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Hi, I am form India. Lookig to create my own startup in the field of digital marketing. I have done my master's in marketing management. It would be great help to me if someone shares their experiences with me. I have the prior knowledge about SEO, SMO, Etc.
Recently the Indian government said that it will ban TikTok along with dozens of other well-known apps developed in China saying that the apps pose a threat to the “sovereignty and integrity of India.” This comes on the heels of a border dispute between the two countries last month that led to the deaths of at least 20 Indian soldiers.
Contrary to popular belief, telemarketing is still an active and viable marketing strategy for many businesses.
The best telemarketing services offer so much more than cold calling random numbers to sell something the person has never heard of. The right services assist with lead generation, campaign management, and other essential services to make sure you’re generating a high ROI.
Some telemarketing services even have complete call center solutions, from answering services to call forwarding and more.
If you’re looking for the best telemarketing service for your business, I’ll help you find one that fits your needs.
Compare Quotes From The Best Telemarketing Services
Get matched up with a telemarketing service that fits your specific needs.
This guide contains an in-depth review of each service. We’ll cover the features, benefits, and other factors to consider during your search.
With DialAmerica, you get more than just telemarketing. It’s a full-service sales and marketing organization.
They offer more than 60 years of experience with 19 call centers located within the United States. Each year, DialAmerica makes 100 million calls.
The best part: Call center agents at DialAmerica don’t read scripts. Instead, they learn active listening skills for establishing rapport with customers. These sales skills help them use personalized and persuasive techniques.
By adding a human touch to these calls, customers are much more engaged than they would be from listening to a script.
The marketing campaigns from DialAmerica are based on data and advanced reporting. These are highly customizable and always accessible. The analytics used by the DialAmerica representatives make it possible for them to adjust and improve campaigns on the fly.
Common industries that use DialAmerica’s telemarketing services include:
DialAmerica has call center services for lead generation, appointment setting, customer acquisition, customer retention, and customer service. They even offer direct mail fulfillment.
Flatworld Solutions offers a wide range of outsourcing services along with telemarketing services.
In addition to call centers, this company provides photo editing, software development, design, data entry, transcription services, and more.
They also have call centers all over the world including the US, India, and the Philippines.
Flatworld Solutions have the infrastructure and everything you need for telemarketing at scale. Here’s a quick overview of the telemarketing services that they offer:
Flatworld Solutions leverages Zendesk, HubSpot, Five9, LiveAgent, Salesforce, and more for their services.
With a roster of tools like that, you know you can trust them.
Let’s take a look at the affordable pricing rates for the call center services offered by Flatworld Solutions:
Rates vary based on factors like volume, call complexity, and other contract terms. But with telemarketing services as low as $8 per hour, it’s a great way to get a high ROI.
Squeeze Media is a business process outsourcing (BPO) firm based in Utah.
Launched in 2009, they’re newer on the scene. However, that results in a more personal relationship with your telemarketing service provider—which is great.
B2C telemarketing is one of the many specialty services offered at Squeeze Media. With a mix of inbound and outbound calling, the Squeeze Media agents can sell your products and services.
They also offer services such as:
For those of you who want to work with a smaller US-based telemarketing service, Squeeze Media will be a top option for you to consider. As a full-service BPO firm, they have the resources and tools you need for success.
Callbox specializes in lead generation and appointment setting for B2B organizations.
That’s what sets them apart from the others on the list. If you’re looking to grow your sales and target high-value prospects, this is the solution for you.
They don’t close the leads themselves. Instead, they qualify those leads and set appointments for you. So your sales team will still need to make the sale, but Callbox makes it easier for them by providing qualified leads with confirmed appointments.
Big companies like HP, Forbes, ADT, Motorola, and DHL all trust Callbox with their B2B telemarketing needs.
Callbox also provides services for things like account-based marketing, customer profiling databases, and event marketing.
More than 7,000 businesses have used Callbox for B2B lead generation. This service provider has set up 520,000+ appointments for its clients.
Quality Contact Solutions is a PCI Level 1 service provider. Businesses that process $1 to $6 million in credit cards per year need to use a Level 1 PCI call center to remain PCI compliant.
This ensures that any credit card information captured over the phone is completely secure.
Quality Contact Solutions provides B2C outsourced telemarketing and B2B outbound marketing services. They also have solutions for consulting and outsourced telemarketing quality assurance.
Their B2C telemarketing services is perfect for existing customers:
The list of B2B telemarketing services is a bit more extensive. Common solutions include:
Pricing for Quality Contact Solutions telemarketing services typically falls into three separate categories—hourly, performance-based, or hourly plus performance.
The majority of these fees fall somewhere between $2,500 and $10,000. You can request a quote based on the needs of your business.
Go4customer has one of the most extensive product and service offerings on our list.
That’s because they provide things like strategic consulting, data management, debt collection, online reputation management, app marketplace promotion, HR outsourcing, and more — along with a great telemarketing service.
And those are just a handful of the dozens of services that Go4customer handles.
That’s why I recommend Go4customer for any business looking for a feature-packed, all-inclusive telemarketing service.
For example, if you’re using Go4customer for telemarketing, you might also want to consider taking advantage of the inbound call center services. They provide customer support, help desk solutions, tech support, product information requests, inquiries, and toll-free services.
Here’s an overview of the industries that Go4customer commonly works with:
If you fall into one of these categories and you’re interested in other services beyond telemarketing, Go4customer will be a top choice for you.
Strategic Calls offers telemarketing services that target C-suite and executive-level decision-makers. If you’re a B2B organization that wants to target CEOs, CTOs, CFO, CMOs, and other executives, Strategic Calls will be the best option for you.
You can also run campaigns to target mid-level management or cold calling services direct to customers.
Campaigns from Strategic Calls take place over a five-day period. Here’s a quick overview of what happens each day.
Strategic Calls charges $1,000 for three rounds of calls (over five days) to 50 C-level prospects. The rate for three rounds of calls to mid-level management is $750.
For those of you interested in telemarketing to individual customers, Strategic Calls charges $250 for one round of calls attempts to 500 prospects.
Bottom line: Their services are optimized and streamlined for anyone looking to target senior-level company members.
With locations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Philippines, India, Pakistan, and Africa, this provider has the biggest global presence on our list.
The benefit of using a telemarketing service in one of these countries is the cost. Using call center services outside of the US and Canada will give you access to the cheapest rates.
If you’re comfortable using a traditional scripted approach to telemarketing to save some money, Worldwide Call Centers is perfect for things like:
For 20+ years, Worldwide Call Centers has been an industry leader in outsourced telemarketing services. Contact them today for a custom quote. You can choose your call center and get a rate based on your monthly call volume.
SAS specializes in call center answering services. They also has exceptional telemarketing solutions.
SAS is 100% US-based. All of the reps are native English speakers that live and work in the United States. SAS puts a strong emphasis on quality control, with QA teams screening 2,000+ calls per month.
The telemarketing services at SAS primarily focus on lead generation.
In addition to traditional outbound telemarketing, SAS has a few specialty lead generation categories that include appointment making, insurance appointment setting, and janitorial appointment setting.
With SAS, you’ll pay based on usage (per minute). Rates start as low as $31 per month + $1.19 per minute, which is ideal for low volume telemarketing. These rates go as high as $7,749 per month for 10,000 minutes.
It’s safe to say that SAS has a plan for everyone. You can try their services for free with a 14-day trial.
Superhuman Prospecting is a division of Pereus Marketing. This Pennsylvania-based agency is an outsourced sales team.
All of the call center representatives have a background in sales at the B2B level. This makes them perfect candidates for selling to your prospective clients.
Superhuman Prospecting takes the time to understand your business and its needs. As experienced sales men and women, they have been thoroughly trained in the art of pitching to yield higher conversions.
The services offered by Superhuman Prospecting can be segmented into three main categories:
They also offer inbound call center services, in addition to the telemarketing options listed above.
Superhuman Prospecting has experience working with industries like small business, law firms, property management, construction, real estate, tech, security, education, automotive, food service, consulting, and more. Contact them today for a free quote on telemarketing rates.
