Mention lets you monitor, no matter who’s talking. There is no better way of finding out what users want from you. Whether it is your own name or business you’re monitoring, or your competition, you will have real-time information on what people are saying. There is also the option for shared tasks and alerts, so you can easily collaborate with your team. Your dashboard lets you connect social accounts so you can respond immediately. Analyzing your performance is as easy as it gets, especially with the quick reports you can generate. MarketoAnother one in the list that tries to break the trend of boring and complex tools. Marketo is very easy to use, and gives you a complete platform that will help both small companies grow fast, and enterprises expand rapidly. Marketing processes are streamlined by the marketing automation software, and you will get much more win-ready leads, as well as more campaigns and improved sales performance. The technology is well proven, and many companies have used Magento to propel themselves and turn marketing from an expense, into a profit maker. Brand24Since many of the marketing platforms available end up costing quite a bit, Brand24 is in this list to break that trend. It is a cost-effective social monitoring software that lets you engage and analyze what people are saying about your brand, in real time. You can react to mentions instantly, and make sure that those potentially unsatisfied customers are taken care of before everything escalates. Most consumers do research before buying nowadays, and having Brand24 give you these leads can help you find where you can push your products and get more revenue. Act-OnIf you’re a marketer who strives to perform as good as possible in your career, you should be taking a look at Act-On. It is an integrated workspace, and the only one that takes care of the needs of the whole marketing department. You can use it to deliver personalized customer experiences and maximize the customer satisfaction. This was the last of the social media management software examples from this article. Ending thoughts on social media management softwareEven though you might initially think that the platforms that offer the most functionality are the way to go, you should definitely think twice. You should choose an app according to what you need, and what your organization needs. You should be aware that these tools are useless if you don’t spend some time in trying to learn them, so every one of them will undoubtedly have a learning curve. However, if you choose a simple one that gives you the functionality you need and expect, you can make sure that you will see a greater ROI from your social media campaigns. If you liked this article about social media management software, you should check out these as well:
The post Top Social Media Management Software And Tools appeared first on Design your way. from http://www.designyourway.net/blog/resources/top-social-media-management-software-tools/ Android VPN apps are the thing that everybody is looking for these days. Everybody as in everybody who uses an Android phone, of course. Why would you want a VPN app on your phone? For starters, if you want to secure your devices when you are using a public WiFi network. So, how does it work? Well, it acts as a shield for your devices. Think of it like a layer of protection that keeps your information safe from someone that’s reading the WiFi data. Another good use for them is that they can get you past certain firewalls and regional restrictions. Remember those notifications telling you that the content you want to see is unavailable in your country? A good VPN app isn’t that easy to find. I created a shortlist of 27 Android VPN apps that you can test and see which one is best for your needs. Android VPN apps to check outBetternetThe first of these Android VPN apps is Betternet. It is a free Android VPN app. Free apps can have issues. Betternet openly sustains itself by app recommendations. It’s a very simple app and works quite well, but you can’t manually change its virtual location. The free version has low speeds, but there is now a premium version available. This is a much improved version of Betternet, offering premium servers with the ability to choose from eight locations and better support. CyberGhostCyberghost offers banking-level security and is one of the Android VPN apps included in this article. It is extremely focused on privacy, maybe the best free VPN for Android in that regard, and does not access personal information. This free version provides 23 servers in 15 countries, while its premium version increases that number significantly, offering 300 servers in 23 countries. ExpressVPNThis app is consistently rated as the best VPN app for Android. It’s very fast and very secure, with a SSL-secured network with 256-bit encryption, as well as unlimited bandwidth and speed. It boasts servers in 78 countries in over 100 locations, so you can almost always have a good experience with ExpressVPN wherever you are. ExpressVPN has stealth servers in Hong Kong designed specifically to evade the GFW and make it look like you’re not even using a VPN. Fast Secure VPNFast Secure VPN has very self-explanatory interface which is a bit behind the times—of course, that means it is very easy to use. It offers the option to connect to assorted servers based on country, good for finding workarounds for regional restrictions. The free version has limits, and unlocking all of its features requires payment. The pay structure can be confusing. If you’re looking for a full-feature VPN, you might want