Clicks™ aims to create an online network for everything related to real estate - the first of its kind in the world. Our vision is to digitalise the real estate industry and bring everything related to real estate within a few clicks’ reach. By doing so, we strive to create economic opportunities for everyone involved in the real estate and its complementary industries.

Clicks

Hi! My name’s Amir. I’m a Web3 Community Manager and a podcast host. To improve the reach of my podcast, 2 months ago, I tried the Rask.ai platform, and have edited over 10 hours of footage since. In this review, I’ll go into the challenges Rask.ai can solve for you, its features, and the pros/cons of the platform. What Is Rask.ai, and Why Did I Buy It? Essentially, Rask.ai is a platform that uses AI for video/audio localization and repurposing. By repurposing, I mean auto reframing to vertical format, and auto-editing long videos to capture the most interesting moments. Rask.ai poses itself as a platform that has all the AI features for content makers in one place, a one-stop-shop of some sort. In one subscription, you get all the AI tools you would need to make your video content better. The main purpose that I had in mind when checking out Rask.ai was to increase the reach of my podcast on TikTok and YouTube. The podcast originally is in Kazakh, but to expand the potential audience and potential advertisers, I was looking for ways to target the English-speaking market as well. Price, Interface, and Functionality The platform is very flexible when it comes to pricing: you have 3 options to choose from, which vary by the price, the amount of minutes, and other available features. Honestly, I think the only metric you should really look at is the amount of minutes, as it will influence your work the most. I’ve picked the second plan, Creator Pro. It includes 100 minutes of edited footage per month and costs me $120. They also offer a plan for $50 and 25 minutes, as well as a corporate plan - $600 and 500 minutes. The biggest plan the platform offers is enterprise, which starts at 2000 minutes with a custom price. Note that all prices are correct if you pay annually - plans with monthly payments will be ~15% more expensive. Last month, I had 2 podcasts instead of one, and I ran out of minutes on my regular plan. However, you can always buy additional minutes at a $3 rate. Setting up the account is very easy (as it should be in 2024): you can use your Google account to log in or create the account with your email. The interface is very clean and isn’t overloaded by different buttons and links. You have FAQ and customer support at the top right corner, accessible from any page, so if you get a bit confused, there’s always that. I can’t say that I’m a tech guru of any kind, but I got used to the website in a matter of minutes. I’ve never worked with a mobile version of the site as I always store all raw footage on my Mac, but if you’re editing a small TikTok/Reels, you can easily do it from your phone. What Does Rask.ai Do, and How Do I Use It? The platform has 2 main features: localization and shorts. Let’s start with the first one, which became a selling point for me. You download a video from your device or paste a link from YouTube or Google Drive, choose the number of speakers, original language, and the language you want to translate the video to, and click “translate.” After that, the magic begins. In a matter of minutes (depending on the length of the video), you get the same video but translated to a different language. The voice-over keeps the voice’s depth, tone, and emotion, and even creates a lip sync, so the video footage is similar to the audio. How do I use that feature? Before discovering Rask.ai, in order to reach the English-speaking market, I was adding EN subtitles to all my podcasts. However, that approach was far from ideal as I was always encountering many barriers: Time-consumption. The current speech-to-text AI solutions are very far from perfect. On 100 AI-generated subtitles, I was getting ~30 errors that I needed to edit manually. Scale that to hours of footage and thousands of text, and you get yourself many hours of manual work.


Accessibility. Subtitles can’t be a permanent solution to expand your foreign audience, especially when it comes to podcasts. When was the last time you paid attention to video footage on a podcast? People listen to them while exercising, cooking, cleaning, and working. My podcast gets 40% more listeners on Spotify and Google Podcasts (which don’t have video) vs YouTube (which has video), meaning that people aren’t looking at the screen and subtitles when listening.


