Much is talked about web applications in my earlier blogs, and if you go through my blog comparing desktop applications and web applications, you will find the pros and cons of each. That apart, today I am going to explain the web application development process to impart my readers understanding on how web application projects are carried out.

Web applications are an important tool for B2B and B2C interactions for the present businesses. The whole web application development process can be divided into four phases:

1. Envisioning the scope of web application by defining it and establishing the purpose, goal, nature, and direction of the project

The first phase requires the managers and developers of the project to come together and discuss on the feasibility of the application in question and the solutions it must achieve. Scheduling; limitations, if any; and future objectives of the application will also be elucidated, and the end of this phase will be marked by a clear documentation on what this application will practically achieve.

2. Contriving a plan indentifying functional and visual specifications, technology and techniques to use, scheming out web application architecture and timelines

The second phase is laying out the flow of application development strategy. Right from scripting to time framing of the events and tasks in the project everything is planned out.

3. Developing web application

The third phase is initiation of the development work where web application structure and framework is created; data variables are established; entities and coding procedures to be used are determined; web application model, libraries, and classes are customized; and finally implementation and complete development is done.

4. Performing beta testing, establishing a successful support and stability system

The fourth and final phase is focused on testing of the application from a functional and security perspective. Any bugs are fixed. It’s also the time to address any discrepancies that may cause the application to go bad. A fully functional, stable, and secure application is the ideal end product of any web application development process. This phase is also directed towards establishing policies and procedures that end up in a successful support system.

Twitter – the word, rather the website needs no introduction, but just to make a start, let’s do a formality. Twitter - a highly popular social networking and microblogging service which runs through a website that allows people to post 14-character messages, operated by Twitter Inc. Ever since its creation in 2006, millions of dollars have been spent funding it, but speculations have always been on as to what makes it generate revenue if not ads or other visible means of revenue generation.

TechCrunch’s explosive “Twitter records out” publishing in mid-2009 had figures of Twitter’s projected earnings for 2009 and its internal strategy, dealing with Google and Facebook, information giving indications of its monetization. Somewhere around that time, Biz Stone, a Twitter co-founder, also spoke about developing add-ons and services for businesses and professional users of Twitter with a possibility to create a revenue stream for the company, expecting to have some of them start contributing for the fourth quarter of the year 2009. However, outfocusing from the cost of paid services or revenue building from it, put forward were the “red herrings” of further expansion of the company and its user base. Ok, let’s fly over from here and land on the “income” ground!

As a part of monetization effort, Twitter made deals with Google and Microsoft. It was for Google and Bing search results to show the “tweet streams.” It’s believed Twitter made huge money from those deals.

Further, as declared in December 2009, what we get from the Twitter Blog, a feature they were beta testing was ‘Contributors’- a business-specific feature (that was a cash flow channel to Twitter!). The blog further stated this feature “to be enabling users to engage into more authentic conversations with businesses by allowing those organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account.” Allowing a contributor’s username to display in the tweet byline, it facilitated a more personalized form of communication between the business and the consumer. With corporations ready to pay money for such premium services designed by Twitter specially for them allowing them to stay in touch with their customers and raise their sales, Twitter found a way to sell its services too.

It’s in April of 2010 that we find Biz Stone coming up with a revenue generation idea introducing “Promoted Tweets.” What we get from his blog is:

“We are launching the first phase of our Promoted Tweets platform with a handful of innovative advertising partners that include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America — with more to come. Promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users.”

That’s pretty much like Twitter’s first steps into advertising, however planned in such a way that it is non-intrusive or non-frustrating to its users. Coming up as an extension to the Promoted Tweets platform was a new advertising concept named “Promoted Trends” to be put to test in June of this year allowing users to see time-, context-, and event-sensitive trends promoted by Twitter’s advertising partners. The newly released Disney/Pixar Hollywood movie Toy Story 3 seems to be the very first promotion using this new “Promoted Trends” model. So, monetization for Twitter comes up with this unusually different advertising and promotional model.

At the end point of the matter, it’s not much mystery left there how Twitter earns or plans to earn. However, commendable is the way they have devised their revenue generation models – effective and without letting the user experience go down. And, if we patiently wait, as Twitter itself has remained much patient with its monetary growth, we can expect some more excellent services and ways on the Twitter path where money would come along with keeping the user base intact, loyal, and growing.

It can be a real challenging task to select the best web host for your website with so many important areas to consider for the same. But in the very beginning I feel an urge to tell you that don’t fall into the trap thinking that the cheapest cost is the most important consideration. This is one thing you don’t want to do as something that’s going to so much impact how your online business will go can’t be compromised with money.

Now, let me proceed with what I believe to be very important for the proper selection of a web host:

• Security - Web hosting security is of greatest importance for keeping a website protected from external factors such as virus threats or technical failures. Make sure to check out the security terms of your web host and get the best possible settings for your website security. A smart service provider, however, would always run scheduled backups and try to keep customer data as secure as possible in view of any contingencies.