Not every telemarketing service will be the best option for your business. There are certain factors that you must take into consideration when you’re evaluating prospective choices.
This is the methodology that we use and recommend. I’ll give you a brief overview of each element below.
The location of call centers is important for a couple of different reasons.
For starters, this has a significant impact on the rate you’ll pay. If you outsource telemarketing overseas to countries like India or the Philippines, you’ll pay much less than you would if you’re using a US-based call center.
With that said, some companies would rather pay a premium to use call centers with native English speakers. But if you’re on a tight budget, outsourcing to a global telemarketing center would be better for your business.
Some telemarketing services specialize in certain industries, whether it’s law firms, retail, financial services, or something else. One firm might excel in sales, while another is better for something like appointment setting.
Your target market will impact the decision on which service you choose as well. For example, there are telemarketing services that specifically target CEOs and other C-level executives, whereas other services are better for cold calling general consumers at scale.
In most cases, telemarketing won’t be the only service offered by the provider you’re considering. The majority of the options on our list also provide a wide range of additional services.
From inbound call center solutions to full-service BPO providers, you can benefit from packages that go beyond the phone. Check out those other offerings. It’s easier to get these all under one roof instead of outsourcing to multiple agencies.
Telemarketing can be a tough business. Somewhat unfairly, it’s developed a negative reputation over the years. But that’s largely due to service providers cutting corners when it comes to quality.
Take the time to conduct due diligence before you sign a contract. Some of the service providers on our list have been in the industry for 60+ years. I typically lean towards working with well-established companies boasting a credible reputation.
What’s the best telemarketing service for your business? It depends on your specific needs.
Here’s a recap of the top ten telemarketing services reviewed in this guide:
Compare Quotes From The Best Telemarketing Services
Get matched up with a telemarketing service that fits your specific needs.
Whether you’re a small business targeting general consumers or a B2B company targeting executive-level decision-makers, there’s a telemarketing service for your organization on this list. For all budgets and call center needs, use this guide to make an informed decision.
The Government of India has developed a mobile tracker app - Aarogya Setu - as part of their efforts to contain the spread of Corona virus in this country of 1.3 billion people. The app is available for both iPhone and Android phones.
The Aarogya Setu app has already gone viral in India with more than a million downloads in a single day.
The app has three parts:
The proximity alert feature in Aarogya Setu is the reason why people are so interested in this app but how does this work?
This morning, a person who returned from Dubai about two weeks ago, tested positive for Coronavirus and the authorities have taken him to the hospital. Their residence is less than a mile from our home and I was expecting some sort of alert in the tracker app but none so far.
So I dug a bit deeper into how the app works and here’s what I found:
When a user installs the app, it uses Bluetooth to detect any nearby phones that could also be running the Aaryogya Setu app. While the actual algorithm is a secret, the app likely keeps a record of all devices that have ever been near to you. If the owner of any of these nearby phones is later found to be infected, the app will alert you.
Thus more and more people have to install the app, with Bluetooth and location turned on, for the proximity alerts to really work.
I am not aware of the internal working of the app but I think it would have been even more effective if it made use of GPS data as well. Let me explain.
When the app is continuously scanning the location of its users, it has a fairly accurate overview of who has been where in recent days. If a COVID-19 positive case is detected, his path can be traced and others users who have crossed through those geographic regions can be alerted though the app.
Write a function that takes as argument a string containing multiple words and returns a string containing the same words in reverse order.
Eg., input = 'India is a democracy'; output = 'democracy a is India'
Every so often, the fruits of innovation bear fruit in the form of improvements to the foundational layers of the web. In 2015, HTTP/2 became a published standard in an effort to update an aging protocol. This was was both necessary and overdue, as HTTP/1 rendered web performance as an arcane sort of discipline in the form of strange workarounds of its limitations. Though HTTP/2 proliferation isn’t absolute — and there are kinks yet to be worked out — I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the web is better off because of it.
Unfortunately, the rollout of HTTP/2 has presided over a 102% median increase of bytes transferred over mobile the last four years. If we look at the 90th percentile of that same dataset — because it’s really the long tail of performance we need to optimize for — we see an increase of 239%. From 2016 (PDF warning) to 2019, the average mobile download speed in the U.S. has increased by 73%. In Brazil and India, average mobile download speeds increased by 75% and 28%, respectively, in that same period of time.
While page weight alone doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story of the user experience, it is, at the very least, a loosely related phenomenon which threatens the collective user experience. The story that HTTPArchive tells through data acquired from the Chrome User Experience Export (CrUX) can be interpreted a number of different ways, but this one fact is steadfast and unrelenting: most metrics gleaned from CrUX over the last couple of years show little, if any improvement despite various improvements in browsers, the HTTP protocol, and the network itself.
Given these trends, all that can be said of the impact of these improvements at this point is that it has helped to stem the tide of our excesses, but precious little to reduce them. Despite every significant improvement to the underpinnings of the web and the networks we access it through, we continue to build for it in ways that suggest we’re content with the never-ending Jevons paradox in which we toil.
If we’re to make progress in making a faster web for everyone, we must recognize some of the impediments to that goal:
Counter-intuitively, owners of mature codebases which embody some or all of these traits continue to take the same unsustainable path to profitability they always have. They do this at their own peril, rather than acknowledge the repeatedly established fact that performance-first development practices will do as much — or more — for their bottom line and the user experience.
It’s with this understanding that I’ve come to accept that our current approach to remedy poor performance largely consists of engineering techniques that stem from the ill effects of our business, product management, and engineering practices. We’re good at applying tourniquets, but not so good at sewing up deep wounds.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that web performance isn’t solely an engineering problem, but a problem of people. This is an unappealing assessment in part because technical solutions are comparably inarguable. Content compression works. Minification works. Tree shaking works. Code splitting works. They’re undeniably effective solutions to what may seem like entirely technical problems.
The intersection of web performance and people, on the other hand, is messy and inconvenient. Unlike a technical solution as clearly beneficial as HTTP/2, how do we qualify what successful performance cultures look like? How do we qualify successful approaches to get there? I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but I believe a good template is the following marriage of cultural and engineering tenets:
Now comes the kicker: even if all of these things come together in your workplace, good outcomes aren’t guaranteed. Barring some regulation that forces us to address the poorly performing websites in our charge — akin to how the ADA keeps us on our toes with regard to accessibility — it’s going to take continuing evangelism and pressure to ensure performance remains a priority. Like so much of the work we do on the web, the work of maintaining a good user experience in evolving codebases is never done. I hope 2020 is the year that we meaningfully recognize that performance is about people, and adapt accordingly.
As technological innovations such as HTTP/3 and 5G emerge, we must take care not to rest on our laurels and simply assume they will heal our ills once and for all. If we do, we’ll certainly be having this discussion again when the successors to those technologies loom. Innovation alone can’t keep the web fast because making the web fast — and keeping it that way — is the hard work we can only accomplish by working together.
The post Innovation Can’t Keep the Web Fast appeared first on CSS-Tricks.
ICICI Bank, a leading private bank in India, has launched an API portal. The portal includes 250 APIs that allow partners to build innovative banking solutions. The portal is simple for partners to sign up, integrate with, build applications, and test out sample code. From this single portal, ICICI is targeting partners within businesses, e-commerce, fintech, and startup communities.
As the year is coming to a close, many of us feel rushed, trying to meet deadlines, finishing off projects, and preparing for the holidays. Do you remember what December felt like when you were little? It was a time of wonder and expectation, a time to slow down and enjoy the small things: watching the first snowflakes fall, drinking hot chocolate, and admiring the Christmas decorations in your neighborhood, for example.
This month’s wallpapers post is a little reminder to treat yourself to some quiet moments like these in the midst of this end of the year rush. To refuel your batteries and gather some fresh inspiration. The wallpapers in this collection might be a good start.
As every month since more than nine years already, the wallpapers were designed by artists and designers from across the globe, and each one of them is available with and without a calendar for December 2019. For some extra variety, we also added a selection of wallpaper favorites from past editions at the end of this post. We wish you happy holidays and a lovely, and hopefully not too stressful, December!
