Google Books, and its associated ngram indices, represent one of the largest publicly available databases in the world. At last count, Google had scanned and indexed over 25 million books containing over 1,000,000,000,000 terms (ngrams) - roughly comparable to all of the text on all of the pages of the internet. Not only is the database impressive in its scale and availability, but in the wealth of knowledge in it about our culture over the last 200 years. 

Here are some examples of some of the insights you can gain with Google Books. These graphs show the relative occurrences in printed material of the specified words and phrases, by year, and to a good approximation reflect what people were thinking (and writing about) during this time.

Political ideologies:

Modes of transportation:

Family roles:

Many more examples are here.

Working with data sets this large required Google to pioneer new concepts in highly scalable parallel data processing, such as MapReduce, also known by the name of its popular implementation, Hadoop. These techniques allowed Google to break down the massive problem of indexing this vast database into manageable chunks that could be performed by many machines working in parallel. These systems and techniques are now used by many companies for big data problems, such as customer analytics and machine learning. 

Agile methodology is a set of tools, skills, and knowledge that is considered (collectively) as an alternative method to conventional product management and development. It is often used in software development wherein teams act and decide in response to unpredictability through iterative work sprints.

The Origin of Agile

The 1970 publication by Dr. Winston Royce entitled "Managing the Development of Large Software Systems" criticized the sequential process involved in product development.

Dr. Royce emphasized that software should not be developed like a product on an assembly line where each component is added in sequential phases, and where each phase must be completed before starting the next phase – the so-called “waterfall” approach. He opposed this phase-based approach wherein developers first gather all of the requirements, complete all of the architecture and design elements, write all the code, do all testing, and so on. Dr. Royce specifically opposed this style of process because of the lack of communication between the specific groups which complete every phase.

In waterfall methodology, teams only have a single chance to get things right. It is also not an optimized method compared to the concept of agile. Waterfall method assumes that each requirement can be identified prior to the design and coding processes. Could you tell your developers all they need to know (requirements and all elements) to include in the software before it is up and running? Or would it be easier to illustrate your idea to the development team if you could give feedback on functional software?

Why Go the Agile Way?

Using agile technology provides opportunities for your team to assess the direction of your project during the development process. This is attained through regular iterations, at the end of which, teams should present the resulting product increment. This method is described as 'incremental' and 'iterative' due to the process of repetitive shortened work cycles and the functional product they produce.
 
There are different types of agile methods that use the original principle stated in the agile manifesto. The most popular types are the following:

Scrum

Scrum specifically focuses on how to manage tasks within a team-based development setting. It is the most widely implemented agile method possibly because it is easier for IT development teams to understand and follow. Scrum is not repressive and doesn't demand loads of technical discipline unlike well-defined Agile methods. It lets the development team decide what to do and how to do it; as well as get up to speed and begin doing Agile swiftly and cost-effectively.

Scrum certification helps fulfill the objective of the Agile manifesto by encouraging collaboration, productivity, and accomplishment among team members.      

Dynamic Systems Delivery Method (DSDM)
Possibly the original agile method, DSDM was already in existence even before the term 'agile' was used and adapted in software development.  DSDM fixes cost, time and quality at the outset and uses prioritization scope into “musts”, “shoulds”, “coulds”, and “won’t haves”.

Extreme Programming (XP)

Extreme Programming or XP is a more thorough type of agile method which focuses on process analysis, development, and test phases through frequent releases in short development cycles intended to improve productivity and introduce checkpoints to accommodate new customer requirements.

Among the three popular types, DSDM is possibly the most comprehensive agile method, while Scrum and XP are a lot easier to implement and complementary since they deal with various aspects of software development projects and both are established on very similar concepts.

In the last decade, many industries have seen the benefits of using agile technology. Media, marketing, technology, large corporations, as well as government sectors have seen a dramatic improvement in their IT development projects and team efforts, which also provides that much-needed competitive edge.

In agile product development, project management is a little different as it relies more on the team leader's skills in coordination, communication, and facilitation with less emphasis on planning and control. However, not all projects go well with this method and it is not always the key to instant success. The key is to understand many techniques from different agile and waterfall methodologies, and pick out the best approaches that will suit a specific situation.

Agile technology, with a combination of your team's skill and experience, can help you have a more flexible approach and less documentation, more collaboration and visibility that allows for a more rewarding team experience and better products as a result.

Social media marketing has become one of the top marketing strategies for businesses today. It has opened up more opportunities to reach out and engage with targeted audiences and the chance to turn leads into paying customers.

If your business website lacks social media integration, you’re certainly losing out on the possibilities of gaining more prospects and sales. While starting on your own seems like a good idea, you need to consider that in the future when your sales and customers increase, you’ll need manpower and expertise in planning, crafting and disseminating social media content.

