6 Awesome Social Media Innovations In 2015

The World is a much more compact place today, largely owing to the advent of Social Media.We can get in touch with someone thousands of miles away within a second. But Social Media sites today are so much more than just tools for connecting people. Marketing, advertising, latest news updates, are all available via social media at the drop of a hat. But as is true with Darwinism, nothing can survive without updates or adapting to the times.

Following are the innovations and latest eye-catching features in the most popular social media sites in 2015:

1. Facebook – On This Day

So how have you evolved over the years? You can get a very clear idea about how cool or uncool you were a few years ago, or feel nostalgic looking at the photographs from that very day a few years ago. But mostly you’d ask yourself embarrassingly – “Did I really write that?”

2. Facebook - Video Calling on Messenger

Last year when Messaging on Facebook became an IM application, it kept up with the other bigwigs in the industry. So, now when WhatsApp, Viber and other IM App developers have rolled out Voice Calling on their platforms, how can Facebook stay behind? Lo and behold, they’ve gone one step ahead, you can now video call your contacts on Facebook. Doesn’t that make you happy?

3. Twitter – Mandatory Log in / Sign-up

Gone will be the days where you could sneak a peek at your favorite celeb’s latest photo, or a witty tweet without logging in to twitter or signing up for it. It is intellectual property, after all. One must pay, or in this case, sign in, to view it. NO freebies anymore.

4. Twitter – While You Were Away

Everyone would love to be online 24X7, but it isn’t always possible, is it? Say you’re following Manchester United vs. Liverpool, and Liverpool lead 3-0 at half time. You go out for a chore and are offline for the second half, and twitter greets you again when you’re online. The “While you were away” feature gives you all the updates you may have missed while you were offline. Final Result: Manchester United 4 – 3 Liverpool.

5. LinkedIn – Pulse

LinkedIn Pulse is a great way to show off to the world your content management skills. Professional Content, on the world’s largest professional network, curated by professional designers. There’s just one word for all this – Smart.

6. LinkedIn – Magic Mirror

This ingenious update, collates all your personal data on LinkedIn, runs a complex algorithm that combines your facial features, interests, future goals, certifications, and presents to you the career you were born to do. How is it any different from Aptitude tests, you ask? Well, it shows you a photo of yourself working as the person you were meant to be. Yes, it’s Harry Potter’s Mirror of Erised – LinkedIn Version.

Want to know more about awesome innovations in the world of technology? Log on to www.koenig-solutions.com and get the best of the IT World at your fingertips.

MOBILE-GEDDON: How Google is Revolutionizing Search Engine Capabilities.

Charles Darwin coined the phrase “Survival of the Fittest”. Adaptation to changing times is of utmost importance today, and Google has updated its search capabilities to reflect its power. Starting April 21^st, 2015, the “Mobile-Friendly” nature of websites will directly affect the search rankings. In simple terms, if your website is mobile friendly, it will surge towards the top of the rankings. If, however, your website is NOT mobile friendly, its search ranking will decrease. 

But don’t worry. This feature will only apply to mobile searches. If someone performs a search with relevant keywords on desktops, laptops, and tablets, the mobile friendliness of a website is not a criteria that alters search rankings. 

Google has also decided to include relevant apps in its searches on mobiles that offers even more choices to people. This feature called “App-indexing” shall also pave the way for mobile application developers to design apps that will show up in search results more often.

Even if your site isn’t mobile friendly yet, it won’t mean an instant decline in search rankings, but you will have to make your site adapt to the changes soon, if you would like to increase or maintain your rankings.

Google reports that over 50% of ALL searches happen on mobile devices, and hence this update was necessary. The impact of this update is so major that companies are now scrambling to make their sites mobile friendly. Eventually, as we all feel, the world would want dynamic changes towards a more mobile universe, and applications to keep us up-to-date while we are on the move.

5 Things One Must Know about Ethical Hacking

Who is an Ethical Hacker?

An Ethical hacker or a “White-hat Hacker” is someone who“hacks” into the system of an organization or an individual for discovering potential dangers on their network.

 
What does an ethical hacker do?

• An ethical hacker attempts to hack their way past the system security, finding any weak points in the security that could be exploited by other hackers (Black Hat Hackers).
• The organization uses what the ethical hacker finds to improve the system security, in an effort to minimize, if not eliminate, any potential hacker attacks.

What benefits apart from securing their networks do organizations derive from Ethical Hackers?