Retention. Even if a person bothers to actively read the subtitles, they still are getting less than people watching the original. Many intonations, jokes, or facial expressions are just not working when perceptive through text. Listeners are too busy reading to actually relax and enjoy the podcast. The Rask.ai platform solved all these problems for me. The amount of manual work I had to do had decreased to practically 0, since in 2 months of using the platform, I haven’t encountered any errors in translations. The retention improved a lot as well: YouTube has statistics that show you how many people watch your videos until the end, and this number significantly improved, since your listeners can actually LISTEN instead of reading. Another feature that I didn’t even know about when getting the subscription to Rask.ai is Shorts. Basically, it takes your hour-long footage and splits the most interesting moments into many short vertical videos. As you probably know, one of the best ways to promote your podcast in 2024 is to share these videos on TikTok, Shorts, and Reels, because these platforms have much better recommendation systems than YouTube, and putting the link to the full podcast in your bio. That’s how I personally discovered many of my favorite podcasts and began to host them myself. Before discovering that feature, I had a friend on a part-time salary doing that for me, because apart from the podcast, I also have a full-time job in Web3 that is taking a significant part of my day. Creating 15 short videos from one podcast took us about 5-6 hours of manual work since you have to fully watch the podcast, then edit all shorts separately, and add some graphics and subtitles. When I discovered a shorts feature on Rask.ai, the same amount of work took me from 5 to 10 minutes (again, depending on the length of the footage). This let me cut my editorial costs down to the sole price of my Rask.ai plan, without having to pay the salary to a whole person doing that. And you say AI won’t take our jobs :) There are a couple of smaller features that I haven’t really tested a lot until today, but I’m planning on exploring them in the future as well. For example, subtitles generation, and API for translations. The company also plans on integrating some features that I’m really excited about: AI video generation (Like MidJourney, but videos), and Zapier integration. Pros, Cons, and Who Can Use It? In conclusion, Rask.ai won’t make your video content more interesting or helpful and won’t make you a superstar overnight. However, with the right distribution strategy and exciting content, Rask.ai will significantly cut your editorial costs, saving you hundreds of dollars on people who translate and edit your content for you, as well as save you A LOT of time, letting you focus on the stuff that really matters: scripts, topics, guests, and other things that make your content better. Rask.ai is a great solution for podcast hosts like myself, social media or community managers producing content for their companies, or TikTok and Instagram influencers that focus on short video content. Pros: Clean and simple interface
Precise translations
Multiple features in one subscription Cons: Relatively high prices
Not all features are ready yet Hi! My name’s Amir. I’m a Web3 Community Manager and a podcast host. To improve the reach of my podcast, 2 months ago, I tried the Rask.ai platform, and have edited over 10 hours of footage since. In this review, I’ll go into the challenges Rask.ai can solve for you, its features, and the pros/cons of the platform. What Is Rask.ai, and Why Did I Buy It? What Is Rask.ai, and Why Did I Buy It? Essentially, Rask.ai is a platform that uses AI for video/audio localization and repurposing. By repurposing, I mean auto reframing to vertical format, and auto-editing long videos to capture the most interesting moments. Rask.ai poses itself as a platform that has all the AI features for content makers in one place, a one-stop-shop of some sort. In one subscription, you get all the AI tools you would need to make your video content better. The main purpose that I had in mind when checking out Rask.ai was to increase the reach of my podcast on TikTok and YouTube. The podcast originally is in Kazakh, but to expand the potential audience and potential advertisers, I was looking for ways to target the English-speaking market as well. Price, Interface, and Functionality Price, Interface, and Functionality The platform is very flexible when it comes to pricing: you have 3 options to choose from, which vary by the price, the amount of minutes, and other available features. Honestly, I think the only metric you should really look at is the amount of minutes, as it will influence your work the most. I’ve picked the second plan, Creator Pro. It includes 100 minutes of edited footage per month and costs me $120. They also offer a plan for $50 and 25 minutes, as well as a corporate plan - $600 and 500 minutes. The biggest plan the platform offers is enterprise, which starts at 2000 minutes with a custom price. Note that all prices are correct if you pay annually - plans with monthly payments will be ~15% more expensive. Last month, I had 2 podcasts instead of one, and I ran out of minutes on my regular plan. However, you can always buy additional minutes at a $3 rate. Setting up the account is very easy (as it should be in 2024): you can use your Google account to log in or create the account with your email. The interface is very clean and isn’t overloaded by different buttons and links. You have FAQ and customer support at the top right corner, accessible from any page, so if you get a bit confused, there’s always that. I can’t say that I’m a tech guru of any kind, but I got used to the website in a matter of minutes. I’ve never worked with a mobile version of the site as I always store all raw footage on my Mac, but if you’re editing a small TikTok/Reels, you can easily do it from your phone. What Does Rask.ai Do, and How Do I Use It? What Does Rask.ai Do, and How Do I Use It? The platform has 2 main features: localization and shorts. Let’s start with the first one, which became a selling point for me. You download a video from your device or paste a link from YouTube or Google Drive, choose the number of speakers, original language, and the language you want to translate the video to, and click “translate.” After that, the magic begins. In a matter of minutes (depending on the length of the video), you get the same video but translated to a different language. The voice-over keeps the voice’s depth, tone, and emotion, and even creates a lip sync, so the video footage is similar to the audio. How do I use that feature? Before discovering Rask.ai, in order to reach the English-speaking market, I was adding EN subtitles to all my podcasts. However, that approach was far from ideal as I was always encountering many barriers: Time-consumption. The current speech-to-text AI solutions are very far from perfect. On 100 AI-generated subtitles, I was getting ~30 errors that I needed to edit manually. Scale that to hours of footage and thousands of text, and you get yourself many hours of manual work. Accessibility. Subtitles can’t be a permanent solution to expand your foreign audience, especially when it comes to podcasts. When was the last time you paid attention to video footage on a podcast? People listen to them while exercising, cooking, cleaning, and working. My podcast gets 40% more listeners on Spotify and Google Podcasts (which don’t have video) vs YouTube (which has video), meaning that people aren’t looking at the screen and subtitles when listening. Retention. Even if a person bothers to actively read the subtitles, they still are getting less than people watching the original. Many intonations, jokes, or facial expressions are just not working when perceptive through text. Listeners are too busy reading to actually relax and enjoy the podcast. Time-consumption. The current speech-to-text AI solutions are very far from perfect. On 100 AI-generated subtitles, I was getting ~30 errors that I needed to edit manually. Scale that to hours of footage and thousands of text, and you get yourself many hours of manual work. Time-consumption. The current speech-to-text AI solutions are very far from perfect. On 100 AI-generated subtitles, I was getting ~30 errors that I needed to edit manually. Scale that to hours of footage and thousands of text, and you get yourself many hours of manual work. Accessibility. Subtitles can’t be a permanent solution to expand your foreign audience, especially when it comes to podcasts. When was the last time you paid attention to video footage on a podcast? People listen to them while exercising, cooking, cleaning, and working. My podcast gets 40% more listeners on Spotify and Google Podcasts (which don’t have video) vs YouTube (which has video), meaning that people aren’t looking at the screen and subtitles when listening. Accessibility. Subtitles can’t be a permanent solution to expand your foreign audience, especially when it comes to podcasts. When was the last time you paid attention to video footage on a podcast? People listen to them while exercising, cooking, cleaning, and working. My podcast gets 40% more listeners on Spotify and Google Podcasts (which don’t have video) vs YouTube (which has video), meaning that people aren’t looking at the screen and subtitles when listening. Retention. Even if a person bothers to actively read the subtitles, they still are getting less than people watching the original. Many intonations, jokes, or facial expressions are just not working when perceptive through text. Listeners are too busy reading to actually relax and enjoy the podcast. Retention. Even if a person bothers to actively read the subtitles, they still are getting less than people watching the original. Many intonations, jokes, or facial expressions are just not working when perceptive through text. Listeners are too busy reading to actually relax and enjoy the podcast. The Rask.ai platform solved all these problems for me. The amount of manual work I had to do had decreased to practically 0, since in 2 months of using the platform, I haven’t encountered any errors in translations. The retention improved a lot as well: YouTube has statistics that show you how many people watch your videos until the end, and this number significantly improved, since your listeners can actually LISTEN instead of reading. Another feature that I didn’t even know about when getting the subscription to Rask.ai is Shorts. Basically, it takes your hour-long footage and splits the most interesting moments into many short vertical videos. As you probably know, one of the best ways to promote your podcast in 2024 is to share these videos on TikTok, Shorts, and Reels, because these platforms have much better recommendation systems than YouTube, and putting the link to the full podcast in your bio. That’s how I personally discovered many of my favorite podcasts and began to host them myself. Before discovering that feature, I had a friend on a part-time salary doing that for me, because apart from the podcast, I also have a full-time job in Web3 that is taking a significant part of my day. Creating 15 short videos from one podcast took us about 5-6 hours of manual work since you have to fully watch the podcast, then edit all shorts separately, and add some graphics and subtitles. When I discovered a shorts feature on Rask.ai, the same amount of work took me from 5 to 10 minutes (again, depending on the length of the footage). This let me cut my editorial costs down to the sole price of my Rask.ai plan, without having to pay the salary to a whole person doing that. And you say AI won’t take our jobs :) There are a couple of smaller features that I haven’t really tested a lot until today, but I’m planning on exploring them in the future as well. For example, subtitles generation, and API for translations. The company also plans on integrating some features that I’m really excited about: AI video generation (Like MidJourney, but videos), and Zapier integration. Pros, Cons, and Who Can Use It? Pros, Cons, and Who Can Use It? In conclusion, Rask.ai won’t make your video content more interesting or helpful and won’t make you a superstar overnight. However, with the right distribution strategy and exciting content, Rask.ai will significantly cut your editorial costs, saving you hundreds of dollars on people who translate and edit your content for you, as well as save you A LOT of time, letting you focus on the stuff that really matters: scripts, topics, guests, and other things that make your content better. Rask.ai is a great solution for podcast hosts like myself, social media or community managers producing content for their companies, or TikTok and Instagram influencers that focus on short video content. Pros: Pros: Clean and simple interface Precise translations Multiple features in one subscription Clean and simple interface Precise translations Multiple features in one subscription Cons: Cons: Relatively high prices Not all features are ready yet Relatively high prices Not all features are ready yet

