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Last time I was talking to my niece who is just 13 years old, she was so much worried about the likes on her recent birthday party post on Instagram. I was there with her for like 2 hours and meanwhile, she checked the likes on her post like 25 times on an average. Are these the starting symptoms of PTSD(Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)? I would say yes.

The SEO hosting organic results are also the witness of the antagonism social media is spreading. Even Google couldn’t hide the issues social media is causing and hence shown in the top ten results.

One could easily get from these results that people are searching more about the negative impacts and the most prominent one is definitely PTSD.

This form of the disorder is more prominent among the social famous faces having following more than 10,000. Being a part of the biggest chunk of common people, we also face issues related to our posts on these social media channels. To narrow down I would say this issue majorly arises on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. In spite of having followers like in the range of hundreds to thousands maximum, we are so much worried about the likes on our recent posts and increasing followers. There are a set of people particularly the vulnerable ones who have low resilience and are actually effected the most through social media activities. 

In the age of developing inter personal skills and setting goals for future, teenagers are lowering their self-esteem through social media…

Recently all the major social media giants have realized that it’s time to take considerable steps in the direction to conceal the young as well as an adult generation to suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). The major reason for people spending so much time on these media is the steep decline in internet charges and access to smartphones. Initially, people use to use desktops or laptops for accessing websites or even these social media websites but nowadays everything has become so handy on our mobiles.

Burgeoning Social Media Craze (Mobiles)

The very recent news released by Instagram of removing the “Likes” section for protecting mental health around the world has gained so much respect and applause. Though Instagram fans or freaks precisely speaking took this news as a shock the pressure it had started building among the young generation is becoming catastrophic with time.

The official declaration from the twitter handle of Instagram.

Liking posts on Instagram served different purposes for different kinds of people. Instagram was becoming a medium for people to show off and its day to day impact was escalating like hell. As generally, people assume that posting more and more posts on Instagram means they are living a lavish life but the picture may be at times the opposite. For example, take the case of the famous pop star Ariana Grande who recently shared her health conditions. Celebrities especially go through such pressure over these social media channels serving content to millions of followers and the constant squeeze of satisfying all of them on the same post.

THE SHINE AND SMILE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA COMES OUT OF THE DEEPEST AGONY

On last October 10^TH witnessed the most revolutionizing World Mental Health Day. Along with the celebrities like Harry Styles, Ruby Rose etc., social media companies also took a step forward. Facebook introduced “Let’s Talk” campaign and also promised to donate $1 for every sticker sent on the day that would be donated to mental health organizations. 

IT’S OK TO NOT BE OK

Already this Millennial generation is acquiring the social media world, hence things should be done in a millennial way only. The best step taken to date by any social media to fight this virtual vague parallel millennial world is by Accenture. They have come up with this idea of asking people to sign PTSD forms working as Facebook and YouTube content moderators. This would ensure people working as content moderators that the job they are willing to get in may cause post-traumatic stress disorder. The sereneness of PTSD has risen to such a level that once a Facebook moderator said he keeps a gun by his side while sleeping. The issue cannot get more serious as it has gotten already.

The negative impacts of PTSD are numerous…

If removing the “Likes” section may not be successful in terms of improving mental health, but at least it would make Instagram a more positive place as compared it has been for so long for this millennial generation.

The next step that Instagram is thinking is to make the posting culture revolve around more on the personalized experience rather than cribbing over the likes and popularity of people under your known circle. This had become a very pathetic accomplishment to get validated through the number of likes and making the world such a negative place to live in. The major purpose behind this whole removing Likes is to make people feel happier and less self-conscious and make the social media less of a competition and more of a fun platform to connect to new people learn cool stuff. 

