New Research Says Millions Of Apps On The Google Play Store And App Store Weren’t Updated In Over Two Years

Pixalate’s new study is making some shocking findings in the world of tech. And that includes how over 1.6MM apps seen on Google Play Store and Apple's App Store weren’t updated in nearly two years.

And you’ll be shocked to learn how the figures continue to increase on the Google Play Store but are declining on the App Store.

For those who may not be aware, Pixalate is one of the world’s leading firms when it comes down to providing protection against fraud. In the same way, it’s known for its privacy features and innovative world of compliance analytics.

Recently, the company went public with its research for the Second Quarter of this year regarding abandoned mobile applications. And the figure of 1.6 million was highlighted, despite all the apps being available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Here, the word abandoned is linked to not being updated.

In the same way, we saw Pixalate claiming how nearly 306,000 apps fell into the category of being super abandoned. And this means that no update was seen in over five years. Again, the majority arose from the Google Play Store.

As far as the major findings are concerned, there were plenty and we’ve summarized them for your convenience below.

For starters, a greater number of updates were seen for Apple’s apps while Google became more and more abandoned with the passage of time. On average, there were around 200,000 fewer abandoned apps witnessed on Apple this quarter when compared to the previous one. But the opposite was true for the Google Play Store where an increase of 150,000 was observed.

In the same way, there were more apps abandoned than updated this quarter, and those that happened to be registered in nations like Russia or China were more likely seen to be abandoned through the Google Play Store.

You might be shocked to learn how nearly 25% of apps that were declared as abandoned didn’t have any privacy policy that could be detected. This figure rose immensely as compared to that seen in the past six months.

Similarly, around 14% of the apps abandoned included those that transmitted a user’s location through an ad stream feature, as confirmed by the report.

Lastly, around 40% of the applications that are directed to children were abandoned.

• Also read: Study estimates that digital foot traffic will surpass 450 billion sessions following upcoming holiday sales

The reason why the news is such a big deal in the first place is simple. Abandoned apps are important because they can serve as major threats to both user privacy and security. Also, those apps that regularly update their platforms tend to focus on more innovation and improved versions such as security enhancements and bug fixes.

And as days go by, the issues related to a user’s privacy concerns get more serious. And the problem starts getting complex. Lastly, such improvements are important to advertisers too. They are the ones that take updates into notice, right before they opt to make an investment.

Read next: Is Twitter a bot's fighting club or a Digital town square?
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

WhatsApp Wants To Release New Updates Related To Its Groups Section And Here’s What To Expect

Recently, we saw WhatsApp announce its Premium version for users affiliated with business accounts. But now, we’re hearing about another enticing feature related to WhatsApp groups this week.

For both Android and iOS users, the company is planning on adding 1024 participants to its groups that would be available to a few selected beta testers, reports WBI.

This past June, we saw the news regarding a brand new feature that was linked to the addition of up to 512 members to the app’s group section. And even that was considered to be amazing by some. But now, we’re hearing reports of the figure doubling to 1024 and it’s coming out this week!

So that means, if you were interested in creating huge groups, well, the app is giving you the chance to do so!

For now, it’s just a beta test for some but we don’t see why people won’t be able to grab their hands on this feature soon as well. Moreover, you’ll be given the chance to not only add members to an already existing group but also to include a new group with this many members too. So as you can tell, the choice is all yours.

We definitely think the news is going to make a lot of people happy, especially those that have been on the search for such a feature for a long time coming. In case you didn’t know, so many sub-groups of different communities were seen supporting this new limit as well.

You’ll also soon see the app coming up with new tools that provide admins the chance to exert greater control over such huge groups in future situations as well. This includes a list comprising pending participants and a great approval system.

Some lucky beta testers will get the chance to experiment this week and as far as the rest are concerned, well, you’ll have to wait a little while longer until a proper rollout begins.

Next up, we’re hearing more news from WhatsApp regarding another cool feature that they’re working on. This one is related to a functionality called ‘pending participants’ for WhatsApp groups.

Thanks to such a feature, now, group admins on the app will be given the chance to witness who those people are that wish to join the group. At the same time, they’ll be given the chance to approve them, then and there as well.

For now, we know they’re just testing out the feature as a beta for WhatsApp users on Android. And today, we received a confirmation that iOS users would also be benefitting from such an endeavor as well.

The feature will be seen in the group info section and can only be seen by the respective group admins. After all, they’re the only ones with the right to approve members of a group.

Just recently, we also heard the news about the app working on a feature that decides who is responsible for approving new participants. If enabled, all new members will respond to invite links and wait for manual approval from an admin member. Both of these are currently under development so we’ll let you know when a release is scheduled.