Please note that:
Do you have an idea for a wallpaper to welcome 2020? We are always looking for creative talent to be featured in our wallpapers posts. Don’t be shy, join in! →
“Please visit Vladstudio website if you like my works!” — Designed by Vlad Gerasimov from Russia.
Designed by MasterBundles from the United States.
“Here comes the finale of a dazzling year. The month of snow with a tinge of warmth from the carols in the wind. All made merrier with the mistletoe, cakes and gifts. Let’s welcome the winter of our lives as spring is not far away now.” — Designed by Odoo Apps from India.
“The year is coming to an end and we say good-bye with a very christmassy animal, the camel. We wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year.” — Designed by Veronica Valenzuela from Spain.
“Hanukkah is a joyous celebration of all that is important in life; family, freedom, and light. So we wanted to make a calendar that celebrated this Jewish holiday and what better way than by featuring the beautiful Hanukkiyah. Happy Hanukkah everyone!” — Designed by Ever Increasing Circles from the United Kingdom.
Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.
“Reindeers go rah-rah when the season of snow is on the way. Let’s get excited as our beloved Santa comes with gifts for the tiny tots and fill the air with nothing but cheer! It’s Christmas time, y’all!” — Designed by Riddlebook from London.
Since the beginning of our monthly challenge, December and the holiday season have inspired so many designers to create a wallpaper. Below we collected some favorites from our archives that are just too good to be forgotten. Enjoy! (Please note that these designs don’t come with a calendar.)
Designed by Violeta Dabija from Moldova.
“During Christmas season, in the cold, colorless days of winter, Cardinal birds are seen as symbols of faith and warmth! In the part of America I live in, there is snowfall every December. While the snow is falling, I can see gorgeous Cardinals flying in and out of my patio. The intriguing color palette of the bright red of the Cardinals, the white of the flurries and the brown/black of dry twigs and fallen leaves on the snow-laden ground, fascinates me a lot, and inspired me to create this quaint and sweet, hand-illustrated surface pattern design as I wait for the snowfall in my town!” — Designed by Gyaneshwari Dave from the United States.
“You know that warm feeling when you get to spend cold winter days in a snug, homey, relaxed atmosphere? Oh, yes, we love it too! It is the sentiment we set our hearts on for the holiday season, and this sweet snowy tenderness is for all of us who adore watching the snowfall from our windows. Isn’t it romantic?” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.
“The tiny flakes of snow have just begun to shower and we know it’s the start of the merry hour! Someone is all set to cram his sleigh with boxes of love as kids wait for their dear Santa to show up! Rightly said, ’tis the season of snow, surprise and lots and lots of fun! Merry Christmas!” — Designed by Sweans Technologies from London.
“Winter is cold and dark up here in the north.” Designed by Terese Brännström from Sweden.
“Sometimes new beginnings make us revisit our favorite places or people from the past. We don’t visit them often because they remind us of the past but enjoy the brief reunion. Cheers to new beginnings in the new year!” Designed by Dorvan Davoudi from Canada.
“I created this design in honor of the 9th of December, the day of lights.” — Designed by Mathias Geerts from Belgium.
Designed by Josh Cleland from the United States.
“Everyone is in the mood for Christmas when December starts. Therefore I made this Christmas wreath inspired wallpaper. Enjoy December and Merry Christmas to all!” — Designed by Melissa Bogemans from Belgium.
“Garphee’s flufiness glowing in the snow.” Designed by Razvan Garofeanu from Romania.
“I took some photos during a very frosty and cold week before Christmas.” Designed by Anca Varsandan from Romania.
“Early walks in the fields when the owls still sit on the fences and stare funny at you.” — Designed by Bo Dockx from Belgium.
“Christmas bells are swinging above the snow fields, we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago… It’s time to count your blessings, sing your Christmas carols, open your gifts, and make a wish under the Christmas tree!” — Designed by Norjimm Pvt Ltd from India.
“Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.” — Designed by PlusCharts from India.
“A seemingly forgotten world under the shade of winter glaze hides a moment where architecture meets fashion and change encounters steadiness.” — Designed by Ana Masnikosa from Belgrade, Serbia.
“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” — Designed by StarAdmin from India.
“The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory. (Gary Zukav)” — Designed by Dipanjan Karmakar from India.
Designed by Delphine Pagès from France.
Designed by Antun Hirsman from Croatia.
Designed by Doud - Elise Vanoorbeek from Belgium.
“Christmas is always such a magical time of year so we created this wallpaper to blend the majestry of the mountains with a little bit of magic.” — Designed by Dominic Leonard from the United Kingdom.
Designed by Tazi Designs from Australia.
“I love the simplicity of the deer head silhouette trend with just a touch of hand-drawn detail. Happy December my dears!” — Designed by Jordan Thoma from the United States.
Designed by Cheloveche.ru from Russia.
“In December there’s a winter solstice; which means that the longest night of the year falls in December. I wanted to create the feeling of solitude of the long night into this wallpaper.” — Designed by Alex Hermans from Belgium.
“My brother-in-law has been on a design buzzword kick where he calls everything minimal, to the point where he wishes people, “Have a minimal day!” I made this graphic as a poster for him.” — Designed by Danny Gugger from Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
“Don’t let Jack Frost nip too much at your nose but do let him decorate your windows!” Designed by Tirelessweaver from Canada.
“Every year at the onset of winter, a deer appears in my garden looking for food. I usually catch it early in the morning and we’ll be exchanging glances through the patio doors.” — Designed by Andrea Ludszeweit from Germany.
“It’s been such an incredible year for space; I wanted to celebrate that with a simple wallpaper to keep everyone inspired this month. The year isn’t over yet — don’t stop pushing yourself!” — Designed by Shawna Armstrong from the United States.
“This wallpaper celebrates the classic carol ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. Each day is represented with a cheerful illustration representing gifts.” — Designed by Daphne Firos from Cleveland.
Designed by Thaïs Lenglez from Belgium.
“‘December is plowing yet. When the smoke-clouds break, high in the sky shines a field as wide as the world. There he toils for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. Ah, he is taller than clouds of the little earth. Only the congress of planets is over him, and the arching path where new sweet stars have birth. Wearing his peasant dress, his head bent low, December, that angel of Peace, is plowing yet; Forward, across the field, his horses go.’ (Based on Chinese Nightingale, 1917).” Designed by Dynomite from Germany.
“Best friends posing for a photo.” Designed by Nenad S. Lazich from Serbia.
“This time of year people tend to dream big and expect miracles. Let your dreams come true!” Designed by Igor Izhik from Canada.
“Wanted to showcase the cool, crisp colors and give an overall feeling of winter. Designed by Matt Noa from the United States.
“I have chosen this little bird in honor of my grandfather, who passed away. He was fascinated by nature, especially birds. Because of him, I also have a fascination with birds. When I think of winter, I think of the birds, flying around searching for food. And why a robin? Because it is a cute little bird, who is also very recognizable.” — Designed by Engin Seline from Belgium.
Thank you to all designers for their participation. Join in next month!
Misty mornings, pumpkins, leaves shining in bright red, yellow, and orange hues — these are just some of the things about October that inspired artists and designers to participate in this month’s wallpapers challenge.
The monthly challenge has been going on for more than nine years already, and each time anew, creatives from all across the globe submit their designs to it to cater for some variety on your desktop and mobile screens — and for a bit of fresh inspiration, of course.
In this collection, you’ll find their wallpaper designs for October 2019. They come in versions with and without a calendar so that you can continue to use your favorite even after the month has ended. Speaking of favorites: As a little extra goodie, we compiled some favorites from past wallpapers editions at the end of this post. A big thank-you to everyone who shared their designs with us this time around. Happy October!
Please note that:
We are always looking for designers and artists to be featured in our wallpapers posts. So if you’re feeling creative, please don’t hesitate to submit your design. We’d love to see what you’ll come up with for November. Join in! →
“When I was little my parents always took me and my sister for a walk at the beach in Nieuwpoort, we didn’t really do those beach walks in the summer but always when the sky started to turn grey and the days became colder. My sister and I always took out our warmest scarfs and played in the sand while my parents walked behind us. I really loved those Saturday or Sunday mornings where we were all together. I think October (when it’s not raining) is the perfect month to go to the beach for ‘uitwaaien’ (to blow out), to walk in the wind and take a break and clear your head, relieve the stress or forget one’s problems.” — Designed by Gwen Bogaert from Belgium.
