Google can’t seem to get the better of the network and battery drain issues that have plagued Pixel phones in recent years, particularly since it started using custom Tensor processors in 2021. The Pixel 6,

Pixel 8 series plagued by battery drain and connectivity issues

Sea The Moon (Ger) will stand for an increased fee of £32,500 in 2024, Lanwades Stud announced on Wednesday. Previously priced at £25,000, the sire of 31 stakes winners overall enjoyed a great year on the racecourse with his progeny,

Lanwades Stud's Sea The Moon Gets Fee Increase After Pair Of Classic Winners

In the first segment of his two-part Breeders’ Cup analysis, Graham Dench casts his expert eye over the European challenge for ‘Future Stars Friday’

Breeders’ Cup Friday: which European runners have the best chance of success at Santa Anita?

I discovered the Firebox stove through the company’s YouTube channel, which is an eye-opening backcountry cooking guide told through the adventures of Firebox founder Steve Despain. Go ahead, watch a few videos, and come back in a couple of days when you’re done.

Master the Art of Backcountry Cooking With the Firebox Stove

Stacey McKinnon is a leader and partner with Morton Wealth, a $2.5 billion RIA in Calabasas, Calif., and coach at the G2 Leadership Institute. Philip Palaveev is the founder of the G2 Leadership Institute, a two-year leadership and management program that trains and develops the next generation of leaders of advisory firms.

Founders Beware: Younger Advisors Are Leaving

As the digital age accelerates, the once diminutive smartphone has become the cornerstone of technological progress and innovation. Over the years, we have rigorously tested and identified the creme de la creme of smartphones,

Zero1 Awards Special: Best smartphones of the past decade

Airbus Helicopters and Naval Group have successfully tested their jointly developed rotary-wing unmanned demonstrator aircraft aboard a French navy frigate.

VSR700 completes latest sea trials aboard French frigate

The Google Pixel 6 and 7 had connectivity issues due to an outdated and power-hungry Exynos modem, and it seems that the Pixel 8 is facing the same problems. Pixel 8 owners are reporting excessive battery drain, overheating, and poor connectivity when using mobile data, while Wi-Fi usage seems to be fine.

Google Pixel 8 users are reporting poor battery life on mobile data

A pair of goals from Incorvaia broke a scoreless tie at half, and vaulted fifth-seeded Waldwick to a 2-1 victory over fourth-seeded Kittatinny in Fredon. Now 14-3 and winners of three in a row, Waldwick advances to face top-seeded Pequannock in Thursday’s semifinals. Carleigh Nocito turned away seven shots for the Warriors in this one.

Incorvaia’s second-half goals power Waldwick - N1, G2 Girls Soccer Quarterfinals

You can currently pick up the Segway F30 for its lowest ever price via Best Buy at the moment, and it's available for $399.99 instead of almost $650. That's a discount of $250 off the sticker price, which results in a pretty great electric scooter deal on the whole.

You probably won't beat that $250 saving on the Segway F30 in the latest electric scooter deals

g2-crowd

The Ultimate List of G2Crowd Alternatives and How To Select the Right Ones for Your SaaS