Read next: WhatsApp is finally rolling out a much needed feature for its users who shares a lot of documents
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Is Twitter a bot's fighting club or a Digital town square?

Elon musk has invested in many organizations and bought them to bring changes in this rapidly changing world. Recently it has come to light that Elon decided to buy Twitter to provide people with a platform where they can freely debate on any matter or news.

After the decision, Elon tried to back off from investing money in Twitter after knowing that a large portion of the Twitter world is being governed by robots instead of people. He pondered over the thought of making the platform more about the people and less about bots.

Elon Musk defined the Twitter forum as a crucial app where people all around the world can connect. It is a kind of platform where healthy debates can take place, and people from different cultures and different backgrounds can relate to each other easily.

Musk realized that Twitter was home for robots and decided to withdraw from the deal. He was determined to finally purchase the social network for $44 billion after some time. The acquisition was primarily made to introduce new features to the network and give people access to free speech.

Additionally, Musk has described the social network as a "digital town square" of individuals. People are allowed to debate issues that are significant to humanity in this town. However, given that Twitter is considered more engaging than any other social network, Twitterati would most likely disagree with Elon Musk.

Twitter is more likely to win the competition if other social networking apps are compared to it. Compared to the billions of people who use Facebook and Instagram every day, it has 238 million daily active users. However, social media administrators would argue that Twitter or any other social media platform is not the real world.

Moreover, Elon’s town square will become a platform where freedom of speech is highly appreciated. But for now, Twitter’s networking reach is recorded to be low, these small group of numbers does like to talk about the crucial issues of humanity and would most likely form a healthy debate. It has also been noted that this small group of people is dogmatic, which makes the platform more of a digital debate club rather than the town square.

Twitter is a kind of platform where funny memes would likely go viral within hours and quickly spread on the whole social networking app. That meme would escalate to hundreds more if enough people participated actively, and it would become a game. Most of these users are youngsters, according to the report.

It is also noted by Statista’s Global Consumer Survey that a few people use Twitter on a daily base. In the US, only 3 out of 10 social media users indulge in Twitter excessively. The number is said to be even lower in some major European markets such as France and Germany.

Read next: Twitter is trying its best to prohibit users from taking tweet screenshots
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

6 Tips to Improve the User Experience on Your Website

These days, your website is an integral part of your business. It's how you connect with customers and prospects, and it's often the first impression people have of your company. That's why it's so important to make sure your website is designed with the user experience in mind.


Image: Freepik

In a nutshell, the user experience (UX) is how someone feels when they interact with your website. A positive UX can lead to more conversions, higher engagement, and repeat visitors.

On the other hand, a negative UX can cause people to leave your site without taking any action, or even worse, leave a bad impression of your brand. In fact, one study even found that a poor UX design can be detrimental to a user’s health.

Fortunately, there are a few simple things you can do to improve the UX of your website, and we've outlined six of them below.

Prioritize web accessibility

Web accessibility should be top of your mind when thinking about your website's UX. After all, if people can't use your site, they're not going to be able to experience it properly.

For those unfamiliar, web accessibility refers to the practice of making your website usable by people with disabilities. This includes everything from ensuring your site can be navigated using a keyboard to adding alternate text for images.

There are lots of resources available to help you make your site more accessible, but one place to start is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These guidelines provide detailed instructions on how to make your site accessible to people with various disabilities.

To find out how your site currently stands with regard to WCAG requirements, you can use accessiBe’s accessScan web accessibility checker to get a free and instant audit that will highlight any accessibility issues on your site across several key areas.



Simply enter your domain, and receive a downloadable, detailed audit that depicts where you are meeting accessibility requirements, and where you are not.

Keep things simple

When it comes to your website, less is almost always more. That means you should avoid adding any unnecessary elements that could clutter up your site and make it harder to navigate.

Instead, focus on keeping things clean and easy to understand. Try and keep your website to a two or three-colour scheme, utilize an average of two fonts, and make sure all of your images are relevant and high-quality.

This will help improve the overall UX by making it easier for people to find what they're looking for and take the actions you want them to take.

Make use of white space

White space, otherwise known as negative space, is the area on your website that doesn't contain any content or images. And believe it or not, it can actually be a valuable tool for improving the UX when used effectively.



For example, white space can:

• Make your content easier to read
• Direct attention to specific elements on the page
• Create a sense of visual hierarchy
• Improve the overall aesthetics of your site

So, if your website feels cluttered or is difficult to navigate, try adding more white space to see if it makes a difference.

Improve page loading times

Page loading times are important for two reasons. First, people are generally impatient and if your pages take too long to load, they're likely to give up and leave. In fact, the probability of a bounce increases by 32% when page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds.