to look for another, but it is really useful for getting around regional restrictions. FinchVPNLike many of the other VPN apps for Android discussed so far, FinchVPN offers a solid free version while the full features will require you to pay. The free version offers basic security protections and no data restriction, with a splash of Holo interface. If you’re looking for something more elaborate, you can get the pro version with 25GB of data, or the Premiere version with unlimited data and access to paid servers. Free or paid, FinchVPN is a solid option for an Android VPN. Flash VPN ProxyFlash VPN Proxy offers a pretty decent amount of bandwidth for smooth communication, which really stands out for a free VPN app. It provides an encrypted and secure VPN network to protect ingoing and outgoing data for all comers. Combined with the fact that there is no time limit to how long you can connect, it is a very solid VPN app. F-Secure Freedome VPNThis VPN app has a lot of features. Beyond typical VPN security features, it also has tracking, browsing, and connection protection. You can set it up so that apps can bypass VPN settings and even add in trusted WiFi networks. Much like anti-virus software, it will offer a report about malicious apps, tracking attempts, and harmful sites. You can choose from over 15 virtual locations, including but not limited to the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Belgium, and Hong Kong. Freedome has a 14 day free trial. After that point, you’ll have to pay to use it. Hideman VPNThe Hideman VPN is built around one feature: it secures the transmitted data as much as it can with a 256-bit encryption key. By doing this, it scrambles the original data too much for anyone monitoring the data to understand it without the key. Hideman VPN offers five hours of use per week for free. Premium hours can be bought or earned through in-app ad networks. Hideninja Supernet VPNHideninja Supernet VPN is a very well-known and popular Android VPN app, and is another that is considered by many to be the best VPN for Android. The free version offers a limited number of servers, however, they all have unlimited bandwidth. The Pro version offers all of the app’s features. This app has an interface based on Holo for a pleasant experience, but remember that the ads are meant to be annoying (so you’ll notice them). If you can deal with that, Hideninja Supernet is a very good VPN. Hola Free VPNHola Free is, as you might guess, entirely free. It does what you’d expect from a VPN, securing data and going around regional blocks, but also does what it can to speed up your browsing by connecting to the fastest and nearest servers from a selection that spans over 190 countries. Hotspot Shield VPN ProxyHotSpot Shield is extremely popular, with roughly 330 million downloads worldwide. It is a very secure VPN, offering banking-level HTTPS encryption so outgoing data is safe from anyone looking to get your information. OpenVPN ConnectThis app is completely free. It’s an OpenSource VPN app and requires a bit more technical know-how to use than most. Among other things, it can import .ovpn profiles. It uses PolarSSL and so is not affected by the Heartbleed issue that occurred several months ago. This is an app for anyone who would like to start learning all the details of how VPNs work. You will have to create and set up an Open VPN server for yourself if you want to use it. PsiphonPsiphon is very a customizable VPN for Android. You can decide if it should tunnel everything or if it should just stick to the web browser. PureVPNPureVPN has a lot to offer. It has over 500 servers across 101 countries, a self-managed network, 256-bit encryption, 24/7 support, and a zero logging policy for what you do online. It can also support five connections on different devices at the same time. It is a very user friendly app. Browse based on your country and tap to join server, or just pick the fastest server. You can set a purpose for your online activity, such as streaming movies, sharing files, or looking for anonymity and security. The app says it has servers identified for each of these activities, though exactly how that affects anything is unclear. When you sign up, you get 2GB of free data, amounting to a free trial. Anything more needs to be paid. The current subscription fees are $11 a month; $54 for six months; and $72 for two years. These prices are a promotion at the time of this writing. SecureLine VPNSecureLine is a VPN developed by Avast, the company behind the excellent and famous anti-virus software. It uses the private VPN Tunnel SecureLine, which encrypts data using IPsec protocol. This makes it hard for anyone to grab the data on public WiFi networks. This is a very user friendly app. Speed VPNSpeed VPN has servers in many, many different places. Every session lasts an hour and you can reconnect again by just clicking reconnect. Speed VPN is designed to get around geographic restrictions for web browsing and low-res video viewing. Spotflux VPNSpotflux is a good choice for both securing data and making the most of your data plan. It provides two levels of protection while reducing the use of bandwidth by compressing data and file size. This is a good choice for web-surfing on your phone in areas where you are concerned about security. Super VPNSuper VPN encrypts data to keep it safe without requiring registration or special device settings configurations. It keeps data free of tracking and protects your privacy. It is very user friendly, requiring only a single click to secure your data and allow you to surf the web anonymously. It