What is word-of-mouth marketing? Word-of-mouth is the natural passing of information from person to person—whether they’re telling a story, sharing a piece of news, or recommending a product or experience. Word-of-mouth marketing, on the other hand, refers to marketing initiatives that actively influence and encourage word-of-mouth discussions about your brand, company, or products. Why is word-of-mouth marketing effective? The modern buyer is increasingly skeptical of traditional marketing tactics for obvious reasons. For this reason, it’s much more influential when a friend recommends a product because they do so without an ulterior motive. Trust: In fact, customers are 92% more likely to trust their peers over advertising when it comes to making purchase decisions. As a business concept, social currency refers to the perceived value of a brand or product based on the level of conversation surrounding it. For example, if two of your friends constantly talk about a specific clothing brand, that brand has a large amount of social currency among your group. As a result, another friend who doesn’t own any clothes from that brand may feel inclined to purchase some—because they perceive the brand to be valuable and they don’t want to miss out. Social currency: The impact of word-of-mouth is often subliminal. Let me explain through an example—say your friend buys a new electric grill and raves about how efficient it is. Two months later, your grill breaks. While shopping for a replacement, you see the electric grill your friend recommended and decide to purchase it. Even if you didn’t consciously remember the conversation, word-of-mouth influenced your purchase decision. Subconscious triggers: Any combination of these factors may influence a purchase decision. But it’s important to understand each concept on its own—as there are specific ways to leverage each one in your word-of-mouth marketing strategy. Tips to Leverage Word-of-Mouth Marketing Word-of-mouth may seem purely consequential—you sell great products, so your customers talk about you to their peers. But, marketers can take a more active approach to generate positive buzz. 1. Encourage online reviews Before the rise of the Internet, word-of-mouth spread through conversations between friends, family members and colleagues. Now, a person can log into their computer and see hundreds of product reviews. And, these reviews matter! In fact, don’t take action until they have read reviews about a product. 72% of customers Rather than sit back and hope for positive reviews, marketers can take certain steps to increase the number of reviews their business receives online. Include a review option on each of your product pages. And, include a call-to-action in your emails to customers so they don’t have to seek out a method to leave reviews on their own. Make it easy: Ask for customer reviews shortly after they receive their order or product. You want their (hopefully positive) experience to be fresh in their minds so they feel motivated to take the extra time and leave feedback. Ask at the right time: From Yelp to Glassdoor to G2 Crowd, there are so many platforms your customers can use to leave reviews. When you send review requests, alternate between these channels so you can generate a more comprehensive collection of reviews across the web. Consider all review channels: 2. Leverage user-generated content User-generated content (UGC) is content created by your audience, for your audience. UGC is an effective tool to boost word-of-mouth on social media and other digital platforms—as customers trust and engage with content from their peers more than they do with traditional marketing content. Encourage your customers to create UGC by offering an incentive. For example, contests and giveaways are a fun way to boost engagement among your users. From Instagram posts showcasing your product to video reviews on YouTube, UGC will catch the attention of other users and facilitate organic conversations about your brand. 3. Connect with influencers and thought leaders A customer who praises your product to a few online peers won’t spark widespread conversation. An established influencer, on the other hand, can make a massive impact simply by commenting on your brand or product. The power of influencers speaks to the concept of social currency we discussed earlier. The influencer’s word is more authoritative than the average user’s, so when they recommend a product, their followers perceive that product to be highly valuable. Remember: an influencer’s total number of followers won’t necessarily indicate the level of word-of-mouth they’ll generate online. Target influencers whose content speaks to the needs and interests of your ideal customers. And, while you might simply pay an influencer to create content, I recommend you partner with influencers who genuinely enjoy using your products. That way, the word-of-mouth they generate will appear more sincere and natural. 4. Establish a referral program Customer referrals are the most direct form of word-of-mouth marketing. Referrals transcend casual conversation and involve a customer facilitating a potential deal between your business and a peer. It’s no secret that referrals are effective—in fact, people are more likely to make a purchase when referred by a friend. four times But, you can’t simply wait for customers to refer your products to their peers. Instead, develop a referral strategy to motivate and incentivize your customers to give referrals. Even when referrals don’t result in new customers, they still benefit your company in terms of brand awareness and recognition. Referral programs motivate your loyal customers to spread the word about your business, both online and in their day-to-day lives. 5. Generate buzz on social media In order to boost word-of-mouth online, you have to give people something to talk about. But as simple as that sounds, generating buzz doesn’t happen by accident. Here are a few ideas to spark more conversation about your company on social media. Teaser campaigns give customers a sneak peek at products before they’re released. Teasers build anticipation and curiosity—so when the release date arrives, your audience has already been talking about the product. Tease upcoming products: : Online contests are a great way to engage with your audience and generate buzz. Not only will your followers jump at the opportunity to win a prize, but they’ll also talk about the contest and potentially get their friends involved. You can even run a contest that facilitates word-of-mouth by requiring contestants to share something about your brand on social media. Run a contest Unique hashtags will help you curate the conversation around your company on social media. When someone first discovers your brand, they can immediately find other users with just a click of your hashtag. And, branded hashtags allow you to easily monitor and measure the word-of-mouth surrounding your brand on social media. Use branded hashtags: Of course, there are many more ways to generate buzz on social media and across all marketing channels. Don’t be afraid to step outside the box and get creative. You never know which unconventional idea will catch on with your audience. The right marketing strategy can help you generate word-of-mouth business. But, the best way to get people talking is to deliver an exceptional customer experience. When your business exceeds expectations at every turn, your happy customers will want to share their experiences with their peers. If you have any questions or want to consult on marketing — feel free to get in touch with me and my team at , where we offer a full range of marketing services – from strategy development to its execution with tools like Influencer Marketing, User Acquisition and Affiliate Network. Zorka.Mobi