• A hacker knows exactly how another hacker would try to compromise the network and hence would be armed with the appropriate defense techniques to prevent further breaches.
• A hacker would not charge as much money as a network security specialist would, but would more often than not, secure the network in a specialized fashion.

Is Ethical Hacking a Good Career Option?
A Career in Ethical Hacking is very promising. With monstrous growth in internet usage, the demand for ethical hackers has increased dramatically. According to data from the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), India will need around 500,000 security professionals in the next five years. Right now it just has 40,000.


Great! So, how does one learn more?
Koenig Solutions – one of the leading offshore IT Training Companies in the world – is the authorized training partner of over 30 technology conglomerates, including Microsoft, Cisco, CAST, EC-Council, PMI (Project Management), Cloudera (Big Data and Hadoop), SAP, Salesforce, and many more. Having trained over 50,000 IT Professionals from over 50 Countries, including the likes of Mr. Edward Snowden, Koenig provides all there is to know about Ethical Hacking as a career option.
Log on to http://www.koenig-solutions.com/ and check out all the courses we provide.

Koenig Solutions is also organizing a set of Webinars on Advanced Penetration testing, hacking and hardening Web applications, and Advanced Mobile Hacking on 15th, 16th, and 17th of April respectively.
To participate in these webinars, click on the hyperlinks and register to learn the nuances of Ethical Hacking.

4 Reasons why Big Data and Hadoop Certifications are Important for a Successful Career

Big Data has been characterized by the three V’s of data – Volume, Variety, and Velocity - since as early as 2001, and we have now observed an unforeseen spurt in the growth of data, both structured and unstructured, that makes it necessary for us to manage and administer it in the most efficient ways possible, and that is where Big Data Analytics and Hadoop Development and Administration comes in.

• Lucrative Career:

According to the Big Data Executive Survey of the executives working at Fortune500 Companies in 2014, 90% of the companies have already implemented Big Data Analytics, or have plans in the pipelines. By 2016, Big Data is on course to create over 4 million jobs all over the world.

• High Paying Jobs:

According to a Gartner survey, in association with payscale.com, the average wage of personnel involved in Big Data Analytics jobs in 2014, was $108,000, with Hadoop developers earning the highest, and Hadoop Administrators earning close to $99,000 annually. A researcher at Dice has revealed that the demand for Hadoop Developers and Administrators will increase by over 64% in 2015 as compared to the previous year.

• Brands associated with Big Data:

SAS – the World Leader in Business Analytics and Business Intelligence software – has recently struck a deal with MapR, providers of enterprise level Big Data platforms, including Hadoop. The other big players in this forum are IBM, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Bing, Cisco, LinkedIn, and eBay. All the aforementioned companies, in addition to a large number of Fortune 500 companies are on the lookout for personnel involved in Big Data Analytics.

• Better Profiles

The Big Data Industry is valued currently at $25 Billion, and is only expected to grow at exponential rates in the foreseeable future. At the same time Gartner has predicted that there is going to be significant gap in job openings and candidates with Big Data skills. In decreasing order of gap between vacancies and filled positions, the profiles are – Data Scientist, Big Data Visualizer, Research Analyst, Hadoop Administrator, Hadoop Developer, Data Engineer, and Big Data Architect.

This is the most optimal time for enrolling oneself in Big Data and Hadoop Training, and earn the certified skills that are sure to give your career a boost.

Koenig Solutions is now a Certified Cloudera Training Partner, and offers the most pertinent and industry-oriented Big Data and Hadoop Certification Courses. Being the World’s Leading IT Training Organization, Koenig has been bestowed upon with a host of awards for its stellar training infrastructure and performance by Microsoft, Citrix, VMware, EC-Council, Cisco, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, and SAS. Koenig is also the authorized training partner of the aforementioned conglomerates, in addition to Adobe, Autodesk, Apple, Android, CompTIA, EMC2, and many more.

To know more about the Big Data Certifications offered at Koenig Solutions, click here: http://www.koenig-solutions.com/

5 ways in which Digital Marketing Training helps Businesses Grow

1. Equal Opportunity for All: Earlier, only large organizations had the capital or the acumen to devise marketing strategies to popularize their brand or their products. But now with the advent of Digital Marketing even small and medium enterprises have jumped on the Social Media Bandwagon. This method incurs much lesser costs that the traditional offline methods, and provides comparable return on investment.
40% Business Owners have shifted their focus from offline marketing strategies to their online counterparts, and have reaped immense benefits. 3 out of 5 digital marketers have achieved better cost per lead as compared to offline marketers.