“Waiting at the bus stop when it’s raining in October can be a sad and wet experience. The bus is late, the dry spot is taken by other people and you’re just standing there in the rain with your hands in your pockets with nowhere to go. Acorns must have a hard time like that too! Waiting in the rain for the squirrels to come and pick them up.” — Designed by Casey Dulst from Belgium.
“To me, October is a transitional month. We gradually slide from summer to autumn. That’s why I chose to use a lot of gradients. I also wanted to work with simple shapes, because I think of October as the ‘back to nature/back to basics month’.” — Designed by Jelle Denturck from Belgium.
“October reminds me of autumn, the season where you see fall leaves, squirrels, the weather that’s changing. Ever walked into the woods when it’s autumn? You can hear the magical sound of the wind blowing away the leaves. The woods are the most beautiful at fall, everything starts to color into yellow, orange, and brown. And you can meet some nice squirrels at the corner of a tree.” — Designed by Delphine Wylin from Belgium.
Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.
“Hedgehogs usually start to hibernate around October. This little hedgehog is celebrating Halloween on his own terms, while he is asleep.” — Designed by Aaron Harinck from Belgium.
“The fiery pumpkins blaze in the dark. The bonfires, the songs, the dancing around and the sumptuous feast. There is so much to look forward to this month.” — Designed by Mobile App Development from India.
“Finished September, with October comes the month of routines. This year we share it with turtles that explore space.” — Designed by Veronica Valenzuela from Spain.
“Halloween brings a nighttime of fun for all the family. With trick-or-treating round the neighborhood, it’s a pastime families love to take part in nationwide. We wanted to celebrate this event by coming up with a design concept that would pay homage to the most iconic Halloween fruit of them all, the mighty Pumpkin! What better way to look forward to this spooktacular night than with a geometric art pumpkin calendar. Enjoy your night, whatever you have planned!” — Designed by Ever Increasing Circles from the United Kingdom.
“The colors of the sun inspired me.” — Designed by Hitesh Puri from India.
“Every year when October begins, my family and I light up the fireplace for the first time. This time of the year the leaves start falling and it starts to become cold outside which makes it even cosier.” — Designed by Jasper Vermeulen from Belgium.
“October 2019 will always be remembered as Brexit-month so I wanted to create a wallpaper that’s inspired by Brexit. At the same time I wanted to stay away from the classic Brexit/Europe colours. I came up with a pop-up window to imply that maybe, before really exiting the EU, the UK should reconsider what they are doing. ‘Is it ok to take this huge decision while people are screaming for another referendum’ is only one of the questions I want the British government to ask themselves.” — Designed by Nand Rogge from Belgium.
“As autumn advances, the leaves descend in great gratitude, they return to Earth to rise again. Under the shedding tree the students and teachers learn, for a teacher sheds her years so that the students can grow.” — Designed by Mindster from India.
“According to research, 44 million Americans own firearms. The last week of October is Disarmament Week, so we are inspired by states like Liechtenstein, who abolished army and don’t use weapons. This monthly calendar is dedicated to all those who follow this trend. If the whole world was like Liechtenstein, we would be happier and cheerful. So, let’s all stand together against guns and bombs and establish a world without ammunition.” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.
“Apples are known all throughout the world yet barely anyone knows about Apple Day. For this reason I decided to put Apple Day in an extra spotlight and create a calendar about it. I hope others may enjoy apples as much as I do.” — Designed by Miguel De Pelsmaeker from Belgium.
“The icy mountains keeping the body frozen, yet the mind wandering over the expansive woods.” — Designed by Sweans Technologies from London.
“When I think about October, I immediately say ‘Oktoberfest’, partly for the obvious October part, but mostly for the ‘fest’ one. As we all know, Oktoberfest is a German traditional celebration dedicated to beer, that annually gathers friends from everywhere around the world, all having in common the passion for good beer (in large quantities), traditional food and the fun factor. And what can be more entertaining than having fun with your friends while drinking beer in an authentic German scenario?” — Designed by Loredana Codau (@loricacucrizanteme on Instagram) from Romania.
Hidden in our wallpapers archives, we rediscovered some nearly-forgotten treasures from past editions. May we present… (Please note that these designs don’t come with a calendar.)
“We are about to experience the magical imagery of nature, with all the yellows, ochers, oranges, and reds coming our way this fall. With all the subtle sunrises and the burning sunsets before us, we feel so joyful that we are going to shout it out to the world from the top of the mountains.” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.
“You can only fully master the sky wearing an aviator hat and goggles. Like this little bat, flying home to celebrate Halloween with his family and friends.” — Designed by Franke Margrete from the Netherlands.
“The term ‘Hanlu’ literally translates as ‘Cold Dew.’ The cold dew brings brisk mornings and evenings. Eventually the briskness will turn cold, as winter is coming soon. And chrysanthemum is the iconic flower of Cold Dew.” — Designed by Hong, ZI-Qing from Taiwan.
“October makes the leaves fall to cover the land with lovely auburn colors and brings out all types of weird with them.” — Designed by Mi Ni Studio from Serbia.
Designed by Dan Ioanitescu from Canada.
“The days are colder, but the colors are warmer, and with every step we go further, new earthly architecture reveals itself, making the best of winters’ dawn.” — Designed by Ana Masnikosa from Belgrade, Serbia.
“Autumn is the best moment for discovering the universe. I am looking for a new galaxy or maybe… a UFO!” — Designed by Verónica Valenzuela from Spain.
“During our recent rebrand, everyone in our team got their very own icon, each one has been custom illustrated by a lovely man called Paul, who wears glasses. The icons have all been chosen to represent something personal to each individual as well as all the other usual suspects you’d expect from an iconset.” — Designed by Engage Interactive from the United Kingdom.
“In my travels to Selinsgrove, PA this past month, I had another opportunity to appreciate the beauty that surrounded me: trees, mountains, streams, rivers and fauna. This exploration was the inspiration for this piece encouraging others to explore new places and cherish the experience of being outdoors.” — Designed by Gabrielle Gorney from the United States.
“The moment when you just walk and your imagination fills up your mind with thoughts.” — Designed by Gal Shir from Israel.
“And hello to Autumn! The Summer heat and high season is over. It’s time to pack our backpacks and head for the mountains — there are many treasures waiting to be discovered!” Designed by Agnes Sobon from Poland.
Designed by Mad Fish Digital from the United States.
“Autumn is the mushroom season. Be vigilant. Do not abuse.” Designed by Cheloveche.ru from Russia.
Designed by Marika Smirnova from Russia.
“I love the autumn colors and making pictures, this is a collage of bits and pieces of various autumn photos from previous seasons. Enjoy!” — Designed by Agnes Swart from the Netherlands.
“‘We’re all equal before a wave.’ (Laird Hamilton)” — Designed by Shawna Armstrong from the United States.
Thank you to all designers for their participation. Join in next month!
Lush green slowly turning into yellows, reds, and browns in the Northern hemisphere; nature awakening from its slumber in the Southern part of the world: September is a time of change. A chance to leave old habits behind and embrace the beginning of something new. And, well, sometimes a small change of routines is already enough to spark fresh inspiration and, who knows, maybe even great ideas.
With that in mind, we embarked on our monthly wallpapers challenge more than nine years ago, and since then, artists and designers from all across the globe have accepted the challenge and submitted their designs to it to cater for a bit of variety on the screens we look at so often. Of course, it wasn’t any different this time around.
This post features their wallpapers for September 2019. All of them come in versions with and without a calendar, so it’s up to you to decide if you want to have the month at a glance or keep things simple. As a bonus goodie, we also collected some timeless favorites from past years’ editions at the end of this post. A big thank-you to all the artists who have submitted their wallpapers and are still diligently continuing to do so. Happy September!
Please note that:
We are always looking for creative designers and artists to be featured in our wallpapers posts. So if you have an idea for an October wallpaper, please don’t hesitate to submit your design. We’d love to see what you’ll come up with. Join in! →
Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.