• Uptime - The percentage of time your website is on the World Wide Web is crucial as that determines your availability to the visitors/customers. Apparently, it could not be 100%, but the closest the best web hosting company can guarantee you is 99.99%. Anything that ascends between 99% and 99.99% would be better, but don’t go for a web host that offers an uptime below 99%. Frequent downtimes turn off your potential customers and are simply not an indication of a good company. Another essential thing is that any maintenance done by the host on the servers/network requiring reboots or downtime should be scheduled during off peak hours and with a prior notice, except if there happens to be a sudden crisis or emergency. An ideal web host would handle a downtime without letting the customers feel dissatisfied by showing information such as “we’ll be back soon” or “under maintenance” or showing its email or phone number to contact if urgent.

• Control panel - The best web hosting companies would always have a user-friendly control panel for its clients to be able to configure their settings and go about their usual tasks without any trouble. A good control panel will allow you a good administration without any advanced technical and internet skills. cPanel and DirectAdmin are good options for a control panel. Make sure you get one of these from your web host.

• Technical support/customer service - You would surely be looking for a web host that provides efficient support in terms of availability and response. Go for a web host that provides 24x7 technical support and gives immediate response to your queries. You should really be concerned when you come across web hosts that don’t provide contact information at all, as there are many available who provide both phone and live support.

And this is not the end of it. There’s more to come in Part II…

Search engine optimization (SEO) tactics use “link building” as an effective strategy for raising search engine ranking. It basically means generating a network of links leading back to your website, and that means internet users from various other sources would visit your website by way of these back links. It is a crucial promotion strategy as quality links are considered one of the several important parameters for search engine ratings. Here quality links means links pointing back from the relevant, quality websites. Thus, it’s no use encouraging the incoming links from a non-popular or unrelated website.

SEO experts can carry out link building through various tried and tested methods. It may be time-consuming but holds a long-term impact if conducted vigorously over a period. The first and foremost essentiality is having a quality website per se. If you have the best of the content and design, webmasters would automatically link to your site.

Blogging is another effective way of building links. There are a lot of free blogging websites where you can write blogs related to your products/services and place anchored links for your website. You can even target high-PR blogs related to your targeted keywords for providing quality comments and leave anchored links to your website. Online forums also are a good place for exchange of knowledge and thoughts with a provision of back links. Regularly participating in forum discussions related to your website content through quality posts makes a firm ground to gain trust of the members and visitors and then by adding links it’s easy to make the visitors follow.

Article submissions are one of the most powerful internet marketing techniques. Here comes the role of a content writer who can write an innovative quality content to distribute over the internet. Popular article submission sites are the right place to submit your articles providing back links which a bulk of interested readers would follow and land up to your website. An easier way than article submission is submitting your site to web directories. You will find a number of free and paid website directories relating to your website niche. However, it’s important that you be careful in submitting your website to any directory. You should check and avoid penalized or banned directories that may, in fact, harm your website ranking. Social networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter also provide a way to do effective link building. Once you find out communities related to your website on these social networks, you can continually provide value-adding information followed by linking.

Link building done adopting the abovementioned methods and a right technique can greatly enhance a website’s SEO. There are unethical link building ways too like link farming that gives an immediate network of thousands of back links. However, leading search engines were smart enough in modifying their search algorithms to make link farms a spam and banning websites participating in them for three years. So, better is to follow the old saying “no pains, no gains” and stick to legitimate link building.

Software development industry never sleeps and its effervescence flashes up as new methods and strategies come out of the minds of its ingenious professionals. Lately, an approach known as “agile software development” has evolved that has given software development project cycle a new expression. It refers to using a group of software development methodologies with adopting cross functional collaborative teamwork for the solutions to emerge out. The term “agile software development” was coined in the year 2001 when the Agile Manifesto was formulated.

Agile development would involve planning, analyzing, designing, unit testing, coding, and final testing to be done before displaying the software to the esteemed client. The process development cycle in such a case incorporates teamwork as a crucial element throughout its length to minimize overall risk. Principally, this method focuses on delivering working software frequently and welcoming any changes in requirements later on.

The team requires a great deal of cooperation among the professionals themselves and close, frequent communication with its clients. Face-to-face communication is preferable here if the client exists in the same location. Tele-calling and video conferencing periodically are better in case the software application is to be outsourced. Whatever the case may be, there is always a need to monitor the project updates and implement changes, if any, on time.

Much focus is laid on individual interactions about the design, tools, techniques, and processes. A comprehensive documentation covering all the stages of the project is also of value so that at a later point it is easy to trace back and react for a change. Contract negotiation with the client spreads across the length of the development as any late changes are welcomed.

Businesses looking for software solutions may get impressed with this model as it would normally provide a quick software solution with short-term planning. However, recommended is to check the suitability of the agile methods for any requirement and then only proceed.