How to Leverage Word-of-Mouth Marketing in 2020

This rise in content consumption using new channels, such as  smartwatches, POS, kiosks, gaming, consoles, voice-activated devices, etc. are creating problems for the traditional CMS. This is because the traditional CMS was explicitly created for delivering Web content to websites. Consequently, the demand for a better solution was sought after which was the Headless CMS. What is a Headless CMS? A headless content management system, or headless CMS, is any that separates the content layer (backend) from the presentation layer (frontend). Unlike traditional content management systems, a is flexible and highly scalable. This is because developers retrieve data from the headless CMS and present it the way they want, which opens up many more possibilities. content management system headless CMS The term “headless” comes from the concept of chopping the “head” (the , i.e. the website) off the “body” (the , i.e. the content repository). front end back end What is JAMstack? According to the JAMstack official documentation: JAMstack is an architecture designed to make the web faster, more secure, and easier to scale. It builds on many of the tools and workflows which developers love, and which bring maximum productivity. The this because it does not require an origin server. It is not a "technology stack" because it does not dictate what technology to use. JAMstack is able to achieve Why JAMstack and Headless CMS? The following are reasons to use a Headless CMS with JAMstack: Frontend Flexibility , Headless CMS separates the presentation layer from the content of the site. Thus, developers are not bound to a specific framework. Similarly, JAMstack does not restrict developers to specific technologies. This, in the long run, helps business and organizations stand out because they have a personalized user experience Unlike traditional content management systems Future-proof With Headless CMS, developers can stay up-to-date with current technologies. This is because the presentation layer is separate from the content. As a result, JAMstack architecture is a perfect match. Extra security Since JAMstack sites require no origin servers, it makes them hard to attack. Also, security is provided internally by the various CMS providers. Thus, using a Headless CMS together with JAMstack makes a site extra secure. Performance It's no news that the JAMstack architecture makes sites very high performant. This is due to the fact that sites are served directly from a CDN. JAMstack, when used with a Headless CMS creates a great user experience. This in turn leads to a high conversion rate, hence growth. Getting Started There are a lot of options out there, and picking the right Headless CMS can be challenging. Here are some of the best options available according to customers reviews: G2 Crowd Agility CMS Agility CMS  is a Jamstack-ready, Content-First API-based Headless CMS. In the world of pure headless CMS and traditional monolithic CMSs, it is designed to offer the best of both worlds: fast and flexible environment for developers as well as easy and powerful tools for marketers. Agility CMS gives both developers and marketers the tools to build, manage, and maintain their content with ease offering built-in Page and Sitemap/URL Management. Contentful is an API-driven headless CMS designed to create, manage and distribute content to any platform. It gives developers the tools to organize and structure the content their way. Contentful focuses on providing users with the tools to build custom content models for maximum customization. Contentful Kentico Kontent Kentico Kontent is a headless CMS that simplifies content production for marketers so that they can focus on creating high-quality content without requiring developer involvement. This frees developers to focus on what they do best—building engaging online experiences that look great in every channel. Jamstack.org also provides a comprehensive list of Content Management Systems for JAMstack Sites Conclusion Using JAMstack with a Headless CMS is a great solution for organizations that want to scale. There are a lot of tools available to help get started. You can try to build a JAMstack Site with Gatsby or Next.js . here Also published on: https://harcourt.hashnode.dev/why-use-a-headless-cms-with-jamstack