Instagram out of all these social media giants has the highest net negative impact on mental health…

After seeing the ranking, it can be easily perceived that the social media channels whose business module majorly lies in pictures have a greater negative impact on mental health. Snapchat’s module is also totally based on sharing pictures just like Instagram. Although it does not have the “Likes” feature displaying daily social outings and happening life and disappearing in seconds leaves people swayed and envious most of the time. Actually, people only post the brighter side of their lives, they may be breaking from inside but their social media life should still look lit. But people generally forget that spending a day on any of these social media profiles has been fooling me into believing that I have an actual social life. I know you are relating to me but it’s quite tough to accept the facts. 

MAKE MENTAL HEALTH A PRIORITY

Instagram has recently proved itself to be the torch bearer of mental health by also bringing on board the “Nudge” feature. So the Nudge feature is basically a checker of the comments you post and ceases the comments that have the potential of cyberbullying. Some comments may be intentionally or unintentionally hurt some social sentiments or discourage on an individual level. The Nudge feature will in the most professional manner give the comment poster alternate options or would suggest a subtler way to convey their message. Comments like “You are ugly”, “Fat kid” etc. especially targeting on body shaming are the ones that have the most unintended side effects.

DON’T MAKE YOUR SILLY COMMENT, A FUTURE BAD NEWS

Some reported cases-

• Cyberstalking lead to PTSD and illness- A woman named Melody Hensley reported that suffered from -PTSD and illness through cyberstalking on Twitter. After receiving of constant online abuse she suffered from PTSD for around 16 months

• Disturbing content on Facebook led to PTSD- An ex content moderator reported and also sued the company for asking him to do work that caused him PTSD. Chris Gray had to review approximately more than a thousand cases regularly, most of them containing threatening, hateful, bullying or content that may be disastrous in either way. 
• Another traumatic incident happened when a Facebook live video streamed a suicide in France and harassing video from Ohio. The after-effects of these disturbing videos were traumatic and left so many people horrified to the innermost core. The platform which was formed connecting people is making the whole belief to drift away from humanity.

Seeing the constructive efforts taken by these social media giants have brought up hope among the usual users that the year 2020 will be the year of the commencement of positivity. But apart from the steps taken by Instagram, Facebook and others we as users on these platforms should generate a feeling of responsibility. Once we start spreading positive vibes on social media in no time things like PTSD or depression would start diminishing gradually. Not only on social media, filtering yourself before speaking anything, in general, helps in keeping the environment positive. Together let’s take a pledge to make this world a better place to live in.

BE THE SUNSHINE OF SOMEONE’S LIFE AND NOT THE CIMMERIAN SHADE

Cloud trend is in. Almost every business is endeavoring to make this technology a part of their IT delivery system. Amidst different cloud models, more and more businesses are turning to cloud’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model to leverage IT capabilities on a pay-per-use subscription basis. With the increasing rate of IaaS adoption, the number of IaaS providers are eventually getting high. Vendors seem to be in a race to differentiate themselves from their close rivals by developing developer-friendly features that augment the agility of end-users. Typically, every cloud hosting India service provider offers core network, cloud storage, and computing capabilities with compelling pricing. What sets an influential vendor apart from others are services encompassed with the potential to augment the development cycle by narrowing down the intricacies associated with scalability, orchestration, fail over, and automation.

This blog attempts to highlight pointers that help organizations to discover a right IaaS provider:  

Across the board, IaaS initiatives are in highlights. Over time, the value proposition of IaaS is increasing owing to its capabilities. According to a recent research report by IDC, around two-third of respondents are either already leveraging or planning to use IaaS by the end of this year. However, it is important to ensure that the provider follows the best practices to move your business needle.

Join a Trustworthy Partner: It is important to look that your IaaS provider complies with your standards, governance as well as security imperatives. If you have chosen IaaS benefactor to keep your data, then it should be stored in a way that no data breaches or infringement can take place. There are a plethora of vendors who claims to be one of the hosting service providers when it comes to performance and security, however they fail while fulfilling their promises. That’s why, before signing up the contract, make sure that the agreement clearly lists and explains policies and procedures with respect to data privacy, governance, and security protocols.