is very user friendly, requiring only a single click to secure your data and allow you to surf the web anonymously. SupernetAll you need to do to connect using this app is click the shield-shaped button, select your location, and you’re secure. Supernet’s virtual locations include the Netherlands, UK, US, Germany, France, and Russia. It is a free app, with all the constraints and issues that entails. It isn’t very fast. Ads and app recommendations can be frequent and annoying. These are what you ‘pay’ for a totally free Android VPN app, however, and you can have the ads removed for a week if you can get a friend to install Supernet as a part of the app’s referral system. SurfEasySurfEasy is owned by Opera and is a good app with a lot of unique features. Virtual locations include the UK, Spain, US, Netherlands, Germany, and Australia, to name a few. Unique to SurfEasy is a WiFi security option you can use to connect or disconnect right from your device’s homescreen. SurfEasy offers 500MB free. More data can be earned for free by rating it on the Play Store, inviting friends, or just confirming your email address. There’s also an option to buy a premium version, with unlimited data, in an all-devices or mobile plan. TunnelBearTunnelBear has a lot of selling points, including their cute little bear mascot. As you’d expect from that, it’s very user friendly and is, of course, a great VPN app. Virtual locations include—among others— France, Sweden, UK, US, Norway, and Spain. TunnelBear users get 500 MB of free data a month. Tweeting about TunnelBear will net you can extra 1GB. TygerpnsTygerpns is another app that focuses on getting users on the web as simply and quickly as possible with just one click. However, their pricing is slightly prohibitive and does not follow along with that design philosophy. Your first 500 MB are free every month, with a pretty long list of virtual locations, especially considering that this is just the free version. It is very intuitive and simple to use if you’d just like to download it and hop on the net. If you do decide to pay for Tygerpns, your data options increase in proportion to your fees. VPN MasterVPN Master is a very highly rated app on the Play Store. Its available virtual locations include Canada, France, UK, Singapore, US, and Japan. It includes speed monitoring tool so you can check to see if your current server is working well enough. VPN Master offers 500 MB of free data (this is a very common feature), but also offers the premium VIP version. You can pay for this, but you can also get a few days of VIP service by installing recommended apps. The VIP version offers better, faster servers, as well as unlimited data and the removal of ads. VPN Proxy Unlimited (Unblock)This app is also known as TouchVPN. Virtual locations include Japan, Russia, Germany, Denmark, France, UK, and the US. It also has a notification feature for connections to unsecured WiFi, a pause VPN feature for when your device goes into sleep mode, and a few themes for customization. It more than earns its place among the best VPN apps for Android. As always with free VPN apps, you might have issues with speed and bandwidth. VPN UnlimitedVPN Unlimited has opted to be one of the most secure VPNs with a stealth mode utilizing TCP 443 port. It has a lot of diverse virtual locations, including the US, Canada, UK, Brazil, Australia, Chile, and Spain. VPN Unlimited’s free trail runs 10 days and can be extending by referring friends. From there, you pay, though as the name suggests, speed and bandwidth is unlimited. VyprVPNVyprVPN is among the most reliable and fastest VPNs you can find. The company behind the app, Golden Frog, is known for its reliable security and privacy service. They own and run their own networks and won’t share your data with anyone. All logs of connection times, bytes, and IP addresses are only kept for 30 days. VyprVPN has 50 server locations worldwide. It uses a propriety technology called Chameleon to mask your VPN use wherever you are. 256-bit encryption is also supported. Beyond all these features, it is also a very user-friendly. Tap to connect to a server and choose the fastest or browse a country list. Info about your connection is easy to find, including speed graphs and connection logs. This app can also be configured to connect the way you want, like in instances when you join an untrusted connection over public WiFi. ZPN ConnectThe free version of ZPN Connect offers 3GB a month, better than many free accounts. If you chose to pay, it uses the tiered price structure you see in most data plans. It costs $3.99 for 50 GB a month with one user; $5.99 for 150 GB and two users; and $6.999 per month and three users. It has a very simple interface and does what VPN needs to do, with OpenVPN support and no traffic logging. ConclusionThere a lot of options for Android VPN apps out there. Our basic overview provides a starting point, but be sure to check out the most recent Play Store reviews to see how the newest updates are working, or if some of the paid apps are having specials. If you liked this article with Android VPN apps, you should check out these as well:
The post Android VPN Apps To Download (27 Great Examples) appeared first on Design your way. from http://www.designyourway.net/blog/tech/best-android-vpn-apps-download/ |
AuthorPleasure to introduce myself I am Jamie 27 years old living in Searcy, AR. I am web developer and have developed over 50 sites for clients. Now a days I am focused on designing as I feel I am lacking it. Archives
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