The Benefits of Using a Headless CMS with JAMstack

Running a thriving law firm encompasses dozens of parameters. Arguably, keeping employees satisfied and efficient are the most important ones. Stressed out lawyers and paralegals are naturally less productive, which translates into lost growth opportunities for the company. Today, being unhappy is a huge issue for legal workers. Let’s look at these stats from the ABA : legal profession report 21% of legal workers qualify as problem drinkers (more than triple the rate for the general population); 28% of lawyers struggle with depression; 19% have symptoms of anxiety. Some lawyers would even lose $500 worth of billable hours just on Quora. to share their pain To improve their employees’ well-being and productivity, IT and operations departments are increasingly adopting legal document software at their companies. Innovation-minded IT and operations managers usually prefer AI-driven solutions. Why start with a legal document tech solution? The answer seems pretty straightforward. The robotic job of reviewing and fine-tuning contracts accounts for a lion’s share of lawyers’ day-to-day work. Meanwhile, optimizing it requires neither significant investment, nor much time. All you need is trustworthy software. You can look for such software at G2 Crowd, LegalTechHub, Capterra, Crozdesk, and . Bob Ambrogi's list But before we dig deeper into discussing the technology, let’s have a quick look at some benefits of introducing legal document software at a law firm: Improved productivity; Less stressed legal professionals; Faster document review; Fewer mistakes. For legal specialists, it brings the following advantages: Less administrative work, more lawyering; More control over deadlines; Lower stress levels; More time for human interaction. Earlier I’ve written that innovation-minded managers prefer artificial intelligence, or as data scientists call it, machine learning, to other solutions. It’s understandable since it is the most advanced technology available today. At the same time, it’s a black box for many end-users. So, let’s see how it works. Why is AI beneficial for legal document software? No one can explain the workings and advantages of machine learning (ML) algorithms better than data scientists. Here’s what Serge Sotnyk, Senior Data Scientist behind legal document software , has to say in this regard: Loio “Reviewing a contract may take lawyers hours or even days. Scanning through dozens of pages and thousands of words to find discrepancies in dates, names, places, numbers, , etc. requires focus and an ability to process large amounts of data quickly. On top of that, it’s an extremely boring job which takes a lot of energy and robs lawyers from the ability to switch to more fulfilling tasks like actual lawyering.” lists, styles He adds: “When using ML, legal professionals get an assistant that can process as much data as you give it in a matter of seconds. One may argue that ML is no different from traditional software in this regard. But with traditional software, we create rules for a machine (computer) to use to process data. Thus, the more data we use, the more rules we need. With time, such a tech solution gets much more difficult to maintain and becomes prone to making more mistakes. With machine learning, it’s quite the opposite. We interact with a computer as if it were a child. We teach it by providing examples. Then the machine creates rules to process the data we feed it. With ML, the more data it learns from, the better it becomes at analyzing it. In other words, the growing amount of data is an advantage rather than a drawback for such a solution. ML-based software is most effective when used to automate routine tasks. In contract review, one of the things it does is creating a list of inaccuracies in the processed document. But it gives users the control over making the final decision about correcting them. Ultimately, ML lets legal professionals get rid of repetitive tasks, get more productive, and finally focus on creative things that they love doing.” Although an AI-backed product is difficult to develop, it’s pretty easy to use. Therefore, end users, namely, lawyers, paralegals, and anyone working with legal documents don’t need to be super tech-savvy. In fact, some products are built as Microsoft Word add-ins, which brings the need for legal professionals to adjust to a new working environment to zero. You can see it firsthand. Look at these screenshots of , a Microsoft Word add-in that uses AI to make contract review and editing easier and faster. It looks like the interface has been slightly tweaked, nothing more. Right? Loio To wrap up, adopting AI-powered legal document software is a great option for law firms for several reasons: It lowers lawyers’ stress levels; It boosts overall productivity; It speeds up contract review and editing; It requires a investment. small Besides, it helps IT and operations managers position themselves as innovation-minded professionals. So, why not try it out today?