Not Easy Exit: The history of the IT world is all about creating lock in, which means you can’t leave them before completing the stipulated tenure – no matter how good their service was at the beginning and how worst it has become at present. To be precise, it is indispensable to ensure that the IaaS provider offers service level agreement on migrating data and apps out of as well as into IaaS. You never know when you need to switch the vendor, so better have a look on this aspect prior to doing business with them. 

Active Support: Most of the enterprises have a team of IT professionals to manage their data and applications. These organizations collaborate with IaaS vendors to leverage computing capabilities of cloud. Let me come to the point, businesses should first decide what kind of data and applications they are looking forward to move to an IaaS vendor and how their internal IT team is going to manage that. They need to comprehend that whether moving some specific applications or data center means that they also need to move some of their professionals to IaaS provider’s facility; or they need to make changes in the policies allied to application development and testing; or they need to implement changes in their existing disaster recovery strategy? Before making a move, bear these aspects in mind.

Full-proofed Vendor: Impulsive decisions won’t be of any help. Before you sign the contract, it is important for you and your company to look at service provider’s experience, list of their clientele, the uptime they offer, and security controls they have in place. In addition to this, also ensure about the frequency of IT and security audits they go through. Don’t believe in verbal commitments, let it be on papers. It should be properly documented.

Resources & Pricing:  It is always sage to partner with a vendor with a global footprint. Another pointer that you need to give due attention is that the vendor employs multiple telecommunication networks in place and offers service level agreement on the speed and quality of service. Remember, if your data or applications are not accessible to your users, what you will do then? Thus, make a leap after thoroughly analyzing the provider’s ability. Next point – Pricing. Most of the IaaS vendors charge users on monthly basis or on a pay-per-use basis. In order to avoid any further complexities, businesses should regularly review their billings and make sure that they are not paying more than what actually needs to be paid.

The move to IaaS will completely transform data and applications landscape and the way IT works. As the market will mature, this robust cloud model will become an integral cloud model for almost all.

It is necessary to review SEO tactics from time to time because the Google algorithms are changed many times in a year. Marketers must make sure that they remain abreast of the changes and design a robust SEO strategy for their organization or clients. SEO tactics must be safe and be able to drive more traffic.

Understanding the significance of on page SEO

In order to have a comprehensive understanding of the subject, we need to dig deeper in the two main aspects of optimizing a website or a blog post. It should be noted that the ongoing discussion focus on optimization of content and not the website as a whole. Hence we will be looking closer at ‘on page’ and not ‘on site’ optimization by considering factors responsible for on page optimizations such as:

• Use of heading tags (h1,h2,h3, etc)
• Keyword use
• Keyword placement
• Overall quality of content
• Outbound and inbound links
• Inclusion of multi-media

Optimization of your content for targeted keywords is the most time tested technique to help search engines rank your content by picking up the appropriate keyword. It must be understood that Google does consider multiple factors for ranking in addition to keywords. There are multiple on-page as well as off-page parameters to consider.  

On-page SEO- deeper insights

Relevance of on page search engine factors keep on changing every year. There is a long list of on page search engine factors and the most recent ones are as follows:

• Keyword relevance
• Proof terms
• Internal links
• Keywords in content body

These are the most important factors need to be considered for on page optimization as per the latest Google trends. Addition of rich content including video is sure to propel your SEO efforts.

The first and most significant on page SEO tactic is to use targeted phrase or keyword in the very beginning and the same should not be repeated in title tag just to earn higher ranking. The main keyword must be included in main title and also in the first paragraph of the article.

We should also avoid longer titles that are having more than 65 characters. In order to optimize URL for targeted keywords, you need to post them in the beginning without use of special characters in URL.

Use of heading tags also plays key role in use of on page SEO tactics. H1 tag I reserved only for the title and avoid repeating H2 and H3 tags to avoid negative ranking. The ideal density of keywords and phrases should be restricted to 1.5 percent only.