How to Localize Your Shorts in 3 Clicks

If you are looking for a way to automate browser website clicks, you came to the right place. In this article, you will learn how to build a bot that will click on websites, links, buttons, or anything clickable, without the need for technical knowledge or writing a single line of code. Below are examples of what click actions you could automate: Automate clicking on buttons Automate filling forms Automate clicking on links Creating bot website traffic/visitors Automate clicking on follow/like button on social media Automate collecting points on rewards websites And many more Let’s get started To create our click bot, we are going to use our tool . It’s no-code web automation and data extraction tool, that gives you the ability to create all kinds of simple or complex bots without writing any code.' Automatio If you are already registered on Automatio and have the Chrome Extension installed, then you can proceed, if not, click here to . sign up A bot that clicks on vote buttons (voting bot) In this scenario, we are going to create a simple bot that goes on a specific website, which in our example is basically a list of popular links/articles, and  clicks on the vote-up buttons. Open the Automatio Chrome Extension and select the  Click action  from the extension sidebar. Check the screenshot below 👇. Once you have the Click action selected, click on the three dots dropdown to reveal more options and select  Repeat click. By default, the Click action can click only on a single element. With the Repeat click option, we can select multiple elements and Automatio will execute those clicks in sequence. In this case, clicking on the upvotes buttons one by one. Now we need to select the elements which we want to be clicked. In this example, we’ll be selecting the upvote buttons. To do that, you will see the icon on the top right of the Click action. By clicking on it, you will instantly be in selection mode. Now you can select the elements Automatio will click on. Eyedroper Also pay attention to how I am unselecting (rejecting) the unwanted elements, the downvote buttons. Check this short clip below 👇. As you can see on the screenshot below, now you have ‘17’ selected elements, shown on the Click action where you saw the ( ). If you hover over the Click action, the selected and rejected elements will be highlighted. Eyedropper icon previously Green 🟩 means the original selection (the one you clicked to select), red 🟥 means the element you rejected, and the blue 🟦 ones are auto-selected / suggested elements by the Automatio selector engine algorithm. If we start this bot that we created using the Chrome extension right now, Automatio will run from a cloud server and execute (click) on those upvote buttons we selected, one by one. As we can see from the logs, the Click actions are happening in real-time. But how can we be sure if Automatio really clicked it? The best way to know is to use  Screenshot action,  which will be our “eyes” in Automatio. So, let’s add it. We’ll use  Toolbox -> Screenshot  action for that. I’m also going to add a  Toolbox -> Wait  action before Screenshot, to give a bit of time for events to happen on the page (e.g loading all elements properly). The default wait time in Wait action is 2,500 milliseconds or 2.5 seconds. Since there will be nothing special to load between each of the clicks on upvote buttons, I’m going to decrease the wait time to 1 second (1000 ms). As you can see from the clip above, I dragged and dropped the  Wait action  inside of the  Click action , to nest it. You are probably wondering “What is  Nested action?”  Well, those are actions that will be executed for every loop we have. In this case, Click repeat is a  loop  as it has 17 upvotes buttons to click. So for each upvote click, we want to execute all nested actions we have, which are Screenshot and Wait in this case. Final words And that’s it. We just easily created a bot that will click on each upvote button, without writing a single line of code. Now we could extend this bot with various functionality. It could extract data, fill the form, solve the captcha or just run by itself every X minutes, hours, or days and repeat the same process again. We’ll cover that in the next tutorials. Till then, stay tuned and peace ✌. 🎬 Video version By the way, here is the short video that covers this whole tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4n4M_z-KMk Also published on https://automatio.co/blog/how-to-automate-website-clicks/

Build a Bot that Automates Website Clicks Without Coding

is a React to trigger callback when user clicks outside of the target component(s) area. It's a useful logic for UI interaction design (IxD) like dismiss a dropdown menu, modal or tooltip etc. Help you guys ❤️ it. ⚡️ Live demo: react-cool-onclickoutside hook https://react-cool-onclickoutside.netlify.app Features 🎣 Listens for clicks outside based on React . hook 👯‍♀️ Supports multiple refs to cover more use cases. 🧻 Uses to improve scrolling performance. passive event listeners ⛔️ Scrollbar can be excluded from the callback of outside clicks. 🙈 during the event loop. Ignores certain elements 🙉 Enables you to stop listening for outside clicks when needed. 🪟 for better DX. Detects iframe clicks 🔩 Supports custom refs for . some reasons 📜 Supports type definition. TypeScript 🗄️ Server-side rendering friendly. 🦔 Tiny size ( ). No external dependencies, aside for the . > 1kB gzipped react Quick Start ( ) demo code Common use case. { useState } ; useOnclickOutside ; Dropdown = { [openMenu, setOpenMenu] = useState( ); ref = useOnclickOutside( {
    setOpenMenu( );
  }); handleClickBtn = {
    setOpenMenu(!openMenu);
  }; ( <button onClick={handleClickBtn}>Button</button> <div ref={ref}>Menu</div> );
}; import from "react" import from "react-cool-onclickoutside" const => () const false const => () false const => () return < > div {openMenu && } </ > div Support multiple refs. Callback only be triggered when user clicks outside of the registered components. { useState } ; useOnclickOutside ; App = { [showTips, setShowTips] = useState( ); ref = useOnclickOutside( {
    setShowTips( );
  }); ( <div ref={ref}>Tooltip 1</div> <div ref={ref}>Tooltip 2</div> );
}; import from "react" import from "react-cool-onclickoutside" const => () const true const => () false return {showTips && ( < > div <> )} </> </ > div Ignore Elements by CSS Class Name You can tell to ignore certain elements during the event loop by the CSS class name. If you want explicit control over the class name, use the option. react-cool-onclickoutside ignore-onclickoutside ignoreClass { useState } ; useOnclickOutside ; App = { ref = useOnclickOutside( { }); ( <div ref={ref}>I'm a 🍕</div> <div>Click me will trigger the event's callback</div> <div className="ignore-onclickoutside">
        Click me won't trigger the event's callback
      </div> );
}; App = { ref = useOnclickOutside( { },
    { : }
  ); ( <div ref={ref}>I'm a 🍕</div> <div>Click me will trigger the event's callback</div> <div className="my-ignore-class">
        Click me won't trigger the event's callback
      </div> );
}; import from "react" import from "react-cool-onclickoutside" // Use the default CSS class name const => () const => () // Do something... return < > div </ > div // Use your own CSS class name const => () const => () // Do something... ignoreClass "my-ignore-class" return < > div </ > div Disabling the Event Listener In case you want to disable the event listener for performance reasons or fulfill some use cases. We provide the option for you. Once you set it as , the callback won’t be triggered. disabled true { useState } ; useOnclickOutside ; App = { [disabled, setDisabled] = useState( ); ref = useOnclickOutside( { },
    { disabled }
  ); handleBtnClick = {
    setDisabled( );
  }; ( <button onClick={handleBtnClick}>
        Stop listening for outside clicks
      </button> <div ref={ref}>I'm a 🍎</div> );
}; import from "react" import from "react-cool-onclickoutside" const => () const false const => () // Do something... const => () true return < > div </ > div Thanks for reading, for more usage details checkout the project's GitHub page: https://github.com/wellyshen/react-cool-onclickoutside You can also install this package is distributed via . npm $ yarn add react-cool-onclickoutside
# or
$ npm install --save react-cool-onclickoutside