Using AI-Powered Legal Document Software to Boost Job Performance

Top 33 Jira Alternatives For Agile Project Management Teams

Very few people would have imagined a scenario in which practically half of the world is on lockdown (in some cases for weeks or months) and where the majority of people will be restricted in their ability to work. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, that is what we’re currently dealing with. For businesses, particularly when it comes to communication and customer support, a key lesson that can be taken from the COVID-19 pandemic is the increasingly important role artificial intelligence (AI) could play when it comes to business communication. Of course, this is not to say that AI is perfect (Facebook was forced to delegate a significant portion of its activities to AI due to its staff having limited access to its platform and having to work from home because of COVID-19 -- and there have been ) but the data and results are increasingly pointing to artificial intelligence playing crucial roles in business communications. quite some issues Here are five use cases that show how AI is changing business communication: A trend we’re increasingly seeing and that we can expect to see more of when it comes to business communication is that of intelligent automated response. In other words, email responses powered by artificial intelligence. 1. Intelligent automated response: While we’re already seeing a mix of both complete and partial AI-powered email responses, we can expect to see this trend grow in the near future -- and it’s highly likely to be responsible for most email communications. In what seems to be the most high-profile example of intelligent automated response, Google’s Smart Reply uses machine learning to suggest replies to email messages you get; while this feature is still semi-automated, it has gone on to enjoy wide appeal and was quickly responsible for about at the time of its release a few years ago -- it’s likely to be responsible for a lot more replies now. 12 percent of mobile replies in Inbox We’re likely to see more platforms designed to enable intelligent automated response in the near future, and they’re going to be responsible for a lot more email responses than humans are actually responsible for. Customer support is one of the major factors people pay attention to when deciding on which product or service to use. Yet, customer support is not without its own limitations; during peak traffic and sales periods, or during a pandemic like the COVID-19 pandemic we’re currently dealing with, it can be difficult to ensure optimal response times for customers who’d like to get across to customer support. 2. Chatbots for customer support and interaction: For the majority of these customers, a good idea would be to connect them to chatbots and only allow cases that a chatbot is unable to handle to get to human reps. The major question, however, is this: how reliable are chatbots in dealing with user queries, and how comfortable will users feel about interacting with chatbots rather than humans? If is anything to go by, a whopping 63 percent of people prefer to message a chat bot than talk with a human when communicating with a business. data by G2 Crowd In other words, many people would rather communicate with chatbots than talk to an actual human for support; and the rise of (many of which are free) will also contribute greatly to adoption of this AI technology, ensuring more widespread use in the near future. chatbot platforms Of course, while we’re not yet quite at the stage where humans are having full interaction with robots when it comes to getting support, we’re very close to being there. 3. AI-powered call centers: As it is, artificial intelligence is already being widely used to power call centers in a way that is significantly impacting business outcomes; for example, advances in AI enables automatic assessment of calls being made to a business line and offers suggestions on how best to respond even as an agent is responding to the customer. This assessment takes into consideration factors such as customers raising their voice while on call due to frustration, long pauses indicative of rising anger, and other subtle non-verbal cues that indicate a particular mood. More importantly, AI can be trained in multilingual and cultural contexts that allows for this assessment regardless of the culture involved or the country in which the call is being made. Live suggestions are then offered to the agent addressing the customer with suggestions on how best to respond in order to avoid further escalation with the customer. One of the major advantages of artificial intelligence is its ability to analyze huge volumes of data and then extract key information that businesses can use to further enhance customer communication. 4. High-level data analysis of customer communication: Artificial intelligence is now being used to process large amounts of communication data, such as recordings of call data for analysis; customer call data could be recorded, stored, and analyzed to extract key data, trends, and facts that can be addressed to lower customer complaints and improve customer satisfaction. We’re in a world where changes occur so rapidly that a piece of data could become obsolete before you have enough time to study it. Not with artificial intelligence, however. 5. Hyper-personalization for customer recommendations: Hyper-personalization relies on machine learning to deliver more relevant information and recommendations to users; this is done by analyzing real-time data on each user and then making relevant decisions based on this information and immediately. This is difficult to pull off without artificial intelligence, especially for very large businesses -- and it’s the secret to the success of several AI-reliant brands . such as Netflix The Role of AI in Business Communication is Much More Bigger Of course, the above list isn’t an exhaustive list of the use cases of artificial intelligence and machine learning when it comes to business communication, but it hopefully gives a basic idea of what is possible and what the future holds. For a business that effectively employs just one or more of the above AI uses, there is certain to be an increase in ROI and customer satisfaction. However, it is important for businesses to start paying more attention to employing these use cases of AI in their communications -- because if we start seeing more of worldwide events like the COVID-19 pandemic, we just might not have much of a choice.