Use of meta-description tags is an important aspect on page SEO tactics and your keywords should be included in these tags and meta-description section. The meta-description tags should not exceed 160 characters and should be simple and easy.

With the advent of image search friendly search engines, addition of images and videos plays a vital role in on page SEO. Using multiple images that are small in size and inclusion of targeted key word in the title of image makes great sense.

Keeping a higher word count of blogs is a prudent SEO tactic. Usually you should focus at minimum 700 words (or even more) for your blogs to make them more SEO friendly.

Internal links play a vital part in boosting your SEO efforts. Linking it to your other posts can improve total time spent by visitor on your page and will boost its SEO. It is also advisable to provide links to trusted websites to enhance credibility of your post.

Some of the latest on site and off site SEO tactics

Your site must have a mobile compatible design and a solid technical site structure with a user friendly design. Inclusion of internal links and be a good tactic along with regular feeding of informative and useful content. Sharing buttons for social media help a lot. These should be large sized or floating style buttons to attract and engage visitors.

Offsite SEO tactics should involve building strong social bonds and leverage the social network for exploring guest post opportunities. The off-site content should include branded anchor text with proper length of text. Customer reviews on authoritative platforms such as Google Plus definitely help in boosting off-site SEO efforts. Visual content creation and dissemination should be a priority in off-site SEO.

Common non-technical factors for enhanced user experience

The overall objective of implementing some of the not-so-technical factors is to improve user experience of your content. These include some of the old-school tactics such as using bucket-brigades that are short phrases to keep the reader engaged for higher dwell time.

It should be noted that the basic objective of posting a blog or content is to make it meaningful and informative. The post should be considered as an authoritative manual for the targeted keywords. Remember, Google will rank your page higher if it is able to keep the visitor engaged. Use of sub-headings that include compelling attributes of the subject is a good idea.

Cybercrime has grown considerably in recent times. And the bad news is, it’s not going to end anytime soon. It would be no exaggeration to say that with the passage of time, hackers have become more ambitious and their objectives have doubled – from stealing financial information to user confidential data to intellectual property info. The loss of any given asset can bring down an organization. A recent study by PwC, Economic Crime Survey 2016 predicts that more than 50% of the British companies are expected to get attacked by an online crime over the next two years.

With unethical attempts getting more persistent and powerful, it’s indispensable to have a data center that has robust security incident detection and response capability. Organizations lacking fully functional security operations center that is considered as a heart of good security management process are immensely disposed to such attacks. This slip off can be owing to multifold factors, such as inappropriate security tools, budget constraints, non-trained security professionals, and fragile incident management process. To attain complacency, IT administrators should gear up for up-to-the-minute techniques and lay emphasis on enhancing the capabilities of their existing security operations center (SOC) so that these space-age attacks can be wiped out positively. Remember – decisions taken in nick of the time will drive your business forward, or else be ready to face the aftermath.

This blog attempts to elucidate some of the critical factors that can help in making your SOC – an effective weapon to combat against unwarranted cyber-attacks:

In the current age, most of the businesses live under the impression that they are not vulnerable to cyber-attacks because they have never encountered it in their organization. The façade is different as they are not even aware whether their systems have gotten already compromised or not. The need of the hour is to beat the clock and fathom the fact that average number of days from the commencement of the breach to detection lies in between 210 – 254 days.

Before we step ahead, take a look over the tools being used by organizations to shield their company networks.

In order to mitigate the effect of such targeted attacks, SOC needs to be maintained in a way that it promptly detects and defends the issue before letting them to enter in the irrecoverable phases. Before taking a leap, determine your security operations maturity in the first place:

Security Analytics

Majorly, attacks are segregated into two dimensions depending on the attackers and the methods applied to commence such attacks. When the attack methods are known, IT administrators make use of basic rules to address them such as AV signatures, Intrusion Prevention Systems, Automated vulnerability scanners, SIEM, data leak prevention systems, and Endpoint Antivirus. Well, when the attacking methods are unknown – analytics comes into the picture. Well, it is observed that most of the attacking modes are unknown, which makes the conventional rule-based systems irrelevant to deal with the current threat economy.  