Second, Google considers page loading times when determining where to rank your site in the search results, so a slow site can impact your SEO. Fortunately, there are a few simple things you can do to improve your page loading times, including:

• Optimizing images
• Minimizing HTTP requests
• Enabling browser caching
• Reducing the size of your CSS and JavaScript files

Just a few small changes can make a big difference in your page loading times, drastically improving the user experience on your site.

Enhance mobile usability

Mobile use accounts for over 50% of all web traffic worldwide, so it's more essential than ever to make sure your site is mobile-friendly. If a user tries to access your content on a smartphone or tablet, and it's not optimized for mobile, they may experience things like zoomed-out pages, unreadable text, and links that are too close together to click.

In addition, Google now uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor in the SERPs, so if your site isn't optimized for mobile, you're likely to lose out on some valuable traffic.



Fortunately, there are a few simple things you can do to improve the mobile experience on your site. For example, you can:

• Use a responsive design
• Optimize images
• Minimize HTTP requests
• Avoid using Flash
• Use a mobile-friendly theme or template

Ask for feedback

One of the best ways to improve the UX of your website is to simply ask people for feedback. After all, who better to tell you what needs to be improved than the people who are actually using your site?

There are a number of ways to gather feedback, but one of the simplest is to just add a contact form to your site and ask people to get in touch if they have any suggestions or comments. You can also use surveys or polls to collect feedback directly from people as they're using your site.

If you are implementing a brand-new web design or introducing a new feature, you may want to consider conducting user testing. This is where you give people tasks to complete on your site and then observe how they interact with it. This can be a great way to identify any potential issues with your design before it goes live.

Final word

The user experience (UX) of your website has a direct impact on things like conversion rates, bounce rates, and even your SEO. So, if users are having a difficult time navigating your site or if it's not as visually appealing as it could be, now is the time to make some changes.

Remember, even small improvements can make a big difference when it comes to your UX, so don't be afraid to experiment until you find what works best for your audience.

by Web Desk via Digital Information World

Study estimates that digital foot traffic will surpass 450 billion sessions following upcoming holiday sales

With Halloween, Black Friday, and other holiday seasons right around the corner, marketers are getting themselves ready for the upcoming holiday sales that can account for almost 40% of the annual sales for any business.

Unfortunately, this year, these retailers are finding themselves in a tough spot. Two important factors are responsible for this situation. The first one is the absence of a proper mobile-first strategy, which plays an important role in rounding up customers; the second one is inflation.

Prices have gone up so high that, as of August 2022, the price index went up by 8%. Prices for mobile shopping increased by an additional 2%, for a total inflation increase of 10%. Ever since COVID-19 made its debut, things have gone out of hand. As the pandemic gave a boost to online shopping, having a proper strategy for such users will be important for businesses.

Since consumers have already started to do their homework, it is time for retailers to offer the best deals and prices so more consumers can be attracted.

To help businesses grow, Data.AI predicted what the upcoming holiday season has to offer. The results showed that mobile sessions would be up by almost 22% outside China. This means in the fourth quarter of the current year, sessions will surpass 450 billion mobile shopping applications visited.

With China included, the figures are set at almost 850 billion sessions. The United States alone is expected to receive 28 billion session visits.

Strategies such as loyalty points, sending out push notifications, and forming partnerships have played an important part in making buyers revisit the applications from time to time.

However, it is also expected that, in light of increasing inflation, consumers will also be looking out for ways through which they can save some money by not overspending it. Data.ai observed an all-time high rise in the downloading of rewards and coupons in the US alone. On a global level, the figures went up by 24%, whereas in the United States, the overall percentage went up by 31%.

Data.ai also highlighted that luxury goods are considered to be a sector that could be facing the most growth. As discussed above, retailers who want to ensure maximum sales in the upcoming holding season, need to understand what their customers want. They need to come up with strategic ideas that can help their audience with the inflation problem as well.

Read next: New Study Proves Consumers Would Rather Stay In Jail Than Receive Customer Support
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

The data for the highest earning and most downloaded iOS and Android applications in September is out

The data for the highest earnings and the most installed applications in September is finally here. Starting with the highest-earning applications, HBO Max ruled the number one spot in the combined total section. On an individual level, the popular dating app Tinder ranked first on Android's Google Play, earning $5 million in just September alone. On the other hand, Apple’s iOS App Store also had HBO Max sitting in the first position with $48 million. The figures for HBO Max didn’t deviate much as compared to the data observed for August 2022. This means that the application is proving to be consistent among its users.

