Is it Safe to use my credit card on any website !?

This is always a question that users have when they want to buy a product on an e-commerce website, the doubt is for a simple reason of loosing money due to Multiple Credit-Card Frauds.


What should an end user do ?

As an end user of the website you can be careful of a few things which will make your online transactions safe.

When you are redirected to the Payment page, make sure that the payment page is an interface of the Payment gateway or in other words you are redirected to a secure payment gateway to make payment (be it of Visa or Master-card or Paypal or of any other credit card).  These payment gateways are PCI compliant and never pass on your credit card information to these website databases besides storing your card information in encrypted form.

So, it would minimize the risk of database being hacked and the information of your credit card stolen, or website owners cheating their end customers.

Also, you can avail the 3D verification or OTP option offered by your credit card companies to authorize any payment done online via your credit card.

What you need to be careful of ?

The  websites which make you enter your card information on their own website and store it in their own database, making you susceptible to online credit-card scam.

Let us know if you have any questions for us.


Cheers !
Technologies33 Team

How to earn money via Internet !?

Everyone wants to earn money. We have access to internet and somehow want to monetize the time we spend on internet, besides wasting a huge amount of time on Facebook and WhatsApp.

Though it is important and a part of global culture to have a Social Network Profile these days. However, most of us do not really monetize or earn anything out of it for the time that we spend on these platforms.

Technologies33 thought to list a few ways in which Internet in general could be a boon for you.

Street smart way to earn:

Lets start with a street smart way to earn some quick money. Everyday we have a hot discussion in the global arena. There is some piece of news which is trending regionally and globally.
The best we can do is to buy a domain which reflects information about that piece of news. And create a small website with all copy paste content from other websites with content on the same news. (I know its not morally correct, which is why I called it a street smart way)
This would mean a huge possibility that your website would get listed on Page 1 or Page 2 on Google Search for that piece of searched news.
But how did you earn money from it ?
Well, you need to have placed Google Ads on this website and place it strategically on the page so that it gets clicked often and you earn money from it.

An example of it is Horoscope website.

Check a few websites and you would realize that text on all of them is mostly the same. In fact an exact same content on various websites is also seen at times.

Also,  such websites would always have ads on them which help them earn money from it.

Monetize Instagram Account:

How to earn money from Instagram: A possible way to earn money from Instagram is to be a regular user of the application with some regular likes and a good number of followers.
If you maintain a theme based account (not really a personal account) with posts about just your city or technology or gadgets or latest fashion trends or cools apps pics, then there is a high possibility that some small company or some new users of Instagram would contact you for a shoutout and you can always charge for it.
That is what is rumored, some international models charge millions of dollars for some accessory or fashion brand like Gigi Hadid or Kim Kardashian.


Facebook Helps too:

How to earn money from Facebook: Well, there is no direct monetization from Facebook (at least we are not aware of one and not really big fans of Facebook) however, Facebook is a great medium to promote your service or Business.
It becomes necessary to have a Facebook Profile because people would search for your product or service or Business on google and due to high page rank of Facebook, your business profile page on Facebook would get listed on the first page, else you might miss visibility.


Get your own Mobile Applications Done:

Try to get services of some mobile application developers to get some small applications coded in your name, it could be some small games, or trivia applications or knowledge/textual application or any small application. And if it clicks you have a huge chance of making some big money.
You can always take the example of "Yo" Application. When it was launched it would just be able to send a Yo to the contacts in the phone book. It became a viral application and got millions of Dollar in venture funding.
You can also get Ad networks integrated on the application which pay the app owners for ever click of the ad on the application.
Also, in-app purchases can be integrated on the application for which Apple charges you 30% of all sales done on Application, so does Google.

Hope you liked a few ways we have described. More possible ways would be described later.


Cheers !
Technologies33 Team

How to choose the best UI Design Company/Partner !?

An important step to realizing a good and a successful product is the User Interface or popularly known as UI of the Product/System.

Sometimes the most feature rich systems are not as successful as their user-friendly counterparts which is the reason platform like "Whatspp" has been more successful than "We Chat"- a platform that existed before whatsapp was coded and ended copying whatsapp User Interface.

With a constant increase in the number of internet users on mobile (which is expected to be 63.4 % globally by the year 2017), it is very important to have a design or User Interface which is user friendly for a Mobile User and looks perfect on a iPad or a Macbook or a Desktop too.

The need of a user interface which looks perfect on all device sizes throws another important question at every site/product owner - How should you choose the best designer to trust with the User Interface ?
Should you spend a fortune approaching a big company to trust their design sense or can you trust a startup company with a handful people ?
What is the best design for your product ?
How much should you spend on Graphic design or an improvised User Interface ?

While the need for an impressive User Interface is really important however, it is not as difficult to choose the right User Interface person to work on improvising the current system or designing a new one, should you consider a few parameters.