Analytics allow identifying unknown attackers and attacks and send notifications if further hunting is required to isolate the potential breaches, if any. Moreover, analytics using threat intelligence is more absolute as it determines the potential breaches without any second attempt.

Ways to Upgrade SOC to Security Analytics

The first and the foremost step for IT professionals in a quest to upgrade SOC–is to determine more and more use instances before deploying the analytics platform. The use cases should not be only confined to basic known and unknown attacks concept. Of all these reasons, understanding of the facts that where you should implement statistical or machine learning methods and how it fill bridge the gaps is important.

The second phase that comes after understanding of the use cases of analytics is to utilize the same analytics platform and join it with the right set of data sources. Just to add, as the size of data from security technologies including other sources will be soaring high – the platform can be connoted as a big data platform.

Now implement the threat intelligence to identify unknown attacks. In this scenario, security professionals have the knowledge about the attacker characteristics, however attack remains unknown. Security operation center can affluently combine threat intelligence feeds derived from external sources and modify rules so that attacks can be easily identified.

Detection of threats is then quickly followed by the security orchestration phase in order to block the attacker’s access on the network. Remember, poor response time or delayed response can cause disasters.  

Here comes a fourth stage which demands automated probing and remediation. Herein, SOC analysts are required to share the responsibility by probing the questions such as – who are the attackers, what damage it can cause on the systems, is it a new type of attack, or if it belongs to the campaign attack. Answer to these questions will help in addressing the issues more correctly and holistically.

In the end, applying security analytics and orchestration will help in bringing a change in the roles and structures of teams at SOC.

Identify your security operations maturity for better throughput

Every organization is different so are their maturity and capabilities. It is quite difficult to evaluate your own effectiveness and formulate a plan according to the findings found. There are a number of security operations maturity assessment benefactors that can help in determining your current maturity plus they allow you to compare your systems with that of your counterparts. This kind of assessment helps in fulfilling multiple objectives:

• Helps in determining the efficiency of the security operations
• Provides best-suited recommendations that help in unlocking many opportunities
• Creates a roadmap that helps in attaining mature security operations center

The Final Word

By integrating security analytics and orchestration capabilities businesses can mitigate unethical attempts. However, such fully-functional model can only be attained by making use of avant-garde technology platforms and integrating new sets of roles in the next-gen SOC. Once successfully executed, IT administrators can quickly detect and address the issues, thereby curtailing the undetectable cyber-attacks.

A shared IP is used for multiple sites. It can host all websites on a particular server.

On the other hand, a unique IP address is specific to a domain.

But before we go into more details, let us understand the rudiments.

IP is abbreviation for Internet Protocol and it is a unique address assigned to each computer that is connected to a network. It works as an identifier by providing location of the computer in a given network.

IP addresses are an integral part of any business, and unsurprisingly we are witnessing all sizes of companies consuming them faster with myriad applications and devices.

An IP address being a critical resource needs to be managed prudently. This is because nearly all networked applications including email and web connectivity rely on IP and requires an address to be assigned. This task is becoming even more challenging with burgeoning mobile networks increasing the need for IP address assignment.

We can get an idea of the importance of an IP address by knowing that:

• It enables a request for a message to be delivered to the right destination.
• By facilitating the receiving device to know where it originated, it directs a response, if required to the proper target.

But is it in way beneficial to have a unique IP address?

This question was always debated by many experts, with most of them having varying opinions.  

The consensus however was, a unique IP address is beneficial.

Here are a few reasons why they say so.

• It allows access to your website whenever you need to do so.
  
  If you want to know how your website is likely to look before pointing a domain name to it, a unique IP address provides access to the server without altering DNS settings.
   