Designed by Bojana Stojanovic from Serbia.
“September 12th brings us National Video Games Day. US-based video game players love this day and celebrate with huge gaming tournaments. What was once a 2D experience in the home is now a global phenomenon with players playing against each other across statelines and national borders via the internet. National Video Games Day gives gamers the perfect chance to celeberate and socialize! So grab your controller, join online and let the games begin!” — Designed by Ever Increasing Circles from the United Kingdom.
“Nature and our planet have given us life, enabled us to enjoy the most wonderful place known to us in the universe. People have given themselves the right to master something they do not fully understand. We dedicate this September calendar to a true nature lover, Vedran Badjun from Dalmatia, Croatia, who inspires us to love our planet, live in harmony with it and appreciate all that it has to offer. Amazon, Siberia and every tree or animal on the planet are treasures we lose every day. Let’s change that!” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.
“September marks the start of the Hispanic Heritage Month, a multicultural tradition we should all be proud of.” — Designed by Yaiza Narganez Gomez from Belgium.
“Wanted to create something colorful and happening for this month.” — Designed by Ciara from India.
“As the days are getting shorter and colder, fall is here again. Enjoy these cozy times!” — Designed by Melissa Bogemans from Belgium.
Designed by Thamil G from Chennai, India.
“Life is all about taking chances. God is going to give you all the opportunities in life, it’s on you to take the chance and make a successful life out of it.” — Designed by Pragya from India.
“Even the toughest of hearts need a tiny bit of gentleness and kindness just like the cactus that needs to be nourished with a little bit of water and sunlight to stay bright and blooming in the bumpy journey of life.” — Designed by Sweans Technologies from London.
“Character is what you do when no one else is watching. A friend recently posted the 2nd half of this quote on their Instagram and it’s been my mantra lately.” — Designed by Marie Newell from Missouri, USA.
“We created this wallpaper, wanted to show what we wanted and done!” — Designed by Vạn Đăc Phúc from Vietnam.
“Going back to school is always a thrill no matter how big or small you are, facing new knowledge and challenges is one of the most satisfying feelings a human can encounter in life.” — Designed by Maria Keller from Mexico.
“Online learning is the most popular way learning nowadays and, thus, I created a view which represents that.” — Designed by Ritu from India.
“I took this photo in Chaumont France, at the garden festival. For example, plants and concrete are in good association in that corner. That’s why I think we should put more plants in the cities and everywhere.” — Designed by Philippe Brouard from France.
Some things are too good to be forgotten. That’s why we dug out some September favorites from our wallpapers archives. Please note that these designs don’t come with a calendar. Enjoy!
“Seasons come and go, but our brave cactuses still stand. Summer is almost over, and autumn is coming, but the beloved plants don’t care.” — Designed by Lívia Lénárt from Hungary.
“Summer is officially over and we will no longer need our inflatable flamingos. Now, we’ll need umbrellas. And some flamingos will need an umbrella too!” — Designed by Marina Bošnjak from Croatia.
“Cats are beautiful animals. They’re quiet, clean and warm. They’re funny and can become an endless source of love and entertainment. Here for the cats!” — Designed by UrbanUI from India.
“This calendar was inspired by International Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19) — one of the many obscure and quirky days we celebrate in New Orleans. Our fair, colorfully corrupt city has entertained its share of outlaws over the years, but none as infamous as the pirate Jean Lafitte, a Frenchman who terrorized sailors and ships in the Gulf of Mexico and distributed his booty from a warehouse in New Orleans in the early 1800s. This calendar is a playful tribute to all of the misfits, outcasts and swashbucklers who call New Orleans home.” — Designed by Sonnie Sulak from New Orleans, LA.
“I designed this wallpaper to remind everyone that autumn is here and they are still reading the best design website, Smashing Magazine” — Designed by Advanced Web Ranking from Romania.
“As summer comes to an end, all the creatures pull back to their hiding places, searching for warmth within themselves and dreaming of neverending adventures under the tinted sky of closing dog days.” — Designed by Ana Masnikosa from Belgrade, Serbia.
“The earth has music for those who listen. Take a break and relax and while you drive out the stress, catch a glimpse of the beautiful nature around you. Can you hear the rhythm of the breeze blowing, the flowers singing, and the butterflies fluttering to cheer you up? We dedicate flowers which symbolize happiness and love to one and all.” — Designed by Krishnankutty from India.
“Penguins are sociable, independent and able to survive harsh winters. They work as a team to care for their offspring and I love that!” — Designed by Glynnis Owen from Australia.
“You can never have too many sunglasses” — Designed by Marina Eyl from Pennsylvania, USA.
“Be the wind of change. Nature inspired us in creating this wallpaper as well as the Scorpion’s song “Wind of change” we dedicate to all creatives worldwide.” — Designed by Design19 from Romania.
“A colorful wallpaper to brighten up your day.” — Designed by Shavaughn Haack from South Africa.
“I love September. Its colors and smells” — Designed by Juliagav from Ukraine.
“The moon will become the roundest in mid-autumn and Japanese will eat Dango (sweet rice dumpling) while admiring the moon.” — Designed by Evangeline Neo from Japan.
Designed by Oxana Kostromina from Russia/Germany.
“Summer seems to be over… but the weather is still warm and we definitely can enjoy the sea for a little longer. So… let’s go and ride the waves! Are you coming?” — Designed by WebOlution from Greece.
Thank you to all designers for their participation. Join in next month!
Smashing TV has been working with our friends over at Mozilla to bring you content from their upcoming View Source conference in Amsterdam. We’re really excited about the event that they are putting together.
Here on Smashing Magazine, we often feature articles that explain a little bit about how web technologies are created. I’m a CSS Working Group member, and I enjoy sharing the things that we’ve been discussing in our meetings, such as my post on “Designing An Aspect Ratio Unit For CSS”. Earlier this year, we published an article by Amy Dickens, “Web Standards: The What, The Why, And The How” in which Amy explained what we mean by web standards and how standards groups work. We’ve also shared with you how browser vendors such as Mozilla are making web platform features easier for us to use in our work, such as this post by Chen Hui Jing, “Debugging CSS Grid Layouts With Firefox Grid Inspector”.
If you enjoy articles like these, then you will love View Source, and the chance to spend two days with people who are involved with specifying the web, and implementing it in our browsers. It’s a very special View Source because friends from Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and the W3C are joining Mozilla to bring the best of the web to developers and designers this year. I’ll be there too, wearing my CSS Working Group hat, as part of a discussion corner on how CSS gets into browsers.
Our own Vitaly Friedman has been interviewing some of the speakers from the upcoming event, and you can watch the first of those interviews now.
Enjoy this conversation with Kenji Baheux, a Product Manager at Google, working on Chrome/Web Platform, about the web in different parts of the world, differences between usage of the web, and what we need to be aware of when expanding to an unfamiliar market in India or Southeast Asia.
Mozilla’s View Source Amsterdam event is happening on Monday and Tuesday, Sept 30th and October 1st at Theater Amsterdam. Get your tickets here. You can save 25% with the code Smashing_VS, or use a direct link to check out. I look forward to meeting you there!
Vitaly: Hello and welcome to one of those interviews on view source speakers, live sessions with a few behind-the-scenes about the speakers and the sessions and the talks and the interesting topics. And I’m very happy and honored to have Kenji Baheux with us today, from Google, currently living in Tokyo, Japan. How’re you doing today, Kenji?
Kenji Baheux: I’m doing pretty good, thank you.
Vitaly: Fantastic. I have questions. You know, I always do, I have too many questions I believe, but I’m really curious because you know, I know that you’ve spent quite a bit of time and you know, the session you’re going to present today, you’re going to present that in view source which is all about multicultural web thing, right? It’s like the web beyond the scope of what we’re used to, and very often when we think about designing a building for the web, we’re thinking about designing and building for our web. You know, for wonderful screens and wonderful devices and wonderful connections and powerful devices, and all of that. But when we think about designing for Indonesia, when you think about designing for Southeast Asia or India or kind of all places where we’re are not familiar with, we have stereotypes, right? We tend to believe slow devices, unreliable connections, bad screens, you know, horrible, horrible conditions. Almost the opposite of what we’re used to, is it the true web outside of the comfortable bubble that we live in? Tell us.