Here are the benefits of hiring a social media marketing team:

(1) It allows you to concentrate more on the business side while experts handle social media

With the rest of the activities involved in running your business, you may find it overwhelming to handle the technical and marketing aspects of using social media. Using the expertise of professional social media marketers who are well-versed in using and implementing this type of marketing strategy can alleviate this stress for you.

(2) Hiring a team allows you to learn the social media ropes with less pressure

On your own or with the help of your social media team, you can learn the ropes of this social media marketing in your own time. In our opinion, this is an ideal approach for you as an owner of a growing online business since you need to be present to service your customers. Learning basic tasks, such as creating accounts, posting updates based on guidelines, and engaging with followers will be easier if you have someone to guide you.

(3) You get additional prospects through social networks

Since you have a dedicated team of social media strategists, it is easier and more effective to implement techniques such as creation of social media content, posting, scheduling, and engaging with followers. With proper implementation and time, you’ll see the rise in website activity, and hopefully sales.

(4) Keep your social community up-to-date while strengthening your brand

Your dedicated social media team can handle all the needs and expectations of your social media followers - from adding short product posts and updates on Facebook, to tweeting your upcoming promos and discounts. Handling responses and keeping the interaction swift and engaged is a great way to show that you care more for your customers than the money they'll spend on your website.

(5) No need to micromanage your social media team

Hiring a social media team shouldn’t be too complicated particularly for you, the business owner. You will often encounter outsourced team of experts with their own supervisors to oversee them. If you choose this path, you'll only deal with an account manager when it comes to updates and reports. It's also possible to schedule monthly or quarterly meetings together with the rest of the team.

Social media strategies, when done right, can accelerate your online success. You don't have to be a one-man-band to accomplish the tasks; instead, consider hiring an expert team as soon as you can to see better results.

Are you pondering on using social media as a marketing strategy? Don't know how it's done? Get in touch with us and we'll help you get started.

Website security is a huge issue right now. Heartbleed has affected many people. Homeland Security claims it’s no safe to use Internet Explorer anymore. A new threat, ‘Covert Redirect’ recently reared its ugly head last week. Multiple US agencies and Fortune 500 companies were affected by threats like these. That’s why it’s becoming increasingly important to maintain a high degree of security on your website. You never know when you may be the target of a cyber-attack. With that being said, check out these five tips you can implement right now to keep your site secure:

Restrict users from uploading files to the website server.

One of the easiest ways to boost your website’s security Is by preventing users from accessing your server files or uploading their own. Clever hackers may eventually find their way in, but don’t make it easy for them by allowing them to upload malicious files.

Require passwords that use a variety of character types.

There are too many people out there that have easy to guess passwords for important websites. Your password should never include your name, or anything else that’s easy to guess. Make sure that your website requires users to choose passwords that include upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters.

Keep your website software updated.

CMS developers will often come out with new updates to address performance, security, and technology issue. Always make sure to update your site to take advantage of the latest developments! Hackers look for websites that aren’t updated, because their security systems aren’t up to snuff.

Read the news!

This may seem like a no brainer, but staying up to date with current events is an easy way to stay aware of new security threats and how to avoid them. Imagine if Fortune 500 companies decided to stop keeping up with current events and never heard of HeartBleed. They would have a huge problem on their hands, and have no clue what they were dealing with! A scary proposition indeed.

Website accessibility is all about making sure anyone and everyone can access your website. There are many users out there who have disabilities or may be using devices that require additional accommodations. That being said, some things that can be done to improve accessibility will improve the user experience for everyone. Check out these tips on how to optimize your website accessibility:

Ensure your color scheme has an appropriate amount of contrast.

Color blindness is a very common condition among users. Make sure that your color scheme has enough contrast so that people with color blindness can still distinguish what exactly is on the page. Tools like colorfilter.wickline.org help to mimic colorblindness on your website so that you can see where to make changes.

Utilize alternative content where necessary.

Alternative content is useful for users with vision/hearing problems.  Alternative content means using text for non-text content. For instance, using words to describe images, or including transcripts along with videos for users who are hard of hearing. A text only version of your website can also be useful for users with slower internet connections or devices that are outdated.

Utilize skip links.

Skip links allow speech software to skip over links/navigation items that are repeated on every page. This is useful for people who are vision impaired and don’t want to listen to the same menu items being repeated on every page. Skip links allow users to skip over repetitive links so that they can access the primary page content.

Explain Select Menus.

The default value on select menus should describe what the menu is intended for. For instance, if a form is asking for your bodyweight it should label the default value of the select menu as ‘select body weight’ instead of leaving it blank or including number with no explanation. This will help to ensure everyone clearly understands the purpose of forms and fields.

Use descriptive link names.

Use descriptive links whenever you can! A link that says ‘click here’ isn’t nearly as useful as ‘click here to download Windows 2010.’ When in doubt, be more descriptive.