• It helps in enhancing email sender’s reputation
  
  If your website runs over a shared IP address, you may run into fickle situations. For example, if another user with the same IP address get’s blacklisted for spamming, your email service may get affected as well. When you use a unique IP address, your service is isolated from other entities.
   
• It is good for any business environment
  
  If you are into ecommerce or e-retailing, a unique IP address with a SSL certificate is the way to go. Such a set up will give more confidence to your customers when they buy merchandise from you.
  
  This does not mean a shared IP is all drawbacks. In a shared hosting environment hundreds of sites reside on the same server, and therefore have a common IP address. Such a setup is widely used by many businesses as they feel it suits them.

But if you are toying with an idea to opt for a unique IP address, mull over the following:

• Do you need a secure site via a SSL certificate?
• Do you routinely need to access your site via FTP or file transfer protocol?
• Do you need to view your website via IP address?
• Is your site having high traffic volume and needs substantial resources to maintain performance?

Your responses to above will surely guide you to the right answer.

In this fiercely competitive world that is crammed with a plethora of choices available for customers to choose from, marketing can be an overwhelming exercise. Marketing can be extremely difficult if the product you are marketing is a service that is undergoing continuous change. B2B marketing of a service that cannot be fathomed by lay people can further complicate things. 

This is exactly the reason why SaaS marketing is so challenging. It would be great idea to understand unique advantages of SaaS marketing to simplify the whole process of SaaS marketing. 

Advantages of doling out freebies

Free offers can be justifiable in case of physical products such as soaps, shampoos, and other merchandise. Considering free offers in case of SaaS can lead to offering the entire product t customer without expecting any buck. This is exactly required for SaaS marketing to succeed. 

In case of SaaS you are supposed to offer a free trial for specified period as part of a strategic marketing plan. This the tried and tested marketing strategy adopted by various SaaS developers.  It facilitates customer acquisition and can be perceived as something not less than an on-boarding tactic. 

You can choose any adaptation from the vast assortment of free versions including, trial with or without credit card details, free trial, limited free version, 30 day free trial, freemium version, and trial-to-paid to name just a few. You are sure to come across this strategy being implemented by number of SaaS products. 

If you have chalked out a robust strategy for marketing your product, then you are totally justified to offer your SaaS product for free.

Swift and short sales cycle 

If you are under the impression that SaaS marketing be a slow and steady game of B2B sales that involves, cold calls, meet-ups, presentations, RFIs, RFQs, and what not, then you are in for a shock. SaaS sales cycle is one of the shortest lived sales processes. If you are not convinced, then let us try and understand the whole process.

Whenever potential SaaS customers are in need of some solutions, they rely on online search, free trials, demos, or word of mouth before actually buying. You can imagine time required for such a short sales process. It can last for few hours to some days at the most. 

SaaS sales process is never preceded by launch events, sponsored programs, and so forth. The process is transaction oriented and swift. 

It is essential to appreciate the nature of SaaS product itself in order to understand the shortness of sales process. Since software is a constantly changing domain thanks to frequent changes, setbacks, and advances, there is hardly any time to market and sell the product before the next version is ready to hit the market.

One cannot entirely neglect the possibility of a slow paced buyer who might take his or her sweet time to decide. However you need to keep up the sales pressure by continuously providing information as well as reassurance about the product. It is absolutely okay to lose a sale or two, since you have hundreds of other potential opportunities out there to tap into.

Use information as the most vital asset

The entire game of SaaS marketing revolves around information and one must make the most of it. Unfortunately significance of information is often underrated. If you conduct a short survey to find common sources of information, then you will bump into a SaaS provider in all probability. SaaS providers or SaaS sellers are the ones who pass on maximum information by way of blogs, articles, and s forth. 

If you consider an example of Buffer, then you will definitely acknowledge its blog but should also understand that you are being exposed to their information product for supporting media service. Therefore, if you need to be seriously involved in SaaS marketing then you have t assume role of an information disseminator.  Information can be propagated by you in more ways than you can possibly imagine. It can be conveyed by writing blogs, speaking, posting comments, or tweeting to name a few. 