5 Use Cases for Businesses To Transform Their Communications via AI

15 Best SurveyMonkey Alternatives to Check Out for Building Better Forms

This morning I came across an interesting company on ProductHunt called . Mason They have a tool they’re calling “front end as a service” that looks like it’s a WYSIWYG builder for web apps that spits out code blocks. Pretty straightforward value. Pretty straightforward audience (anyone building app front ends). And a pretty straightforward website that has great placement of logos, trust factors, and CTAs. Their website also shows off their product really well in photos — something that I think a lot of websites miss, especially in SaaS. Overall, their site has good design. Something I’d expect from a company that sells to designers. So…. let’s break down their marketing strategy. At a more abstract level, I think one of their biggest opportunities is not a channel or a campaign. Rather, it’s how they structure their pricing and approach the market. It’s clear by looking through the site and ProductHunt comments that this product was made with love. The team behind it really cares about what they’ve built, and they use it themselves. To this end it probably makes more sense to approach the market user-first or bottom-up rather than top-down. This is the kind of tool I could see being really solid for a new front end engineer, or a designer/marketer who is just starting to work with a dev team building a front end. In this case, it’s in our best interest here to make accessing and using the tool as low-friction as possible. Make it super easy to sign up, get started, and push a block of code to experience the magic of the tool in action. That’ll get users hooked. From there, a number of gateways could incentivize an upgrade. For example. Adding more team members, allowing comments/reviews on projects in the app, or saving more blocks of content. You already see this in their pricing page, and I think this could be taken even another step further. The end result here is that individuals and small companies can use the tool for free. And when they grow or want to implement the tool into their greater team, they push for an upgrade because they love it. Moving on. I’d like to see a bigger focus on content marketing here. Their blog is only updated sporadically and it’s all company-focused content. Not much to build an audience. At this phase of their growth it’s all about just putting a lot of quality content out there to start picking up traffic on the tail end of 2019. Google Ads is another obvious channel. There are almost certainly tons of direct, bottom-of-funnel keywords around design software. The biggest challenge here will be balancing expensive CAC with LTV to ensure they maintain the and a . A good Google Ads wizard combined with the right landing page just might be able to find some profitable long tail keywords centered around design software. It certainly helps that there’s a free version of the product. golden 3:1 ratio short payback period Linkedin is potentially a great channel as well due to job title targeting capabilities. Like Google Ads though, the question is, are the high CPC worth it? Only some tests will tell. Reddit has a ton of potential as there are strong design and development communities that likely have engaged audiences. This channel is always tricky but I think this is one team that could pull it off organically, AND through paid ads. Video as well would be great for these guys. Simple screen recordings of using their tool to design cool things could go a long way. It’s also a great channel for them right now because video advertising is fairly cheap on a CPM basis as most people don’t understand digital video ads well. Dribble or other social/semi-social platforms around the design community would be a fantastic avenue if they can figure out how to get content out without being too pushy. Like video, this is probably best done by just showcasing cool shit made with their app. Facebook/Instagram might be a good channel if there are enough targeting options around their target audience. Instagram is a good channel fit because of the visual nature of their product. But I’m not sure if they can actually target the right people. This is probably worth looking into. There are also a ton of directory sites like G2 Crowd and Capterra that could make excellent channels. Lots of them are pay-to-play (like Capterra) so if they have some cash, they could pay for placement at the top of the listing in design tool categories. I think they’ll probably find an ROI pretty much immediately here if they turn on the channel. Long term, I think they could push more into true community building. They have the product and the team. It’s a matter of getting the right talent together to curate, build, and moderate a community.They could also eventually get to conferences/event marketing but I think right now is too early. I suspect other channels will have a way lower CAC and, importantly, a way faster funnel from random person to customer as well. Finally, let’s break down some tools. I’m seeing HubSpot, Drift, Mixpanel, and Hotjar tagged on their site which is great. They’re certainly utilizing some good tools there. Hopefully if they’re bought into HubSpot, that means they’ll go deeper into content marketing and email marketing. Hotjar and Mixpanel are especially solid, to really nail the best experience for new users from hititng the site to upgrading to a paid account. I’d like to see better use of HubSpot’s meetings/calendar tool, especially for Enterprise users requesting a demo. It’s a great trick to push people there directly into booking a meeting on an embedded calendar. Originally published at AndrewIshimaru.com .

