Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and web development
A closer lookMinimum Viable Product is simply a strategy in which a product is introduced to market as soon as possible and then the additional features are built while learning from customer feedback. Typically this means that a roadmap of features is drawn and features are released one by one, but in extreme cases, products aren’t even fully functional until a presale has been made.
While certainly not ideal for many products, MVP is a strategy that works well in web development as it is very easy to release updates and gather feedback. Invariable customers will have opinions and perspectives that differ from your own and getting feedback early will allow for adaptation without significant extra expense.
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What is Structured Data? (Or Schema.org, metadata, and Open Graph)
A closer lookThe last time you played a song in your car and the title showed up on the radio screen, you saw metadata in action—information that is hidden behind the scenes to provide additional detail about a file or system. Websites have metadata to provide information about the company, content type, publishing date, and more.
Structured Data, commonly ‘Schema.org’ is a collaboration between Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Yandex to provide a consistent format for websites. Using this clear format allows search engines to correctly categorize websites and interpret content.
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Google Trends - The Universally Helpful Tool
A closer lookDo you know what your audience is doing? Spotting attention, knowing where people are focused, being in touch with current trends is important and yet so easily overlooked and misinterpreted. Without some general knowledge of where interest falls, we are flying blind and simply hoping for the best. Most online businesses use the traffic stats of their own website to gain insight into what people want and where they lose interest, but in the best case of a large company this is working within the bubble of a small data set, and when launching a new company or product this simply isn’t an option.
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Why it is a good idea to plan and build (web) software in stages
A closer lookIt is natural to approach a new project with the finish line in your sights, and in our experience that always leads to wasted money and time. We always recommend a modular build strategy where features are split into different development phases. Why? Let’s take a look at the top 4 modular strategy advantages.
Unforeseen options. During the design process it is inevitable that there will be changes in features, specifications, and even sometimes products themselves—it is difficult to anticipate every possible outcome and useful to be able to change gears without undoing hours of project management and product scope.
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Yes, you’re being watched. Mouse tracking and more.
A closer lookMost people know that website visits are logged and things like locations and IP addresses are stored in logs somewhere in a dusty corner of the internet. The fact of the matter is that this is just the surface of a complex and fascinating world of web traffic analysis.
Details about the device you are using are logged, including: your operating system, browser, browser plugins, CPU, GPU, and battery levels. But it gets even more interesting from there because systems are now collecting an excellent log of human behavior.
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Email phishing: why clicking links is a bad idea
A closer lookEveryone knows you have to be careful with links sent via email, but most people don’t know exactly why. Let’s take a closer look.
First, it’s important to know that it is still relatively easy to make an email appear to come from someone else. This is called spoofing, and allows unscrupulous people to send an email that appears to come from your bank, your credit card, your web host, or anywhere else.
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Email tracking - How it works and why it isn’t always reliable
A closer lookEmail tracking, or sometimes called pixel tracking, is a way to determine if someone has read an email after you have sent it. Once sent, an email is delivered to servers which you have no access to, making it difficult to determine when it is opened. There’s a solution though: using remote content, usually a small 1px by 1px transparent image. These images are tiny and clear so they don’t get in the way.
But what good does a tiny invisible image do? The answer is beautifully simple. It acts as a link back to a server to which you have access. When email newsletters are sent, an image with a unique ID is added to each individual email. Example: The email sent to Zakk may have an ID of 1234. Now whenever the server gets a request for image 1234, we can tell that Zakk has opened his email.
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What is an API? (And why is it needed?)
A closer lookAn API, or Application Programming Interface, is an interface to a software system designed to allow access from another system. In other words, a computer talking to a computer. A great human analogy would be you as a Point Of Sale software system, and a county records office as Quickbooks. If you go looking for a record of something the clerk at the front desk will ask who you are and why you need it. The clerk here is similar to an API, and the inquiry about who you are would be authentication. Once this step is passed successfully a request is made and the records clerk (API) would then find your file and bring it back to you. Note how you never access the complete file system, but instead ask the clerk to retrieve or store the information for you. They are the interface to a much larger system and all information passes through them with strict rules.
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Five tips for hiring the right web developer
A closer lookHiring the right developer can make a significant impact on business growth, system efficiency, and even team morale. Tech is at the heart of modern business and if systems break down things fall off the rails all too quickly.
So, how do you know who to hire? You’re almost certainly not a developer yourself, so assessing skills can be a challenge. And even then, there is a wide variety of developer mentalities and as developers ourselves, we can say that we’re kind of a strange lot. So with that in mind here are five tips for hiring the right developer.
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