- Graphical Design is really subjective, and the same graphic might look good to one and might look horrendous to another user.
However a few things can always be taken care of: The current design trend is of big and bright flat colors, big fonts, grid layout, The design should look perfect on various size of devices from a mobile phone to a large screen of a desktop. Hence, the design should be in correspondence to the latest design trends of Web 2.0

Also, there are a few guidelines that can help you choose the right color
URL: https://goo.gl/3YaDe7
URL: https://goo.gl/NfyP1X

- Progressive involvement of the client with the designer during all stages of design is really important, as sometimes the designers do tend to misunderstand or overlook a minor but an important detail of the product/system being designed.

Never wait for the final product to be ready to test instead be progressively involved during every stage of theme finalization and try and test every created module or design.

Make sure that you have seen the previous work of the designer who is assigned the work of working new designs for your product.

- A mistake that a lot of people tend to make is when they form an opinion in their head, if designs are coming from a big company who are using a lot of fancy tools and terminology to describe a simple work then it must be good, which is not correct as even big companies go wrong with their final design.

- A very important thing to understand as the owner of the system being developed/improvised is that the User Interface person should ask you enough questions to understand the product.
The design should not just be graphically appealing, it should also create the kind of brand that you want to be created amongst your current and potential users.

- As a client and the owner of the system if you take continued interest in the design or conceptualization of the system you can always end up with quality work working with small companies while spending a whole less amount than you would hiring a big name to get your work designed.

- Another psychological point that can be of help is smaller companies are always looking to make a good portfolio and give all the care and attention to the work at hand.

Hope you liked our perception, do let us know if you want any help from us.

Wish all the readers a Happy New Year!! :)

"Free Basics by Facebook"- Interpretation by Technologies33

Facebook is vehemently advertising for Free Basics over the internet over the past few days. Also, we saw their one page advertisement in newspapers for 2 consecutive days.

What do they say : (The Gist) They will connect millions of people with a smartphone but no money to pay for data services with the internet. And increase connectivity giving a chance to people to access jobs and other services.

How does it sound !?

It sounds like a good idea, and Facebook is thinking so much about the poor people and how they can contribute to the society at large.

It did sound like a great idea to us as well when we read the advertisement by Facebook.

But I also read a few valid questions raised by the people who oppose it.

• If people have the money to buy a smartphone but no money to pay for data usage (though I don’t agree of such a condition), will they want to ever look beyond the free service by Facebook?

• How much of internet would they be able to access ? I mean sites like Facebook and the others which Facebook agree to give access to the people via their service?

• Who gives the right to Facebook to decide on the pattern in which people will start using internet specially as a first time user?

• If Facebook teams up with some big technology giants or big websites and reaches to people without them to have to pay for internet, then why would people want to pay for data usage and check content of small startups ? Who will be at loss in this case ?

• Would it not  be a complete ecosystem that Facebook would be operating eventually ? And accessing a bigger market (of paid and unpaid data usage users ) and just driving out any possible future competition ?

• Would it not be a loss of startup culture in any country affected by such free basics program ?

• Would any startup not have to accept the Supremeness of Facebook and comply to their terms and condition should they wish to reach a bigger market ?

• Would Facebook not be controlling and accessing the usage pattern of an all the more bigger number of internet users ?

• Does it not sound like a situation where they do not want to lose a big market like China to a regional Social Networking Player like Weibo and they do not want another Weibo to happen in a country like India ?

• Who is paying for the Data Usage in this Free Basics Program ? If it’s actually the Telecom Companies, like in this case its Reliance Gio then how would they benefit eventually?

• If it’s actually for the benefit of the people, can’t the telecom companies allow free internet access of a few MB(data) to users and let them choose how they wish to use it ?

• Not many of you would be aware but Facebook has already done beta testing of showing all possible service providers in your area using their website.

         Link : https://www.facebook.com/services

         This kind of a service when coupled with Free Basics would completely drive out   

         any possible competition for the market.

         Then is it not using Money Power to kill any possible innovation?

Technologies33 believes: It’s more of a vociferous attempt by Facebook to capture a huge market of users by giving them internet for free and kill any possible competition threat, which is why you would see it being promoted only on Facebook or on Reliance Gio Sites or some one pager ads in the newspaper.

They want the numbers to show TRAI of how much people support their Program. They have done all analysis to reach the right people who would not use a lot of brains and support them.

They have even advertised to support to people outside the concerned country as well. but why? They seem to need numbers by hook or by crook.

The people who would understand this strategy is us, who are regular users of internet and now its up to us to choose the future we want for us and the small technology companies like Technologies33.

Support Net Neutrality : Send in an Email on advisorfea1@trai.gov.in

Supporting Net Neutrality and Turn Down Free Basics of Facebook.

Save the Internet !

Let us know if you have any feedbacks for us.

Mobile Responsive Site or Mobile Application !?

Actually Both !

It would always be good to have both to cater to both kind of users, who search for mobile apps and the others who have been using or accessing your website and search for the same on mobiles/tablets too.

Incase you have to choose between the two for some reason then a few things should be taken into consideration.

If you already have a web presence, then you need to use some kind of analytic tools (maybe start with Google Analytics) and constantly monitor the number of returning users and new users, along with total website traffic.  If you have a good number of users then  a mobile responsive website as a first step is the only logical thing to do.