Kenji Baheux: So, unfortunately, there is some truth to that, and the interesting thing is that the market in India and Indonesia they have like a common aspect, but there are differences — especially around connectivity, for instance. It used to be the case that connectivity in India was very expensive, and so people like wanted to save like data and so they, you know, they didn’t want to use the web too much. For instance, today, it has become a lot more affordable and so people are not concerned too much about data consumption. It is still true that maybe in the newer kind of like user segment, it might still be quite expensive, but it’s getting better quite fast. So I think like in term of like data usage, it’s not so much a concern anymore, but at the same time like 4G is available over there, but if you look at the speed and the like readability of the collection, it’s more kind of like a 3G connection than a 4G connection.
Kenji Baheux: And so you need to be careful about like your assumption about, “Oh, 4G is affordable and therefore the connectivity is going to be the same than what I experience in my own country.” Like there are some stats but like, for instance, I think India is actually at the bottom in terms of speed for 4G and it’s about a 10x slower than what it should be compared to like the top one, for instance. So there is some nuance there and also because there are a lot of users in India depending on the time of the day, the speed will like fluctuate and also sometimes like depending on the bandwidth the [inaudible] will keep up.
Kenji Baheux: And so you might lose connection. You might be on the go. There are a lot of dot points, like not enough antennas and things like that. So you need to be careful about speed and also like this idea that not always on connectivity is not always what user experience is over there. And if you contrast that with Indonesia, Indonesia is doing a bit better in terms of speed, like 4G over there is more kind of like 4G, and there are some reasons to that. The country is much smaller, urbanization is much higher, and so it does help, right? The user, they can reach out in Indonesia tend to have better infrastructure. So that’s one aspect. You mentioned also the devices, so on that, like it’s still very true that the devices tend to be on the lower end of the spectrum. And so like iPhone for instance, are a very tiny market share mostly because those devices are too expensive. And so most of the people can’t afford like high-premium devices.
Kenji Baheux: It used to be the case also that the memory that devices have was very low and this has become better, but it doesn’t mean that the device is cracked, right. I think the OEMs understood what the user cares about. Like does it have a great camera, does it have enough RAM, what about the storage? But then they want to keep the price low and so they are going to find ways to make the device cheap, right? And so it means like slow CPU, slow storage, and things like that. So you need to be careful about the connectivity, but also how much JavaScript you send because it’s going to make your page go slow, right?
Vitaly: It’s, you know, you spend quite a bit of time thinking about performance and also now because you’re working at the Chrome team and you kind of want to work on the instant loading team — if I’m correct, right? It means for me, personally, it means that you have very different challenges at times as well because probably now living in Japan or living in Indonesia kind of have to really look into the types of devices people are using, the habits that they have, the cultural ways of how the web is different. You know, if you look into Africa, for example, I’m sure as you probably know, of course, many people that Africa will be using kind of totally bypassing credit cards altogether, sending money by SMS and having a different kind of web applications, right? So that makes me think as well, when it comes to performance, obviously we want to make things fast and all that, would you say that progressive web apps as a model has become or is becoming more and more established just because it’s kind of an easier way in to get to better performance in India, in Southeast Asian, and so on?
Kenji Baheux: Yeah, we’ve seen a trend of success with PWA in those markets, for the reasons that I’ve outlined, right? If you build a PWA right, it’s going to minimize the amount of data that you fetch, right? You can use the storage and API to make sure that you don’t over-fetch. You can also deliver a very fast-like experience by showing at least a bit of like a piece of UX and then fetching the new content, right? You can minimize the amount of content you need to fetch in order to show the letters like data. So it’s, I think it’s a great fit. It does help a lot of like partners over there.
Vitaly: Many companies that they kind of work with and some of my colleagues are working with, they have a very difficult time moving kind of exploring new markets, moving their architecture, their application, the the way they built up their app or the website really on these markets kind of trying to gather that market share. And it’s very often not very clear why is that? Is it just because the architecture that we’re used to with this mountain of JavaScript that we are pushing with, you know, the Western World that say it’s just totally unacceptable for Southeast Asia? And again, I don’t know, China’s a difficult story anyway, and India. So in many ways, many of these companies see as one of the paths to get to those markets is just built something entirely different. So when you see, if you see, let’s say somebody who had maybe watching this session later trying to get through those markets, would you recommend to adapt the existing architecture, try to kind of make it work for those markets, or would you say it’s better to start from scratch and use something like an assistant ecosystem that’s already there?
Kenji Baheux: Yeah, I think it’s usually better to start from scratch because you might be tempted to try to keep around different features because maybe you’ve seen them doing well in your market and so you, you think those will be like super important to have. And so it’s going to be hard to make some trade off. And so it might be better to start from scratch and like really find, okay, what are the keys— what is the goal of this product? What are we trying to achieve? And keep it to the essential and start from there and see if you really like your product too, it’s bare minimum, like how fast can it float on the connectivity that you can find in markets like that? Like, try to get a low-end device, it’s not too hard to get something that could feel relevant for the market that you are trying to target and just play with it.
Kenji Baheux: I think trying to create a product on your desktop computer or even looking at it like on an iPhone or like a high-end Android device is not going to give you a good idea of like what your experience is going to be. And so you need to really like put yourself in the the shoes of your customers and really like confirm for yourself that what you have is going to work. So yeah, start from something very simple like the bare minimum that your product is about, and see how far you can take it from there.
Vitaly:It’s interesting to also be talking about people, but also… most of the time when we have these conversations about performance, we think about devices. You know, when you start thinking about internationalization and localization and all those things that are actually just going to those markets, I start wondering about the habits of people. Maybe they use the web very differently. So this is exactly what you’re saying, right? We need to do some research to understand how people are used to certain things. What would work? Maybe a feature you spent two years on here in Germany somewhere is just not going to work at all in India, right? So because, I mean, I just have to ask you because I’m so curious, it’s maybe not on the technical side, but I’m just curious. So if you compare the web, how people use the web, but say in the Western World, and again, let’s say in Japan where you spent the last 20 years, I believe, how is it different? I mean, I’m sure that there are certain things that are just, just totally confusing for somebody who experiences, let’s say, the way people are using the web in Japan coming from very different culture, did you have any kind of cultural shocks or anything of that kind or do you see things differently?
Kenji Baheux: That’s an interesting one. I think one of the most surprising thing for me when I arrived in Japan, like 20 years ago, was the fact that the website were like very visual, to the point of like being very noisy. Like from a European viewpoint, it’s kind of like, oh, this is way too much in your face. Like, there was so much going on on that page, how can you even understand how to use it? But actually this is what like most users are actually here, like when it comes to user experience, they want to know more upfront about the product, and so you end up with this like long page detailing all the things about why this project is like the most amazing thing in the world. And then at the bottom of it, there is like finally a way to purchase that product, so that’s one typical user experience that I’ve seen a couple of times already.
Kenji Baheux: So yeah, so that’s very visual: Trying to put as much information upfront about what the product is about. So that’s for Japan. And then for countries like Indonesia and India, especially in India, there are a lot of difficulties around language. As you probably know, India has a lot of official languages and so you really need to understand which users you are trying to reach. Because if you don’t have the content in their language, it’s going to be very hard for them to understand how to use the website, and so on. For most, it’s the first time that they are getting online and there are still a lot like new users getting online every day, and so they don’t have any like notion of like what a tab is like background tab, all of these things that we take for granted, like a lot of users actually that’s the first time that they are online, and so it’s very hard for them to just know about the things we take for granted. And so be very careful about making sure that your product is like self-explaining, and that there is nothing that people need to know in advance, for instance.
Vitaly: I’m also wondering, very often when we’re building products or when we’re designing products, we tend to think that we are building this technology that’s almost neutral, but in the end, whenever we’re building something, we always reflect our identity somehow in the little snippets of JavaScript and CSS we’re writing, and so I think that, in many ways, as designers and developers, we also have certain stereotypes when it comes to designing for those markets or kind of adapting for those markets. So what do you see, I mean, I mentioned one of them in the very beginning, like everything is slow, everything is horrible, totally unreliable and all of that — what do you see maybe as other common misconceptions or myths surrounding global web from people who are designing and building in a Western World Web?