Understanding long term value of customers

It has been often stated by bigwigs of marketing that around 80 percent of business comes from just about 20 percent customers. In order to improve your revenue earnings you need to focus as much as possible on customer retention. It is immensely vital for the overall business category of SaaS. Hence the morale is to concentrate and focus all your resources on retention of existing customers than acquisition of clients.

Differentiate between product and service

Although there is nothing wrong in considering SaaS as a product for most of practical reasons, you need to understand that it is basically designed ‘as a service’ and not ‘as software’.  This is not to undermine significance of software as an immaculate robust and amazing product. 

SaaS  as a product is all about the brains behind the software while the service part relates to technical support teams, help desk execs, marketing personnel, and all other components that comprise of the front end. 

Realizing potential of SaaS itself as its own marketer

There is an unnecessary noise created as far as SaaS marketing is concerned in terms of technicalities of the marketing process. The most significant aspects of marketing strategies for SaaS are the product itself that is backed by awesome support. 
In conclusion

SaaS providers need to focus on creation of great products and building outstanding service teams to succeed in marketing of SaaS.

The last few years have witnessed innumerable changes in Internet technologies with the evolution of social media networking sites, Big Data center, cloud computing solutions, Internet of Things and data mobility. The blockchain technology is also one such unique and revolutionary technology which has practically shaken the world. Blockchain technology may be the new buzzword but it is largely a disruptive technology. While it may not have tangible effects like the introduction of smartphones did, it is going to have far-reaching consequences.

What is the Blockchain Technology?

The blockchain technology is really the structure and underlying technology for the working of the Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Monero, and Dash etc. The blockchain is really a digital and distributed ledger of transactions which have identical copies that are maintained on various computer systems and controlled by different entities. Blockchain technology is equipped to record all transactions which happen online. The data gets saved in encrypted blocks which will have the history of every such block. The blocks get chained together and are distributed across a network or nodes so that data cannot be falsified. So, the blockchain essentially works like a distributed spreadsheet which contains records and serves as the backbone for the new-age Internet.

Blockchain technology is secure and this is not because of the encryption feature. It makes use of a peer-to-peer network and it is not essential that trust has to be ensured between participants. This trust is guaranteed in the form of a record and not by the party which is hosting it. So, the data which is contained in the blockchain can be seen by others but it cannot be changed by them without permission. The blockchain transactions are verified by the miners through POW or Proof of Work algorithm. In short, within a blockchain, there will not be any one point of failure; so, digital assets cannot be corrupted and hacked. The decentralized blockchain network will confirm transactions and records are stored in the ledger.

How is the Blockchain a Disruptive Technology?

With businesses moving to the cloud hosting india, the blockchain will soon become the foundation on which developers will make products that can be accessed globally and that are secure. In this sense, Bitcoin or blockchain technology will be disrupting the way global market behaves. There are applications that are being launched like the Mojaloop which will help people of different developing countries to access online funds. Keyless Signature Structure or KSI are being adopted in place of digital keys to secure documents digitally. Now, the blockchain technology is being used for almost everything, whether it is for payment processing networks or land registrations, content delivery networks of medical records. Businesses can therefore keep credentials which cannot be falsified and which can be accessed safely.

The blockchain has already disrupted the financial industry. It addresses all problems which were associated earlier with validating transactions. So, processing transactions today does not require the presence of a third party. Here, the blockchain network has replaced the need for financial institutions. Transfer of assets is carried out in real time almost because it takes about 10 minutes to add new blocks to the public ledger.

Besides monetary uses, there are indeed many applications for the blockchain technology which can be explored. Incidentally, many startups are working on it and disrupting existing industries in the process. There are startups which are planning to use this technology for trading physical assets. For instance, Bitproof is disrupting contracts as it records them on a blockchain. So, you can complete your house sale by storing the contract on a blockchain instead of doing it in the presence of a notary. Colu is another example of blockchain technology application that manages property via digital tokens. These can unlock physical objects and online services. Verisart is using the technology to verify pieces of art.

