Friday 22 July 2016

Top 5 CMS tools for web development

Nowadays to get a competitive edge, building a business website is mandatory and to do that, you need a Custom Content Management System(CMS). The term CMS is nothing new to you, however, with a number of new platforms emerging every year, sometimes it becomes hard to make a decision while choosing your perfect  web development tool.
 

Whether you need to set up a blog, a portal for  maintaining web presence, an attractive eCommerce website or anything else to enhance your online presence, there is a CMS for your specific needs. The decision to choose the perfect CMS depends on your requirement. Therefore, you have to decide the purpose of your website at the first place (I hope you have already done that).

Now, let us discuss about the top 5 CMS platforms available in market and what are they offering differently in their latest updated versions:

WordPress: 


WordPress is an online, open source website development and management tool based on PHP. However, in non-geek speak, it’s probably the easiest and most powerful blogging and website content management system with 59% market share altogether.

WordPress 4.5 latest features for web development:

 
Version 4.5 of WordPress, named “Coleman” has few improved and newly added properties to offer such as:
1) Inline Linking, Formatting Shortcuts and Custom Logos.
2) Smart Image Re-sizing, Selective Refresh, Better Embed Templates.
3) JavaScript Library Updates.

If you are looking for a website for blogging, product showcasing or e-commerce purpose  with high quality, good support and security at the same time then WordPress can be your perfect choice.

Magento:

 
Magento is an e-commerce platform built on open source technology that provides online merchants with a flexible shopping cart system. Magento offers powerful marketing, search engine optimization, and catalog-management tools. Specifically made for e-commerce stores. Magento has a 9.69% overall market share.


Magento 2.1 latest features for web development:


As Magento is more and more inclined towards e-commerce the updates also focus on the same vertical-
1) PayPal enhancements include PayPal in-context checkout and saved credit/debit cards.
2) Braintree enhancements enable merchants to qualify for the easiest set of PCI compliance.
3) Improved management interfaces make Magento faster and easier to search for information.

If you want to make an e-store with advanced payment systems and faster loading properties Magento 2.1 can be a good option.

Drupal:


Drupal is a ready to use CMS software written in the PHP programming language. The software supports content management, newsletters, collaborative authoring, pod-casts, image galleries, file uploads/downloads, peer-to-peer networking, and more.
  

Drupal 8.1 latest features for web development: 


1) With new version, developers can put configuration under version control, track changes and update a production site cleanly
2) Developers can also expose data as XML and JSON, and take advantage of advance  web services
3) Now developers can use several “best of breed” libraries like PHPUnit, Composer, Zend Feed Component, Guzzle and others.

If you are searching for an easier to build, support, use and migrate website the Drupal 8.1 can be a perfect web development tool for you in a low investment.


Joomla: 


Joomla is designed to be easy to install and set up even if you’re not an advanced user. Not many Web hosting services offer a single-click install, getting your new site up and running in just a few minutes.

Since Joomla is so easy to use for Web developer or designer, your web developer can quickly build sites. Also Joomla makes it easier to manage the website further.


Joomla 3.5 latest features for web development: 


1) TinyMCE Drag & Drop Images: a user-friendly way to add images directly to articles.
2) Insert Modules into Articles: a new button has been added to the toolbar to get easy access to the modules.
3) Count items: Joomla 3.5 includes multiple counters in the category view for your articles, contacts, banners, and news feeds, making it easier to keep track of items.

If you are prone to develop a well optimized website that is content filled and complicated then Joomla can be your perfect web development tool at the first place.


Microsoft DNN:


DNN Platform is an open source software that is intended to allow management of websites without technical knowledge, and to be extensible through a large number of third-party applications to provide functionality not included in the DNN core modules.


DNN 8.0.3 latest features for web development:

 
1) .Net 4.5.1 or higher version is required.
2) Removed modules like Feed browser, Widget framework. Getting Started and Contact list.
3) Removed support for internet explorer.

As this is a .Net based platform, it is mostly suitable for Microsoft supported tools. Other than that, DNN can be a great tool for web development.

As you can see, determining which CMS platform is the best fit for you individual web development requires consideration of a number of criteria, and each platform has its own benefits and drawbacks. If you’re looking for a good reason to choose a particular CMS platform over another, then you can shortlist any one from above as per your requirement and install them for a demo.

Looking for an agile software team for web development? ValueCoders, one of the leading Offshore Android App Programmers Companies in India, provides remote web developers who make secure, optimized and quality web applications with the following advantages.
  1. Zero billing guarantee
  2. Pro-level Teams
  3. Guaranteed SLAs
  4. Flexible Hiring Models




Friday 15 July 2016

Why Should You Start Playing Pokémon Go From Today Only


It’s only the last Wednesday (6th July) when Pokémon Go was released and it is ruling the Android and iOS app stores monstrously. It has already broken many records including more downloads than Tinder in just 2 days after release. Not only the download, but the engagement is also remarkable. More than 60% of the downloaders are using it daily.



This game is released only in three countries till date- United States, New Zealand and Australia. You can get an idea what amount of madness it has created among masses in this photo-


So, what’s the reason this game is able to gain immense popularity in such a short time span? Moreover, how their strategies can help you to develop an app that makes your audience go mad? Here, I have explained the major five reasons why Pokémon Go left the other gaming apps way behind.