Custom React Hook For Tracking Clicks Outside of the Component

In-store and online retail have always stood in passive opposition to each other, but in the first quarter of 2019 this confrontation took an especially dramatic turn. Multiple mass media outlets published articles with agitated headlines like “It's Official: "Clicks" Have Topped "Bricks" (CBS News) or “Online Shopping Overtakes a Major Part of Retail for the First Time Ever” (CNBC), which proclaimed the final surrender of bricks to clicks. In reality, the articles merely misinterpreted the recent US Commerce Department report stating that online sales across all categories surpassed the in-store sales for general merchandise (a segment that excludes apparel, food, beverages, and cars). According to Statista, the ecommerce share in the global retail sales is increasing steadily. Yet, while in 2019 the clicks accounted for 14.1% of the total, their share is forecasted to reach only 22% by 2023. Hence, even with such dynamic growth rates, ecommerce is still far from leaving its physical-store counterpart in the dust. With the overall increase in sales, both online and offline retail are expected to grow, each at their own pace. Still, this unsubstantial drama makes you wonder: what if instead of antagonizing two forms of commerce, we make the best of both? What if an average retailer opts for a digital channel while keeping and nurturing their offline channels? Coming from the vaults of Iflexion , a specialized ecommerce development company, this article will focus on peculiar properties, advantages and pain points of online and offline retail, and how bringing these two worlds together can provide a new vector for global retail. Bricks vs. Clicks: Consumer Shopping Habits Modern customers’ attitude toward both online and offline retail is nothing short of complex and ambivalent. Consumer habits vary substantially and greatly depend on their age and what they shop for. For example, generation Z customers prefer traditional in-store shopping mainly because it allows them to disconnect from the digital world. Interestingly enough, Millennials are not as enthusiastic about brick-and-mortar experience and . Older generations – Gen Xers and Baby Boomers – have also been rather hooked on digital retail, and their contribution to ecommerce is as substantial as their children’s. make the majority of purchases online On top of that, the customers of today have grown prone to showrooming, or looking up the product in-store and then buying it at a lower price online. This behavior manifests throughout all generations. Customer behavior, both online and offline, also varies from segment to segment: what is true for apparel is not necessarily the case for commoditized or electronics goods. Gardening tools might as well be easily bought online, while it’s always better to first try on an evening gown. Financial services as well as TV, video and computing devices are most commonly bought online in the US, while consumer goods and clothes are bought predominantly in-store. However, AR-enhanced ecommerce is expected to substitute this need for touch-and-feel soon. As for online retail, the convenience of shopping at any time of the day is recognized as a key differentiator: after all, not many physical stores can offer customers to shop from the comfort of their home. Long delivery has until lately been a fly in the ointment for ecommerce. Back in 2015, more than a third of consumers acknowledged that shipping wait time was the most unpleasant part of the online shopping experience. Recently, Amazon and other big-box retailers decided to act on it and launched same-day and next-day delivery options. As of today, . 40% of shipments in the US were received within two days Bricks vs. Clicks: Brand Awareness Online retail, just like its offline counterpart, has grown overcrowded with competitors and therefore very costly in terms of marketing efforts. Both organic and paid traffic generation is turning into a battlefield for those who can afford investing more and more in digital marketing. For search advertising, one is highly likely to bid with their keywords against ecommerce giants like Amazon and pay through the nose to get noticed. Although there are multiple marketing strategies aimed at helping a brand to stand out, they too require time and money – the money that the more cost-effective business model of ecommerce is supposed to spare store owners from. At the same time, the burden of promotion does not elude brick-and-mortar owners either. Even more so, today they need to not only advertise through traditional media, but also invest in digital marketing. However, Google’s policy of balancing the giants and newcomers can play into the hands of in-store retailers that have just entered the digital advertising domain. Businesses with physical locations can also benefit from Google Maps, especially if located in the city center or prime neighborhoods, and gain authority through My Business listings that showcase reviews, photos, and product availability in-store. Bricks vs. Clicks: Conversion Rates Online retail has always shown poorer conversions than its offline counterpart, around 2-3%. While this rate is impossible to evaluate accurately for brick-and-mortar stores due to their closed-off accountability, it is guesstimated to be times higher – from 20% to 30% depending on the sector. The major reason for this disparity lies mostly in consumer psychology. It is anything but impossible to let go of the fancied item, especially if the customer has already held it in their hands or tried it on. At the same time, online shopping cart is quite easy to abandon. Impulsive purchases that happen so often in stores are the equivalent of adding something to an online cart. But on the internet, the customer can take their time to reconsider hasty choices and choose not to close the deal. Another substantial cause driving cart abandonment is high shipping costs, as well as unexpected fees and taxes that do not appear until the checkout page. Statista shows that in 2019, at least 40% of shoppers worldwide did not finalize their purchases for this reason. The Omnichannel Approach Is Key It is believed that as digital retail channels are actively gaining momentum, more and more retailers should be shutting their brick-and-mortar stores and relocating their businesses online. But in reality, ecommerce has its downsides, so a transformation from bricks to clicks will not solve retailers’ problems entirely, but instead pose new challenges. Adopting an omnichannel, or bricks-and-clicks, model appears to be the most viable way to strike a balance between the worlds of online and offline retail and reap the benefits of both forms of commerce. Such behemoths of retail as Target, Walmart, and Amazon have already tapped into this mixed model and report positive results in terms of traffic and sales so far. What is more, the latest solutions for the integration of online and offline retail can bring this mixed strategy closer to the average business. And the retailers who resolve to ride the bricks-and-clicks wave will be able to bridge the gap between online and offline retail experience and gain a competitive edge in the rivalrous retail market.