Kenji Baheux: Yeah, that’s an interesting one. I think one particular aspect is the local players tend to be much more successful for various reasons, but one of them is that, especially in Indonesia, they know that the population is very young in general, and so they opt for a more casual tone which is something that I guess most websites in the US and EU don’t tend to do a lot. And so if you’re in e-commerce, you might be tempted to be very serious because you want to present yourself as the company that people can trust, but it might actually be the [inaudible] to your brand image if you go to a market like Indonesia where people want to have a more fun experience maybe.
Vitaly: Right, and also if you look forward into how things are evolving or how they’ve changed, I mean, you’ve seen tremendous change on the web over the last 20 years, I’m sure, but I’m wondering also when we look forward, let’s say five years from now, and look into connectivity, it seems like there is this gap that we used to have. It’s kind of bridging, we have pretty much stable connectivity that’s coming, at least worldwide, it’s still a long way to go, but it’s, you know, it’s coming. How do you see the web — the World Wide Web as we intended it to be from the very first place — evolving? Will we breach all these gaps between the Western world and non-Western world, at least in terms of the web? Or are there going to be significant cultural differences still?
Kenji Baheux: Obviously, eventually, things will get in a similar place in terms of conductivity and, like, maybe even like devices. But I think it’s going to take a while because as I said, there is still a lot of like new users getting online for the first time, and for them it’s like the price of data and devices are getting in the affordable realm, and you see, especially in markets like India for instance, there is still a lot of like feature phone and it’s not the like the old-side feature phone. It’s kind of like a more fully-fledged feature phone. I believe that KaiOS is getting a lot of attraction — people should be aware of that brand. Go check it online, google for KaiOS devices, and you will see that it’s actually bringing the modern web into a feature phone from factor.
Kenji Baheux: And so the idea is that the lowest end of the smartphone is still too expensive for a lot of users, and so by bringing something that people can use and get connected to on a feature phone from factor, like carriers can lower the price points where a lot more users can get online. So I think this is still going to be the case for a long time, and so having to be mindful about low-end devices and slow connectivity because as more people get online, the infrastructure should keep up but it’s going to be very hard. All of these programs are still going to be a thing for a long time, I think.
Vitaly: When I was in Indonesia, by the way, I was surprised about one thing because it’s the first time when I experienced it, and it was the fact that I would go online and we’d get a SIM card and then there would be a Facebook Internet and everything else. Essentially, whenever I go through the gates of Facebook and I try to, you know, going to click on the links and all that, it’s free. But then as long as I want to type in anything else in my URL bar, I have to pay. So this is where I actually got to be hit almost by the role that net neutrality has and how it’s actually not respected really in those countries where you have to pay more for access in certain parts of the web. In terms of net neutrality, how do you see things there? Because I’ve only been to Indonesia where it happened to me. Is that a common thing that we have a Facebook Internet in many places around the world?
Kenji Baheux: So I believe this is part of something that was called Facebook Basics. I don’t know if it’s still the same name, but I’ve seen different countries where you can get online for free but you only have access to a few websites. And I’m just guessing that it’s a deal between those websites and the carrier. The stats that we have indicate that it only gets, like, a lot of people would just move away from that very soon, like quickly because as they get to hear from their friends and family about all the different things that they are able to do, they quickly realize that what they have is like very limited. And so as the purchasing power like grows, they do like pay a few additional like quota, not maybe for the full month, and eventually at some point they will be able to do so, but there is an appetite for getting beyond this like few websites sites that are available for free.
Vitaly: Yeah. And then maybe the final one, Kenji, and I will let you go, and free… So, if you look forward, let’s say in a few years from now, and maybe if you look back into that interview when I asked that question, what would you like to see changed in the next two years? Is there anything on the web that you desperately want to fix or something that kind of bothers you for quite a bit of time where you are spending all your time and efforts and you know, you’re in the nighttime when you can’t sleep, and just to solve that thing… If you had to, if you could solve just one thing for good on the web, what would it be?
Kenji Baheux: That’s a tough one. I feel that the web in general is still, like, we say that web is like very low friction and it is in a sense because everything is just like one link away. And so, and also there’s like no new install phase, it’s very safe and secure, right? But at the same time, on mobile, a lot of time it’s very frustrating because you have to wait and the pages load very slowly, the UX is not always great… So I hope that the work we do will eventually get us in a place where the web feels like instant, seamless, and delightful. And I’m wondering if there is something that is missing, which is some of the, like the native apps are on, you know, like do provide a better user experience cause I feel they have the incentive to do so to like things like ratings and reviews, right? There is a way to know where you are falling off the path, like what is wrong about my app? How can I fix it? And also you have the incentive to do it because there is like rankings and people can see what other people think about your app, and so I’m wondering if there is something on the web that is missing there where we could get more signals from users and help the web get better based on that, and so I would like to, to get some feedback on that and what people think about this idea.
Vitaly: Oh, that sounds exciting. So I guess that maybe that’s something you’ll bring up in your session on October 1st at View Source in Amsterdam, and I can’t wait to hear more insights about the web in different parts of the world because the web is much bigger than just us sitting here in fancy offices in front of wonderful displays. Alright, Kenji, thank you so much for being with us today, and thanks to everyone for watching as well. I’m looking forward to the next one and I’m looking forward to seeing you in Amsterdam.
Vitaly: Thank you, Kenji. Bye!
Kenji Baheux: Thank you, bye!
Watch the Smashing YouTube and Smashing Vimeo channels for more interviews with the View Source speakers.
(vf, mc, il)
The servlet dispatcher allows a request to travel from one servlet to other servlets. An alternative for the request dispatcher is to send a redirect. For every new request send, redirect comes back to the network. However, a request dispatcher then occurs within a server.
Let's understand the concept of the request dispatcher with a simple example. Consider the scenario where we have three servlets, each named servlet1, servlet2, and servlet3. In case we don’t use the dispatcher, whenever we request servlet1, the server passes control to servlet1. After that, if we request servlet2, then control comes back from servlet 1 and is passed to servlet2. A server might be in India and a servlet might be requested from America. In this case, for a second request, it must come back to the server (India) and go back to the servlet (America). This option is not good if we have heavy traffic in between each request and response. A solution to this problem is using the dispatcher.
A scoop of their favorite ice cream, a bike ride in the summer rain, or listening to the frog concert by the nearby lake — a lot of little things and precious moments have inspired the design community to create a wallpaper this July.
This monthly wallpapers challenge has been going on for more than nine years now, and each time anew, artists and designers from across the globe take it as an occasion to tickle their creativity and cater for beautiful, unique, and thought-provoking wallpaper designs. Wallpapers that are bound to get your ideas sparking, too.
The wallpapers in this collection all come in versions with and without a calendar for July 2019 and can be downloaded for free. A big thank-you to everyone who submitted their designs! At the end of this post, we also compiled some July favorites from past years’ editions that are just too good to be forgotten. Enjoy!
Please note that:
“Is there anything more refreshing (and more delicious!) than a strawberry sundae on a hot summer day? Well, we don’t think so. And did you know that strawberry celebration is on its way in the U.S. Oh, yes! July 7th is the National Strawberry Sundae Day, and we predict that it’s going to be sweet and yummy. So, make your favorite dessert and start preparing yourself for the festive July days.” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.
“Rain has come, showering the existence with new seeds of life… Everywhere life is blooming, as if they were asleep and the falling music of raindrops have awakened them… Feel the drops of rain… Feel this beautiful mystery of life… Listen to its music, melt into it…” — Designed by DMS Software from India.
“There are two things that come to mind when I think about July: ice cream and the Fourth of July!” — Designed by Alyssa Merkel from the United States.
Designed by Cátia Pereira from Portugal.