The infamous rivalry in the middle of YouTube and TikTok has gotten more serious as both applications managed to earn $48 million. However, TikTok dominated YouTube in the combined total section, whereas on the App Store, YouTube secured the second spot with $48 million, leaving the third spot for TikTok, which was able to earn $45 million in September.

Another similar rivalry can be seen between Tinder and Bumble. Tinder kept itself above Bumble on both the App Store and Google Play and was even able to earn $13 million more as compared to Bumble’s $31 million. Surprisingly, LinkedIn also managed to get itself into the 10th position in the combined total list as the application was successfully able to make $17 million in the previous month.

Jumping on to most installed applications. As expected, social media giants including TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook ruled the top three spots. In the combined total list, TikTok secured the 1st position with 54 million downloads, leaving Instagram in the second position with 47 million installs and Facebook in third with 45 million installs.

Not so surprisingly, the 4th and 5th positions were also taken by Meta-owned platforms, including WhatsApp and Messenger, respectively. While TikTok successfully left Meta-owned Instagram, the Meta group doesn’t seem to be worried about it as it has already shown the influence it has after securing the remaining consecutive positions.

Other Google tools, such as Sheets and Docs, are also doing good. However, things are not going well for Snapchat, as they lost 4 million downloads in September as compared to the results seen in August.

The video editing tool, CapCut, used by the TikTok community, also made its surprising appearance in the 7th position after securing 26 million downloads on both the App Store and Google Play combined.

H/T: AppFigures

Read next: ByteDance spent $19.2 billion on marketing in 2021
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

How to Find Out If a Company You're Dealing With is Trustworthy

There are several ways to check if a company is legitimate. You can check their website, use trust-mark labels, and use background checks. Nevertheless, you must be cautious about phony websites. It's important to know how to spot them to avoid being scammed.

Let us look a bit more in-depth at each of these methods:

Checking a company's legitimacy

Performing a background check on a company before doing business with them is vital to ensure the legitimacy of the company. You can do this using the Internet, which is a rich source of information. By visiting sites like Glassdoor and Yelp, you can check the company's credibility. Also, you can read customer reviews on sites like Amazon or Facebook.


Illustration via: Vectorjuice

Another good way to check a company's reputation is through forum posts. While these aren't gospel, they can give you a good idea of the company's reputation. It may also show you if the company has had problems with customer service or the quality of its products. Moreover, you can check if a company is registered on the Financial Conduct Authority's register.

Checking a company's website

Before you sign up for a service, you should first check a company's website to see if it's trustworthy. If you find a website that looks rushed, is full of stock photos or doesn't have a privacy policy or terms of service, you're likely to be dealing with a scam. You should also be wary of offers that sound too good to be true.

A legitimate company will have an About section on its website, where you can read about its background and ethical standards. A website that uses stock photos and doesn't have a physical address or landline number is also a red flag. Also, check the registration data on the website. If the company is overseas without acknowledging it, you should be suspicious.

Another way to make sure a website is trustworthy is to check its security credentials. Make sure the site has a secure connection (https://) rather than a plain HTTP://. Using https:// will protect your information against hackers. And while you're on a company's website, don't enter any personal information.

There are many tools available for checking a website's credibility, and each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. One such tool, called WooRank, allows you to review a website and give it a score. It also offers recommendations on how to make the site more accessible and speedy.

Using trust mark labels

Trust-mark labels are a good way to find out whether a company you're dealing with is legitimate. Trust marks come in a variety of forms. For example, you can look for logos from reputable companies or partners. Or you can look for a local logo to know if a small business is affiliated with a reputable brand.

To join a trust mark, you need to submit your website for an initial assessment. This assessment will determine whether your website is secure and resilient to cyber-attacks. You will also pay a subscription fee for the service, which may be a few hundred US dollars. However, the fee may pay for itself in increased conversion rates.

Trust marks are images displayed on Ecommerce sites that show that the site has been verified and secure. These assurances are provided by independent third parties. Trust marks are especially helpful when you are buying goods or services from an unfamiliar company or website.

Using a people search site

When in doubt, you can check out a company's owners on a people search site. This is a good way to see if the company is real or not. You can also find out the business address and contact information of the company.

There are many people search sites available, but some of the most popular ones are Whitepages, Intelius, Spokeo, and Free People Search. To use these sites, you will need to enter the name of the business owner or the name of the company. Once you find the listing, you can check for reviews and complaints.

If you're still not sure whether a company is legitimate, you can always contact them directly and ask for more information. A legitimate company should be able to answer your questions without hesitation. If they seem evasive or unwilling to help

Conclusion

When it comes to doing business, whether online or in person, trust is essential. Trustworthy companies will go above and beyond to build relationships of trust with their customers, so don't be afraid to ask around and do your due diligence!

by Web Desk via Digital Information World