Bricks-and-Clicks, or Why Omnichannel Is the Future of Retail

Fraud is and always will be a cornerstone of the cybercrime community. The associated economic gains provide substantial motivation for today’s malicious actors, which is reflected in the rampant use of identity and financial theft, and ad fraud. Fraud is, without question, big business. You don’t have to look far to find websites, on both the clear and the darknet, that profit from the sale of your personal information. Fraud-related cyber criminals are employing an evolving arsenal of tactics and malware designed to engage in these types of activities. What follows is an overview. Digital Fraud Digital fraud — the use of a computer for criminal deception or abuse of web enabled assets that results in financial gain — can be categorized and explained in three groups for the purpose of this blog: basic identity theft with the goal of collecting and selling identifiable information, targeted campaigns focused exclusively on obtaining financial credentials, and fraud that generates artificial traffic for profit. Digital fraud is its own sub-community consistent with typical hacker profiles. You have consumers dependent on purchasing stolen information to commit additional fraudulent crime, such as making fake credit cards and cashing out accounts, and/or utilizing stolen data to obtain real world documents like identification cards and medical insurance. There are also general hackers, motivated by profit or disruption, who publicly post personally identifiable information that can be easily scraped and used by other criminals. And finally, there are pure vendors who are motivated solely by profit and have the skills to maintain, evade and disrupt at large scales. harvests complete or partial user credentials and personal information for profit. This group mainly consists of cybercriminals who target databases with numerous attack vectors for the purposes of selling the obtained data for profit. Once the credentials reach their final destination, other criminals will use the data for additional fraudulent purposes, such as digital account takeover for financial gains. Identity fraud harvests banking credentials, digital wallets and credit cards from targeted users. This group consists of highly talented and focused criminals who only care about obtaining financial information, access to cryptocurrency wallets or digitally skimming credit cards. These criminals’ tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) are considered advanced, as they often involve the threat actor’s own created malware, which is updated consistently. Banking fraud generates artificial impressions or clicks on a targeted website for profit. This is a highly skilled group of cybercriminals that is capable of building and maintaining a massive infrastructure of infected devices in a botnet. Different devices are leveraged for different types of ad fraud but generally, PC-based ad fraud campaigns are capable of silently opening an internet browser on the victim’s computer and clicking on an advertisement. Ad fraud Ad Fraud & Botnets Typically, botnets — the collection of compromised devices that are often referred to as a bot and controlled by a malicious actor, a.k.a. a “bot herder — are associated with flooding networks and applications with large volumes of traffic. But they also send large volumes of malicious spam, which is leveraged to steal banking credentials or used to conduct ad fraud. However, operating a botnet is not cheap and operators must weigh the risks and expense of operating and maintaining a profitable botnet. Generally, a bot herder has four campaign options (DDoS attacks, spam, banking and ad fraud) with variables consisting of research and vulnerability discovery, infection rate, reinfection rate, maintenance, and consumer demand. With regards to ad fraud, botnets can produce millions of artificially generated clicks and impressions a day, resulting in a financial profit for the operators. Two recent ad fraud campaigns highlight the effectiveness of botnets: , pronounced eve, was recently taken down by , Google and the FBI. This PC-based botnet infected over a million computers and utilized tens of thousands of websites for the purpose of click fraud activities. The infected users would never see the activity conducted by the bot, as it would open a hidden browser outside the view of the user’s screen to click on specific ads for profit. 3ve White Owl , an IoT-based botnet, was used to launch some of the largest recorded DDoS attacks in history. When the co-creators of Mirai were arrested, their indictments indicated that they also engaged in ad fraud with this botnet. The actors were able to conduct what is known as an impression fraud by generating artificial traffic and directing it at targeted sites for profit. Mirai The Future of Ad Fraud Ad fraud is a major threat to advertisers, costing them millions of dollars each year. And the threat is not going away, as cyber criminals look for more profitable vectors through various chaining attacks and alteration of the current TTPs at their disposal. As more IoT devices continue to be connected to the Internet with weak security standards and vulnerable protocols, criminals will find ways to maximize the profit of each infected device. Currently, it appears that criminals are looking to maximize their new efforts and infection rate by targeting insecure or unmaintained IoT devices with a wide variety of payloads, including those designed to mine cryptocurrencies, redirect users’ sessions to phishing pages or conduct ad fraud.