1) Large Number of existing fans:
 
The appeal of Pokemon is pretty much a generational thing. If someone didn’t grow up with Pokemon, that means he is more than 35 years old roughly. Since past three decades, 1000+ Pokemon episodes, 19 movies, and many special activities have been done. There is hardly anyone in this generation who hasn’t heard about this Japanese cartoon.

2) It’s the first ever Pokemon Game:
 
It’s the first ever Pokemon game for Smart phones. Nintendo, the maker company, has always been resistant developing its games available on mobile phones, instead preferring to promote its hardware. However, this time they have come up with something that is accessible to everybody and the fans are reliving the Pokemon fantasy once again.

3) “Primarily” it’s free:

The game is available free on Android and iOS app stores and can be enjoyed without spending a penny. A series that is already famous, releasing its first ever game that too free of cost. Isn’t it a great deal? Yes it is. Fans are downloading this game without giving a second thought. However, gamers can spend real money to buy PokeCoins to get access to more game items.

4) Augmented Reality, the new technological sensation:
 
Augmented Reality(AR), as we all know, makes an application more engaging to the users. And this is exactly what is making Pokémon Go so much interesting. Pokémon Go is an AR based game that tends the gamer to find Pokemon in the real world. This AR effect is so strong that people are finding Pokemon under office desk or even in the washroom.

5) Social Media integration of Pokémon Go :
As Pokémon Go involves real world inside the game, people are sharing medias on the social networking platforms frequently. Images with pocket monsters found in their houses, schools, parking lot are being posted all over. Thereafter, everyone realized it would be amazing to take funny photos of their friends with Pokemon and post them on social media. This helped the game to go viral on Social medias.

Hence, now you know what’s making Pokémon Go viral. You can also develop a game or an app that follows this kind of strategies that engages audiences instantly and pushes them to share on social medias.

Already have an amazing idea of developing a gaming or business app? ValueCoders offers Agile software teams for Android application development as well as iOS application development. We are an Indian IT outsourcing company for web and mobile development projects with following benefits:
  1. Zero billing guarantee
  2. Pro-level Teams
  3. Guaranteed SLAs
  4. Flexible Hiring Models


Wednesday 6 July 2016

11 Mind Boggling Facts and Stats About WordPress




If there is a singular platform that has swept the floor for any web developer, blogger or   web designer it has to be WordPress. WordPress has completely changed the definition of website designing, web developing, blogging etc. Today developers and designers alike rely on WordPress for all their creative needs.

One the other hand, most of us came to know about WordPress while reading a blog or web-site content. Some of us are actively using back-end of WordPress supported websites.   Few are planning to launch their websites on WordPress. Whichever category you fit in,  the latest facts and stats that I am about to discuss are going to boggle your mind-

1. 26.4% total market share: Right now, among all the websites that exist on the web, 26.4% of them are built on WordPress. The number is pretty huge which is           approximately 17,289,521.

2. 59.6% CMS market Share: Yes, that’s true. 44.4% of the total number of websites   use a CMS to manage their websites. Out of 121 CMS that we know of, WordPress is   leading the CMS market leaving Joomla and Magento way behind with 59.6% market  share.


3. Market share by 2020: With the immense growth seen in past 13 years, it is  predicted that WordPress will acquire an overall market share of 35% by 2019 end of  the year.


4. Popular Businesses using WordPress: You may know that The New Worker, BBC America, Sony Music, Tech Crunch and Forbes websites are built on WordPress.  However, you may not know Harvard, eBay, Samsung, MTV News and Mercedes Benzare  also using the same platform.

5. World Ranking in top 50: With 409 million unique visitors monthly, wordpress.com is worlds one of the top 50 websites. The current ranking is 41st globally and 48th in  United States.

6. 35 new websites per minute: As reported, there are almost 50,000 websites newly built on WordPress every day. That makes it 35 websites/minute on an average.

7. Languages used: There are 120 languages used in WordPress Blogs. Out of them,  71% are written in English. Surprisingly, Spanish ranks 2nd with 4.7%.

8. Top Blogs: 8 of the top 100 blogs posted on the web is on WordPress.com. With more  than 2 billion blogs every day produced everyday, its a remarkable achievement.

9. WordPress 4 rules all: WordPress version 4 is used by 52.0% of all the websites  whose CMS we know. This is 23.1% of all websites that exist overall.

10. WooCommerce in eCommerce: WooCommerce covers 37% of the total market  share among the eCommerce CMS supported websites with 1,095,000 participants.  The only closest competitor is Magento with 15% share.



11. Less than 500 employees: The parent company of WordPress.com is  Automattic.com has a total 476 employees all over. Imagine a company like WordPress which has  more unique visitors than Amazon, has such less number of employees.

In this digital era, this CMS platform has achieved recognition world wide in such a short  span of time and nothing is stopping it 3 years down the line. Hence, if you are one of them  who is searching for WordPress coders to hire, its time to outsource WordPress developers  for your new business or eCommerce website.

ValueCoders, a WordPress development company, offers Agile WordPress developer  teams with following benefits-

  • Flexible Hiring Models
  • Pro-level Teams
  • Guaranteed SLAs
  • Zero billing guarantee

Sources:

1) elegantthemes.com
2) Builtwith.com
3) w3techs.com
4) Expandedramblings.com
5) Winningwp.com
6) Mercedez-benz.com
7) Generatewp.com