So, by and large, it is expected that the blockchain technology will soon be at the helm of IT security. DMS providers will perhaps use this to encrypt services, protect user privacy and prevent attacks. The blockchain revolution is also likely to have an impact on web hosting service. These services may soon be sold using Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Earlier, to deploy hosting solutions, you would need data centers and central servers which could communicate with client devices and process user requests. Whether it was communicating with your friends on social media website or shopping online or making payments, you had to depend on servers. With the emergence of the Internet of Things or IoT, more and more people are coming out with newer technologies. In short, the web hosting industry is destined to grow further with blockchain technology. It will let you store data or process data as you could earlier, but this time with a decentralized network. The technology will ensure that sites have SSL and are secure completely. You can enjoy total control over the data and there will not downtimes. So, the blockchain technology is all set to change hosting of websites.

Internet of Things is all set to amend the way businesses, end-users, government institutions connect to, and interact with each other entrancing them to move towards a completely revolutionized ecosystem. It emphasizes on the smart use of connected devices and systems so as to leverage data gathered by the implanted actuators and sensors in machines and other physical components. Many research firms and technology experts have found that IoT bandwagon will spread rampantly in approaching few years and such convergence is anticipated to unlock new vistas of opportunities that augment quality of life for both individuals and businesses.

Precisely for end-users and businesses, it bestows multifold benefits:

For consumers/end-users – IoT has the power to make life easy-going and smooth for consumers by focusing on daily life sections, such as health, education, security, and energy efficiency requisite for upholding quality of life.

For business entities – There is a revelation in tandem to this unit that IoT can help businesses from all walks of life (manufacturing, retail, transportation, education, healthcare, agriculture, etc.) to gain quick insights, so that they can plunge to a decision that is right for their business standing. In addition to this, IoT shore up a portfolio of things that not only reinforces business decision making, however also boosts productivity.

No let me acquaint with the driving force behind IoT extension in the market, followed by the barriers:

Barriers:

Fact that Underlines IoT Growth:

By 2020, there will be 34 billion connected IoT devices, which will be high from 10 billion 10 billion in 2015. Apart from this, around $6 trillion will be invested on IoT allied solutions over the next few years.
                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                       —– BI Intelligence
        

Here are some of the factors that you should consider when choosing an IoT platform provider:

Undeniably, proliferation of connected devices is forcing product manufacturers to rethink, so that they can create a smarter version of their product, which can cope up with the advancing economy. Although, most of these traditional product manufacturers are well-equipped with latest product designs and other functionalities; however they lack streamlined IT ecosystem that can support IoT smart devices.

• For Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), platform providers can help them ensure faster time to market their products and services in particular segments where their counterparts are heading forth to establish a smooth connection. That’s the reason why it is essential to check if the platform benefactor has the potential to scale up according to the industry needs.
   
• Apparently, day by day IoT is getting personalized owing to the increase in the number of wearables, health monitor etc. The data gathered by these devices can be of discrete type, thus it is essential to protect such gathered data against vulnerabilities. Select a vendor who practices stringent security laws to confirm its integrity.
   
•  Well, there are only a few competent service providers who offer analytic services. That’s why it is essential to check that their host offers the same, so that they can easily fetch the required from their devices whenever required.

In addition to this, an IoT platform is required to be flexible, so that all kind of IP-enabled devices can be swiftly integrated into enterprise and partner backend systems. Moving ahead, software platform that goes with these specific requirements must be created keeping composition of devices, processes, and rules in mind so as it connects to users, things, enterprises and partner systems on a single platform and provides a basis for creating IoT applications.

In a nutshell, Internet of Things provides a robust platform for evolving commercial models that fosters mass global deployment. The wave of IoT can help in raising the quality of life of consumers and businesses across several fundamental segments of the economy