Ad Fraud 101: How Cybercriminals Profit from Clicks

Photo by Carlos Muza ( ) https://unsplash.com/@kmuza Table of Contents Part I: Setup and displaying short URLs using GraphQL Part II: Creating short URLs Part III: Creating serverless function for hashing Part IV: Short URL stats (number of clicks) (this post) Part V: User authentication Welcome back! If you want to start following along with this post, you can check out the GitHub repo for the project code, or start from the first part. With the way project is currently, we can list and create short URLs, but we can’t do anything with those short links yet. In this post we will set up routes to handle short links as well as start tracking the number of clicks and updating the link list to show number of clicks in real time. Let’s get started! Routing The routing library we are going to use is React Router (if you want to learn more in-depth about routing and react router, check this great (free) ). training Let’s start with installing the react router dependency first: $ yarn add react-router-dom To make our code more readable, we are going to create a new file called where we implement our routing logic. In this file we are going to declare which component should render, based on the URL that was requested. For example, if you navigate to root we should render the component; since will server as our main/home page, let’s rename it to . AppRouter.js http://localhost:3000/ App.js App.js Home.js Here’s how the file with simple routing logic looks like: AppRouter.js React router has two types of routers: a and a . The main difference between the two is in a way they generate URLs. For example, this would be a URL , while URL would look like this . BrowserRouter HashRouter BrowserRouter [http://localhost:8080/login](http://localhost:8080/login) HashRouter [http://localhost:8080/#/login](http://localhost:8080/#/login.) Inside of the we define a single that renders some UI ( ) if location matches the routes path ( ). To put it even simpler: if I go to , router will render the component. For example, path with value translates to to URL. Since only supports a single child, we are going to use a later on. BrowserRouter Route component={Home} path=”/” [http://localhost:3000/](http://localhost:3000/) Home **/home** [http://localhost:3000**/home**](http://localhost:3000/home) BrowserRouter Switch Finally, we need to replace component in with : <App /> index.js AppRouter ReactDOM.render(withApolloProvider( ),document.getElementById('root'),); <AppRouter /> If you run and go to you should get the exact same view as before. yarn start [http://localhost:3000/](http://localhost:3000/) In order to handle short URLs and resolve them, we need to define another . So, if user visits , we need to get the part of the URL, figure out the expanded URL by making a GraphQL query and redirecting to the full URL. If we don’t find the full URL or if there’s an error, we show a simple error message. Route [http://localhost:3000/**shorturl**](http://localhost:3000/shorturl) **shorturl** Since the short URLs are going to be dynamic, we will use a variable in the URL path to capture the short URL hash. If the router matches the URL to this route, we are going to extract the shortUrl and render a simple component that’s going to do a lookup and redirect to the full URL. Let’s create a file and implement the component. Here’s the code for that component: src/components/ShortLinkRedirect.js Let’s explain what’s happening in the code above. First, we are creating a new GraphQL query that takes a as an input and returns us an URL that matches that hash. In the component we are passing in the hash and a couple of properties from the data object (this gets injected by the container in line 31). Similarly as in previous components, we do the following (lines 15–28): $hash ShortLinkRedirect graphql Check for any errors and return an error Check if the query is still loading and return a loading message Check if we got any results or not Set the to the full URL window.location Return as we aren’t rendering anything null A thing to note in line 36 is how we’re extracting variable that’s being passed to the component from the AppRouter.js file: hash <Routepath="/:hash"render={props => (<ShortLinkRedirect hash={props.match.params.hash} />)}/> With we are indicating that we want to capture the URL parameter — we read that parameter from object and send it as a prop to , where it gets used as an input variable to the . :hash props.match.params ShortLinkRedirect GET_FULL_LINK_QUERY Try going to the web site and creating either a new short link or accessing a short link you’ve created before. Anytime you visit we try to figure out the long URL for the provided hash and redirect appropriately: [http://localhost:3000/[HASH]](http://localhost:3000/[HASH],) Short URL redirects in action! Tracking clicks Now that we have redirects working, we can think about how to store the number of clicks each short link gets. The simplest solution would be to add a field called to the existing type and use the updateLink mutation to increment the number of clicks each link got. Even though it’s an ok solution, it’s not very extensible in case we later decide that we want to track more things when short link is clicked. Clicks Link We will implement this using a new type ( ) and we will use a relation to define a connection between the link stats and links. LinkStats Let’s open the file, add a the type and create a relation to the type: graphcool/types.graphql LinkStats Link We created a stats field on type and added the directive to define a relation to the type. We do a similar thing on the type and we connect the field back to the type. Link @relation LinkStats LinkStats link Link Let’s deploy these changes to Graph.cool by running and then we can update the code and queries to increment the click count and display the click counts in component. graphcool deploy LinkList With service changes deployed, let’s update the ListList.js component first Update the to include the number of clicks and an ID in the results (updates are in ): ALL_LINKS_QUERY bold const ALL_LINKS_QUERY = gql`query AllLinksQuery {allLinks {idurldescriptionhash }}`; stats {clicks} 2. Update the render method in to get the number of clicks and show it next to the link: Link.js If you refresh the web site at this point, you should see the changes we added to the UI with number of clicks on each link being 0. On to updating the code that increments the link count! First, we need a simple mutation that’s going to take the id of the link and update the click count. Open the and follow the steps below: ShortLinkRedirect.js Update the to return the field and the field as well (updates are in bold): GET_FULL_LINK_QUERY id clicks const GET_FULL_LINK_QUERY = gql`query GetFullLink($hash: String!) {allLinks(filter: { hash: $hash }) {idurlstats {idclicks}}}`; 2. Create the for updating the click count: UPDATE_CLICK_COUNT_MUTATION const UPDATE_CLICK_COUNT_MUTATION = gql`mutation UpdateClickCount($id: ID!, $clicks: Int!) {updateLink(id: $id, stats: { clicks: $clicks }) {id}}`; 3. Create the for creating new link stats (i.e. first time someone clicks on a short link): CREATE_LINK_STATS_MUTATION const CREATE_LINK_STATS_MUTATION = gql`mutation CreateLinkStats($linkId: ID!, $clicks: Int!) {createLinkStats(linkId: $linkId, clicks: $clicks) {id}}`; This should look familiar to previous queries we did — we are passing in the variables and calling mutation to update the clicks. And in the second mutation we are creating new links stats for the provided link. updateLink 4.. Add another container to the export statements and wrap them with : graphql compose export default , graphql(GET_FULL_LINK_QUERY, {options: ({ hash }) => ({ variables: { hash } }),}),)(ShortLinkRedirect); compose(graphql(UPDATE_CLICK_COUNT_MUTATION, { name: 'updateClickCount' }) graphql(CREATE_LINK_STATS_MUTATION, { name: 'createLinkStats' }), 4. Update the function to pass in the and functions, increment the click count and call the mutation function to update it. Here’s the full file: ShortLinkRedirect updateClickCount createLinkStats ShortLinkRedirect.js That’s it! (Well, almost). If you try and access any of the short links, you’ll notice that the click count doesn’t refresh automatically; this is because we are only subscribed to new link created mutation. Unfortunately, we have to use a workaround at this point (first one in the whole series!!), because updates on relations are not supported at the moment yet (see for the discussion on this issue). here Updating the subscription The workaround is fairly simple: we will add a field to the type and update it each time we update the click count. dummy Link Open and add a field to the Link type and deploy the changes ( ). types.graphql dummy:String graphcool deploy In , set a value to the field in : ShortLinkRedirect.js dummy UPDATE_CLICK_COUNT_MUTATION updateLink(id: $id, , stats: { clicks: $clicks }) dummy: "dummy" 3. Open the file and update the query to include the event: LinkList.js LINKS_SUBSCRIPTION UPDATED ...Link(filter: { mutation_in: [CREATED, ] }) {... UPDATED 4. Add a check to in to ensure we don’t add the links twice. Since subscription is firing now on both created and updated events, we need to update the code so it doesn’t just blindly append links to the previous list. We need to check if the item that was updated is already in the list of links (i.e. click count was updated) and just return the list of previous links without doing any merges. Here’s the snippet to add at the top of : updateQuery componentDidMount updateQuery if (prev.allLinks.find(l => l.id === subscriptionData.data.Link.node.id)) {return prev;} Yay! Let’s see this in action: Auto-refresh the click count with a workaround. Great success! If you want to get the latest code, check the . GitHub repo For the next post, I might skip the link expiry feature and just dive straight into adding the user authentication (login, signup, etc.). After that, I was thinking of going through the exercise of actually deploying this — dockerizing the web site, maybe creating some tests and CI/CD pipeline, setting up SSL etc. Let me know if this is something that would interest you! Thanks for Reading! Any feedback on these series is more than welcome! You can also follow me on and . If you liked this and want to get notified when other parts are ready, you should subscribe to ! Twitter GitHub my newsletter

Building URL shortener using React, Apollo and GraphQL — Part IV: Tracking URL clicks