2. Generate Higher Revenues: Higher conversion rates yield more tangible business goals, and thereby lead to higher and better revenues. According to Google, companies using online marketing strategies possess a revenue growth expectancy 2.8 times higher than ones that don’t. Additionally, SMEs employing digital marketing strategies expand their businesses and workforce at a rate that is 3.3 times faster than their counterparts.

3. Better Targeting and subsequently Better Reactions: With Digital marketing strategies, a particular demographic can be targeted based on their location, interests or even a combination of both. Targeting campaigns or products or posts at this chosen demographic not only raises the chances of hitting the bull’s-eye, but also leads to better Branding with only the pertinent clients being the audience to the campaign.
This dedicated targeting also leads to better reactions from the audience. Not just in terms of a positive word-of-mouth review, but since online marketing gives the target demographic tangible reaction options (likes, comments, follow, shares, re-tweet, favorite, etc.), it raises the chances of garnering much better RoI than what would have been the case if offline strategies were employed.

4. Catering to the Mobile World: Billboards on the phone? No matter how advanced the technology gets, trying to fit a 5m X 3m billboard on your 5” screen is impossible. Digital Marketing is made for this age to fix this solution. With online marketing now optimized for the consumers’ mobile feeds, the audience in the target demographic can check the campaign while they’re on the move. The client’s convenience is the key.

The Importance of SAS Certification Training

Big Data and Business Intelligence are domains that shall go hand in hand for a long time. BI pioneers SAS, and MapR – The most trusted server provider for Google and Amazon Technologies – have recently signed a pact to further the efficacy of Big Data. This post takes a look at what this new partnership entails for the end user.

1.       More Jobs: With both Big Data, and Business Intelligence and Analytics on the rise, US Bloomberg and Forbes report that the two domains shall account for over $6.3 Billion by 2018 in revenue, thereby creating over 1 million jobs in the fields of Data Analytics, Hadoop Programming, Business Analysis, Content Development, etc.

2.       High Paying Careers: With Technology conglomerates such as IBM, Microsoft, and SAP planning to go all out with their BI and Data Analytics strategies, a huge upswing in the average salaries of personnel engaged in these domains is expected. According to Forbes reports,a median salary of $90,000 for non-administrative positions, and $120,000 for managerial personnel represents the huge demand foreseen for skilled help in these domains.

3.       Technology Trends: Big Data, along with BI, ranks among the top 5 in technology trends for 2015. BI skills, knowledge, and expertise will be in huge demand over the next few years, and professionals with the requisite know-how are sure to drive immense benefits from the situation.

The Benefits of MCSE Certification

The plethora of technology that Microsoft lays down in front of us is not the only reason that it is the most loved and respected IT Conglomerate in the World. The array of certifications that Microsoft offers is also a major reason for the reverence that it is held in all over the globe. And one of the most popular and effective certifications offered by Microsoft is the MCSE – Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. 

MCSE Features:

MCSE is the globally renowned standard for personnel engaged in any IT Platform. Currently, MCSE Certifications are offered across 8 different platforms, viz. Server Infrastructure, Desktop Infrastructure, Private Cloud, Data Platform, Business Intelligence, Communication, Messaging, and SharePoint. All MCSE Certifications provide in-depth knowledge of the techniques involved in development, maintenance, and administration of various platforms across a number of technologies. 

Benefits of MCSE Certifications:

• Global Recognition

MCSE Certifications rank among the best and the most popular and specialized certifications in the world today and provide extensive industry recognition for expertise in Microsoft technologies and products. 

• Salary Hike

Industry trends indicate that MCSE certifications lead to a considerable increase in incomes of trained professionals. Additionally, multiple trainings and certifications are directly proportional to further growth. According to a survey by Fairfield Research, Microsoft certified professionals, especially the ones possessing an MCSE Certificate on an average command a 12.6% salary increase. 

• Updating Skills

Information technology updates itself every day, and professionals engaged in this vast arena should mandatorily polish their skills regarding the latest advancements. Successfully completing the MCSE Certification guarantees expertise on every version of Microsoft servers (previous or recent) and Windows operating systems as well as other platforms. Moreover, earning the MCSE credential also serves as a precursor to attaining additional certifications.