Likewise, if you have spend money on Online Advertising or SEO then a responsive site would be a good decision and mobile application can be taken up as a second thing.

However, if the plan is to launch a new system and you need to decide between a mobile application or a mobile responsive website then a lot would depend on what kind of system do you plan to have in place, If it sells something like a product or a service then a mobile app would be a better choice. However if its just an informational system then maybe some good blogging and a website can be a better step.

Though we always have good reasons to start with a web system in certain cases however the importance of mobile application can never be over looked and we have already mentioned quite a few things for the same in our earlier blog.

Hope you liked it.

Why businesses need a mobile Application

A question that all of us ask all the time is

A point of discussion doing the rounds has been if you need a mobile application or a web presence (a web portal or website) is sufficient !?

The answer is simple that mobile application is needed besides a web presence for all businesses and starters. But a very important question is that why has mobile presence become so important.

1. The first obvious reason is the huge number of mobile internet users across the globe which has fueled demand for mobile presence.

2. Recent studies have found that mobile internet users tend to search using keywords on Android PlayStore, Apple Store than on web browsers, hence mobile applications would always be needed.

3. With some users, we found that they end up using an application just once but the search was on app store than on a browser.

4. With Push Notifications, you are able to reach out to your users with anything important to you as a brand or anything important to your app users. Hence, a chance to bind with your consumers/users/audiences.

5. The importance of mobile applications can be gauged from the way e-commerce companies are pushing their users to download their apps and giving app only discounts. Global brands like amazon or regional players like Flipkart understand it. They understand the numbers that they would be able to increase their sales with a mobile application.

6. Mobile Applications are like Call to Action buttons for businesses looking to make online sales, without one the sales would be less than the competitors who have a mobile application.

7.  The chance to earn with huge downloads is comparatively more than unique visitors or traffic on your website as Google Admob pays more than Google Adword, also Advertising SDKs like Flurry and imob and chartboost place their ads strategically and you end up ads being clicked a lot of times and earning you some good money.

8. With Google being a dominant and the only player with a major market pie in search engines, website and web portal owners have to spend and pay a huge amount for SEO and takes a lot of time to time and effort and marketing and SEO to get user attention, but chances of success would be comparatively less than with mobile apps. App Store Optimization and is not shrewdly managed. It is very new and today all applications have a good and an equal chance of becoming a success.

9. You can also watch out for our next article on what could be the best ways to market and advertise your idea to increase you chances of a success mobile application.

Hope it helped. 

Proprietary Solution or Open Source !?

Proprietary Solution or Open Source is a question that has been long debated and still haunts a lot of companies and individuals. Its a difficult choice to make, specially to choose technology solution for the first time and update a legacy systems to an advanced automated system.

Just in case you wish to know what Proprietary and Open Source Solutions are:

Proprietary Solutions are the ones developed by one company and they sell these solutions to end users and charge for it and no other company has right to modify it like iOS(Apple) and Windows (Microsoft) and Photoshop (Adobe)

Open Source Solutions are the ones for which the original code is developed by one company and has given the right to other companies and individuals to modify and customize it like Android and Linux and Firefox

A lot of people think that Open Source is a better Solution as no single company has a monopoly to it but such is not the case. Both could be a good solution based on how you are placed.

For example: iOS and Android: I think between the two, if you have money and can shell out a few bucks on a good phone then iOS (Apple )- A proprietary Solution is the choice and if cost is a constraint then Android- Open Source is the one to go for.

The difference in the two's approach is that Apple charges you a one time bigger amount charge and give you a product and concentrate on coming up with better product and innovation while Android phones are not costly however make it mandatory for you to have a gmail account to be able to access their phones,  and they earn money by selling your information for various purposes. They track the way you use your phones and steal (if I may use that word) your personal information as all your phones usage is synced with their servers and they literally everything about you.

If you plan to update your legacy system then the choice of technology- open source or proprietary would make a difference between who do you plan to pay more - the company that is developing a tailor software for you, or  a renowned company which already has a product for companies like you and would customize their solution a bit to suit your needs.
But how does it make a difference to you ?
Well, a good and an important question.

Some companies have a unique work flow and process which is not generalized to other companies, and wish to retain the same after automation or technology integration.  and if you choose a Proprietary solution then that might be wise decision and the transition from being a legacy system to an advanced system would never be smooth and eventually the whole technology solution might fail and give you hard time. You might eventually scrap of this solution and go back to use the same old ways of working eventually costing you time and money.

Some companies have a generalized work flow or at least wish to standardize their processes while upgrading to an automated system, then customized solutions (or Open Source) would never address the details and the final developed system might not as thought of as a proprietary solution and also would be a costly affair.  And Though a lot of people who always debate that in the longer run a custom solution pays off as you wont have to pay any renewable fee like you would for a proprietary solution however practically you would have never really been able to achieve the results that you had set out for besides automating the system and which was to standardize your process to a more common one.

So never rush in making a choice and list out the priorities that you intend to achieve before choosing a solution. 

Any questions or queries would always be welcome.