If you had to pick a key determinant for your satisfaction on a web page, speed would undoubtedly be in the top two of all your arguments. You’re not alone either, more than half of web users worldwide require a website’s load time to be under three seconds or they lose interest. Beyond load times, a page’s responsiveness also contributes to the perception of speed for users. However, due to server round trip times, network glitches, and sometimes the processing power of the machine, response times can be wonky. But nobody wants to listen to technical jargon, they just need their technology to work. To fix this issue, front-end developers turned to optimistic updates. You know when you like an image on Instagram, and the heart appears even when your network is down? Those are optimistic updates. Typically, the User interface (UI) waits until the server confirms an action before reflecting an update, however, optimistic updates bypass that sequence. In one line, Optimistic updates is a tool used to enhance user experience by initiating UI changes without backend validation. This article looks to dive deeper into optimistic updates. How do they work? Why use them? What use cases render them ineffective? Why do we use optimistic updates? Why embrace this tool, you might ask? The advantages are persuasive. As mentioned earlier in this article, the tool updates the UI instantly, creating a smoother and more responsive user experience, eliminating delays, and keeping users engaged. It also takes away the wait time for server confirmation making it possible for faster interaction, and improving the user's satisfaction. Optimistic updates can be applied in various functions like common actions; liking a post, updating a profile picture, or adding an item to a cart. Further, offline editing allows users to make changes without access to the internet, and later sync when they're back online. An example of this is Google Docs. How optimistic updates work Once an action is implemented, the tool identifies it and triggers an update. Next, it updates the local state, modifying the local UI structure as if the change were successful. A request is sent to the server to communicate the desired change, which in turn sends back a response of either Success or Failure. User initiates action (clicks like) -> UI updates immediately (instantly reflects 1Like) -> Server communication (request is sent to the server notifying it of the action) -> Server response (server processes the request and sends a response, success or failure). If it's successful then the optimistic update is validated, if it's a failure then the optimistic update is reverted (the like indicator is removed.). Learn more here When not to use optimistic updates While Optimistic Update is a good tool, it's only ideal for frequent, low-risk action where the server validation is simple and quick. Optimistic updates require careful implementation. It's not to be used in transactions where failed updates could have significant backfires (e.g. financial transactions). Avoid using them when maintaining strict data integrity across multiple users. Optimistic updates are valuable tools in a developer toolkit. By understanding their functions and importance, you have an advantage in using them to create responsive user experiences that leave your users satisfied. If you had to pick a key determinant for your satisfaction on a web page, speed would undoubtedly be in the top two of all your arguments. You’re not alone either, more than half of web users worldwide require a website’s load time to be under three seconds or they lose interest. Beyond load times, a page’s responsiveness also contributes to the perception of speed for users. However, due to server round trip times, network glitches, and sometimes the processing power of the machine, response times can be wonky. But nobody wants to listen to technical jargon, they just need their technology to work. To fix this issue, front-end developers turned to optimistic updates. You know when you like an image on Instagram, and the heart appears even when your network is down? Those are optimistic updates. Typically, the User interface (UI) waits until the server confirms an action before reflecting an update, however, optimistic updates bypass that sequence. front-end developers User interface In one line, Optimistic updates is a tool used to enhance user experience by initiating UI changes without backend validation. This article looks to dive deeper into optimistic updates. How do they work? Why use them? What use cases render them ineffective? Why do we use optimistic updates? Why embrace this tool, you might ask? The advantages are persuasive. As mentioned earlier in this article, the tool updates the UI instantly, creating a smoother and more responsive user experience, eliminating delays, and keeping users engaged. It also takes away the wait time for server confirmation making it possible for faster interaction, and improving the user's satisfaction. Optimistic updates can be applied in various functions like common actions; liking a post, updating a profile picture, or adding an item to a cart. Further, offline editing allows users to make changes without access to the internet, and later sync when they're back online. An example of this is Google Docs. How optimistic updates work Once an action is implemented, the tool identifies it and triggers an update. Next, it updates the local state, modifying the local UI structure as if the change were successful. A request is sent to the server to communicate the desired change, which in turn sends back a response of either Success or Failure. User initiates action (clicks like) -> UI updates immediately (instantly reflects 1Like) -> Server communication (request is sent to the server notifying it of the action) -> Server response (server processes the request and sends a response, success or failure). If it's successful then the optimistic update is validated, if it's a failure then the optimistic update is reverted (the like indicator is removed.). Learn more here here When not to use optimistic updates While Optimistic Update is a good tool, it's only ideal for frequent, low-risk action where the server validation is simple and quick. Optimistic updates require careful implementation. It's not to be used in transactions where failed updates could have significant backfires (e.g. financial transactions). Avoid using them when maintaining strict data integrity across multiple users. Optimistic updates are valuable tools in a developer toolkit. By understanding their functions and importance, you have an advantage in using them to create responsive user experiences that leave your users satisfied.