“Based on the Alentejo region, south of Portugal, where there are large plains used for growing wheat. It thus represents the extensions of the fields of cultivation and their simplicity. Contrast of the plain with the few trees in the fields. Storks that at this time of year predominate in this region, being part of the Alentejo landscape and mentioned in the singing of Alentejo.” — Designed by José Guerra from Portugal.
“July is coming and the nights are warmer. Frogs look at the moon while they talk about their day.” — Designed by Veronica Valenzuela from Spain.
Designed by Joana Moreira from Portugal.
“The objective of this date is to draw attention to the production and over-consumption of plastic bags worldwide, presenting alternatives to solve this serious environmental problem. It is urgent to change the behavior of all human beings regarding the use of plastic bags. For the preservation of the environment, we should use the same plastic bag for shopping, recycling or use paper bags. In this wallpaper I drew a plastic bag with a turtle inside it, as if it was imprisoned by its own bag, as if the ocean was reduced to a plastic bag, emphasizing the seriousness of this environmental problem, which has tortured both turtles and many others marine species.” — Designed by Carolina Santos from Portugal.
“Global Tiger Day, often called International Tiger Day, is an annual celebration to raise awareness for tiger conservation, held annually on July 29. It was created in 2010 at the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit. The goal of the day is to promote a global system for protecting the natural habitats of tigers and to raise public awareness and support for tiger conservation issues.” — Designed by Athulya from Calicut.
“I was inspired by Hawaii type of scenarios with some reference to surf.” — Designed by Sónia Fernandes from Portugal.
“The lower part of the image is represented in a more realistic and detailed form and represents the basis of the friendship, conveying a strong connection both in the simplicity and strength of the gestures, hands and medals that both children wear around their necks are symbols of this union. In terms of color I chose to use the ash scale, referring to the old photograph, implying the idea of a long duration of the relations of friendships and the memories we keep of our childhood friends, the illustration represented portrays a memory of mine, which makes it very personal. At the top of the wallpaper, the identity of the two characters appears pixelated, suggesting an idea of building deconstruction, through colored squares that come together and move away, as a symbol of connections and the sharing of emotions, which build and strengthen bonds of friendship.” — Designed by Carolina Santos from Portugal.
“Summer is here, enjoy it and cool and stay hydrated!” — Designed by Melissa Bogemans from Belgium.
Designed by IQUADART from Belarus.
Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.
“Summer is the season of wind. I like to stand on top of the mountains, hearing the song of the wind flying through the meadow.” — Designed by Anh Nguyet Tran from Vietnam.
Let’s go an a journey back in time: Down in our wallpaper archives, we rediscovered some July classics that are just too good to gather dust. May we present… (Please note that these designs don’t come with a calendar.)
“What’s better than a starry summer night with an (unexpected) friend around a fire camp with some marshmallows? Happy July!” — Designed by Etienne Mansard from the UK.
“Warm summer weather inspired the color palette.” — Designed by Marijana Pivac from Croatia.
“July is National Ice Cream Month and who needs an invitation for a scoop or two, or three! Lacking the real thing, our Tutti Frutti wallpaper can satisfy until your next creamy indulgence.” — Designed by Karen Frolo from the United States.
“Words are few, thoughts are deep, memories of you we’ll always keep.” — Designed by Suman Sil from India.
Designed by Ilaria Bagnasco from Italy.
“Snails can be inspiring! If you keep heading towards your goal, even if it is just tiny steps, enjoy the journey and hopefully it will be worth the effort.” — Designed by Glynnis Owen from Australia.
“What do you do in summer? You go to the beach. Even if you can’t go — feel the waves and sand and sun through this funny wallpaper.” — Designed by Olga Lepaeva from Russia.
“Make sure you have a refreshing source of ideas, plans and hopes this July. Especially if you are to escape from urban life for a while.” — Designed by Igor Izhik from Canada.
“It’s both ‘National Ice Cream Month’ and ‘National Hot Dog Month’ over in the US, which got me thinking — which is better? With this as your wallpaper, you can ponder the question all month!” — Designed by James Mitchell from the UK.
Designed by Xenia Latii from Berlin, Germany.
“July is one of the most beautiful months of the year. Enjoy every day, every hour, which gives us this month!” — Designed by Nikolay Belikov from Russia.
“The wallpaper which I created consists of my personal sketches of Polish herbs and flowers and custom typography. I wanted it to be light and simple with a hint of romantic feeling. I hope you’ll enjoy it!” — Designed by Beata Kurek from Poland.
“Ever watched Joe’s Apartment when you were a kid? Well that movie left a soft spot in my heart for the little critters. Don’t get me wrong: I won’t invite them over for dinner, but I won’t grab my flip flop and bring the wrath upon them when I see one running in the house. So there you have it… three roaches… bringing the smack down on that pesky human… ZZZZZZZAP!!” — Designed by Wonderland Collective from South Africa.
“This wallpaper encourages you to appreciate and celebrate the country’s freedom as well as your own!” — Designed by Marina Zhukov from the USA.
Designed by Studcréa from France
Designed by Elise Vanoorbeek from Belgium
“Even though it is not summer in my country, I made a summer theme. A cool approach to summer themes, tough, very fresh and ‘twilighty’.” — Designed by Marcos Sandrini from Brazil.
“I have created a pattern that has a summer feeling. For me July and summer is bright color, joy and lots of different flowers and birds. So naturally I incorporated all these elements in a crazy pattern.” — Designed by Lina Karlsson, Idadesign Ab from Sweden.
”…enjoy the sun in July!” — Designed by Marco Palma from Italy/Germany.
Please note that we respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artist’s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience throughout their works. This is also why the themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves.
Thank you to all designers for their participation. Join in next month!
(il)
Today, as we kicked off the 2019 Nexus User Conference, one of the first sessions tackle tough questions about the journey of containers and how they’re actually just a piece of the puzzle.
ABN AMRO, which we’ll use as the backdrop to showcase this lesson, is one of the biggest banks in the Netherlands. They have a lot of revenue and thus a lot of operations, employees, and dev teams. Specifically, they have more than 450 agile software development teams in both the Netherlands and India and more than 5,000 people in IT.
Most AI stories in the news these days are, let’s be honest, pretty damn terrifying. Not only are machines about to steal all of our jobs, but they may also end up killing us. Literally.
Thankfully, though, this is not one of those stories, because Google has given me something decidedly less anxiety-inducing to write about: The company has just announced that its AI-based flood detection and alert system will now cover millions of people living in India in time for this year’s monsoon season, which begins next month.
Registration for the sixth installment of WordSesh is now open and thanks to Pantheon, those who attend the conference live will be able to watch all of the sessions for free. WordSesh is a virtual WordPress conference with speakers from around the world sharing knowledge.
This year’s event has 14 speakers with topics that include, the benefits of being the first to market with a Gutenberg user course, three ways to embrace the entrepreneurial roller coaster, and the rhythms of remote teams. Ten of the presentations will be live with four pre-recorded sessions.
WPSessions will transcribe each presentation live and will also store the recordings so that registered members can view them at a later date. There will also be a virtual hallway track where participants can network with each other.
If you’d like to watch with a group of people in the same physical location, WordSesh has a list of watch parties that are taking place.
If you’re hosting a watch party, you’re encouraged to contact WordSesh with the details so your event can be added to the list. WordSesh 6 begins May 22nd at 9:30AM Eastern on Crowdcast.
The banking sector forms the backbone of any economy. With the technology innovations making way into the arena, the banking sector has been moving away from traditional methods. It has shown steady acceptance of modern age banking methods for the faster and more dependable outcome. On the other hand, blockchain technology has gained popularity on a large scale since its introduction in 2008. This development has presented the impending benefits of blockchain technology in the banking sector in terms of transparency and security.
One of the primary aspects of the banking sector is security. Though in India, with more than 90 percent of the transactions are performed in cash, digital channels are increasingly popular nowadays. This has increased the scenario for cybercrime. Cyber attacks are prominent in recent times. The massive data breach of over 3 million debit and credit cards that occurred around 2 years back has shown the prominent security gaps in the banking segment. Another area of concern is the increased occurrence of fraudulent transactions. Reports and sources reveal that there has been approximately a 20 percent increase in bank fraud cases over the past five years.