Optimistic Updates in Frontend Applications

One of the things that has a critical impact on the journey of existing and aspiring entrepreneurs is technology. It has made it easier for entrepreneurs to get started and leverage a variety of solutions to start a business successfully. Furthermore, they can leverage different solutions to scale their businesses and connect with a relevant audience anywhere in the world. Apart from the benefits, technological advancements may also give rise to new challenges for entrepreneurs. Technology adoption has become an absolute necessity if your goal is to stay ahead of the curve and stand out from other players in your respective industry. Here are the eight ways technology is shaping the entrepreneurial landscape: 1. Customer Interaction Back in the day, there were a limited number of ways for businesses to reach out to their current or potential customers. They either promoted their solutions through phone, mail, or door-to-door activities. Thanks to technology, they started leveraging mobile marketing and broadcast media to convey their message to the masses. Later, the Internet revolutionized the way businesses interacted with their customers, enabling them to be in touch with their potential and existing customers through a variety of platforms. Take social media as an example here. It has over 4.74 billion users worldwide, making it easier for businesses to connect with their respective audiences anywhere in the world and convey their messages with ease. This has made it easier for entrepreneurs to promote their solutions without having to spend tons of money trying to convey their message to the right audience. Plus, they can interact with their customers and gather useful insights hassle-free. 2. Information Sharing Technology has transformed information sharing for entrepreneurs. Thanks to cloud-based solutions, businesses can now safely store, manage, and share documents with concerned stakeholders. These solutions have made it possible for businesses to not only share or receive information in an instant but also protect it from unauthorized access. Technological advancements also minimize the likelihood of data loss, as you can create backups and successfully restore important information. This eliminates the need for having an office space to manage business information in the form of files or folders. 3. Collaboration Communication is the key to ensuring the success of a business. It promotes synergy at work and helps you keep the needle moving. For seamless execution of your strategies, it's essential that you effectively communicate them with your respective teams and facilitate collaboration among them. Technology has made it easier for you, as you have a variety of instant messaging solutions or apps. You can connect with anyone in real time, brainstorm ideas, and collaborate to achieve the set goals. This has made businesses much more agile and responsive to exploring and cashing in on new growth opportunities. 4. New Ways of Working Technology has transformed our ways of working, which has helped entrepreneurs reduce costs significantly when starting a business. To start a business these days, you don't have to worry about owning or renting a place for an office space. You can be operational remotely and hire teams from anywhere in the world. This not only fosters diversity at work but also facilitates entrepreneurs' access to a large talent pool, enabling them to recruit people from across the globe. Since entrepreneurs often have to make do with a limited budget, eliminating the need to have an office space removes yet another barrier that prevents them from starting their journey. 5. Networking Networking is an essential skill that helps entrepreneurs successfully start and grow their respective businesses. Growing your connections not only helps you reach out to investors and generate funds for your business but also enables you to connect with professionals who are fit to be your mentors. Technology has made it easier for entrepreneurs to grow their network and connect with anyone in the world. There are a variety of platforms that they can leverage to explore networking groups or communities online and get in touch with the right people. 6. Business Opportunities Technology has made it easier for entrepreneurs to explore new business opportunities. With just a few clicks, one can easily access information encompassing market insights or industry trends. Knowing your customers and staying up-to-date with the current happenings in your respective industry used to be a huge challenge back in the day. Now, you can easily interact with your customers and get acquainted with their preferences. Plus, you access industry reports and relevant data, making it easier for you to identify business opportunities. 7. Social Proof One of the critical challenges entrepreneurs face is winning the hearts of their respective target audiences. People find it difficult to trust new brands. They often rely on the recommendations of others to make up their minds. That's why 87% of people conduct research online before buying any products or services. So, showcasing the positive experiences of your current customers may help entrepreneurs attract a relevant audience and foster trust. Technology has made it easier to do so, as you can leverage a variety of platforms and online communities to leverage social proof. This helps you create a buzz around your brand and convince people to try the solutions you offer. The only problem is that people generally don't share their experiences, as only 6% end up reviewing their preferred solutions. So, reaching out to customers and asking them to review the solutions you offer may do the trick. 8. Data-Driven Decision Making Technology has made it easier for entrepreneurs to make smart decisions rather than relying on their gut to keep the needle moving. There are a variety of tools that can facilitate access to useful insights and customers' data, helping entrepreneurs make informed decisions down the road. Furthermore, AI has been helping entrepreneurs automate business processes, enabling them to focus on scaling their businesses and engaging the intended audience. It's reported that 73% of businesses in the US are leveraging AI-powered solutions to run their operations seamlessly. Technological advancements have made it easier for entrepreneurs to understand buying behaviors, explore the changing dynamics of the marketplace, and streamline business processes to ensure optimal efficiency. Final Words There you have it: the eight ways technology is shaping the entrepreneurial landscape. The article showcases the impact of technology on the entrepreneurial journey and explores how it changed the way businesses used to operate. One of the things that has a critical impact on the journey of existing and aspiring entrepreneurs is technology. It has made it easier for entrepreneurs to get started and leverage a variety of solutions to start a business successfully. Furthermore, they can leverage different solutions to scale their businesses and connect with a relevant audience anywhere in the world. Apart from the benefits, technological advancements may also give rise to new challenges for entrepreneurs. Technology adoption has become an absolute necessity if your goal is to stay ahead of the curve and stand out from other players in your respective industry. Here are the eight ways technology is shaping the entrepreneurial landscape: 1. Customer Interaction Back in the day, there were a limited number of ways for businesses to reach out to their current or potential customers. They either promoted their solutions through phone, mail, or door-to-door activities. Thanks to technology, they started leveraging mobile marketing and broadcast media to convey their message to the masses. Later, the Internet revolutionized the way businesses interacted with their customers, enabling them to be in touch with their potential and existing customers through a variety of platforms. Take social media as an example here. It has over 4.74 billion users worldwide, making it easier for businesses to connect with their respective audiences anywhere in the world and convey their messages with ease. 4.74 This has made it easier for entrepreneurs to promote their solutions without having to spend tons of money trying to convey their message to the right audience. Plus, they can interact with their customers and gather useful insights hassle-free. 2. Information Sharing Technology has transformed information sharing for entrepreneurs. Thanks to cloud-based solutions, businesses can now safely store, manage, and share documents with concerned stakeholders. These solutions have made it possible for businesses to not only share or receive information in an instant but also protect it from unauthorized access. Technological advancements also minimize the likelihood of data loss, as you can create backups and successfully restore important information. This eliminates the need for having an office space to manage business information in the form of files or folders. 3. Collaboration Communication is the key to ensuring the success of a business. It promotes synergy at work and helps you keep the needle moving. For seamless execution of your strategies, it's essential that you effectively communicate them with your respective teams and facilitate collaboration among them. Technology has made it easier for you, as you have a variety of instant messaging solutions or apps. You can connect with anyone in real time, brainstorm ideas, and collaborate to achieve the set goals. This has made businesses much more agile and responsive to exploring and cashing in on new growth opportunities. 4. New Ways of Working Technology has transformed our ways of working, which has helped entrepreneurs reduce costs significantly when starting a business. To start a business these days, you don't have to worry about owning or renting a place for an office space. You can be operational remotely and hire teams from anywhere in the world. This not only fosters diversity at work but also facilitates entrepreneurs' access to a large talent pool, enabling them to recruit people from across the globe. Since entrepreneurs often have to make do with a limited budget, eliminating the need to have an office space removes yet another barrier that prevents them from starting their journey. 5. Networking Networking is an essential skill that helps entrepreneurs successfully start and grow their respective businesses. Growing your connections not only helps you reach out to investors and generate funds for your business but also enables you to connect with professionals who are fit to be your mentors. Technology has made it easier for entrepreneurs to grow their network and connect with anyone in the world. There are a variety of platforms that they can leverage to explore networking groups or communities online and get in touch with the right people. 6. Business Opportunities Technology has made it easier for entrepreneurs to explore new business opportunities. With just a few clicks, one can easily access information encompassing market insights or industry trends. Knowing your customers and staying up-to-date with the current happenings in your respective industry used to be a huge challenge back in the day. Now, you can easily interact with your customers and get acquainted with their preferences. Plus, you access industry reports and relevant data, making it easier for you to identify business opportunities. 7. Social Proof One of the critical challenges entrepreneurs face is winning the hearts of their respective target audiences. People find it difficult to trust new brands. They often rely on the recommendations of others to make up their minds. That's why 87% of people conduct research online before buying any products or services. 87% So, showcasing the positive experiences of your current customers may help entrepreneurs attract a relevant audience and foster trust. Technology has made it easier to do so, as you can leverage a variety of platforms and online communities to leverage social proof. This helps you create a buzz around your brand and convince people to try the solutions you offer. The only problem is that people generally don't share their experiences, as only 6% end up reviewing their preferred solutions. So, reaching out to customers and asking them to review the solutions you offer may do the trick. 6% 8. Data-Driven Decision Making Technology has made it easier for entrepreneurs to make smart decisions rather than relying on their gut to keep the needle moving. There are a variety of tools that can facilitate access to useful insights and customers' data, helping entrepreneurs make informed decisions down the road. Furthermore, AI has been helping entrepreneurs automate business processes, enabling them to focus on scaling their businesses and engaging the intended audience. It's reported that 73% of businesses in the US are leveraging AI-powered solutions to run their operations seamlessly. 73% Technological advancements have made it easier for entrepreneurs to understand buying behaviors, explore the changing dynamics of the marketplace, and streamline business processes to ensure optimal efficiency. Final Words There you have it: the eight ways technology is shaping the entrepreneurial landscape. The article showcases the impact of technology on the entrepreneurial journey and explores how it changed the way businesses used to operate.

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CLICKS

clicks.sg

1-10 employees

Since 2021

COMPANY RANKING

CLICKS

EVERGREEN INDEX #3406

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