FaaS Marketing Strategy ft. Mason

The Graphical User Interface (GUI) — the look and feel of the application — is the first thing that catches a user’s eye. And, as a result, it’s what the app is judged by. Therefore, it’s vital to ensure proper GUI functionality and seamless interaction. This can be done by testing the GUI from a user’s perspective. GUI testing is performed to verify the features visible to a user, like menus, buttons, icons, text boxes, lists, dialog boxes, etc. It also makes sure that the appearance elements, such as fonts and images, comply with the design specifications. GUI testing takes place at the system testing level. To find out more about the levels of testing, visit our . software testing whitepaper Automating GUI testing can be very tricky and user behavior is complex. Consequently, it makes sense to use a ready-made GUI test automation tool. We have already elaborated on the pros and cons of the . In this article, we will focus on another popular automation framework, . Selenium test automation tool Ranorex Studio What is Ranorex? Introduced to the market in 2007 by Ranorex GmbH, an Austrian software development company, Ranorex Studio is a commercial Windows GUI test automation tool that provides testing for desktop, web, and mobile apps. Ranorex doesn’t use any specific scripting language, it is built on Microsoft’s .NET platform. The framework supports standard programming languages C# and VB.NET to edit recordings or create custom tests. Ranorex is based on the query language enabling easier and more efficient search of components in a web-based application. The Ranorex record and playback interface allows for automating UI testing by recording UI actions. Making testing way simpler with its codeless approach, Ranorex is definitely a go-to framework for a beginner. XPath Ranorex Studio supports a wide range of environments, specifications, and settings. Its includes: broad tech support Windows OS 7 through 10 and Windows Server 2008 through 2016 Windows desktop technologies, including .NET, ActiveX, Delphi, Java, Telerik, and Microsoft Office apps Mobile testing on Android and iOS Cross-browser testing on all major browsers Ranorex is a good solution for implementing automated testing in and environments which demand continuous testing and fast feedback to testing results. Ranorex offers a broad range of testing tools to integrate with: most popular continuous integration (CI) tools, test management (TM) tools, and task scheduling tools. continuous delivery DevOps Ranorex integration with the leading testing tools; Source: Ranorex Brochure Through integration Ranorex allows for built-in object mapping, automatic timeout handling, smart identification of dynamic web elements, testing on additional operating systems: Linux and macOS. Selenium WebDriver Main characteristics of Ranorex GUI test automation tool To get the full picture of Ranorex automation tool basics, check the following resources: Download full-featured 30-day Ranorex Studio trial Ranorex Studio User Guide Ranorex Forum Ranorex automation packages on GitHub General Use Ranorex Studio is one of the most comprehensive automation tools on the market as it provides solutions for multiple environments, devices, and applications allowing for automated testing of any desktop, web, or mobile software. That said, Ranorex is considered more suitable for web-based applications. Ranorex usage distribution among different platforms; Source: Ranorex Studio survey Popularity A data-driven research company, iDataLabs, whose data for Ranorex usage goes back almost three years, has identified 954 companies using Ranorex, which is about 1.2 percent of the market share in the Software Testing Tools category. Ranorex Market Share and Competitors in Software Testing Tools; Image source — iDataLabs The same research shows that most companies using Ranorex are in the Computer Software industry and located in the United States. Forty-nine percent of Ranorex customers are in the United States and 10 percent are in the United Kingdom; Image source — iDataLabs Compared to other popular test automation tools on G2 Crowd, a review platform, Ranorex outperforms in 4 out of 7 categories: ease of use, quality of support, ease of doing business with, and product direction. Ranorex Studio, TestComplete, Selenium IDE, and Apache JMeter compared at G2 Crowd To find out more about Ranorex in relation to other test automation frameworks, check our article comparing automated testing tools. Pros of using Ranorex + Multiplatform Application With Ranorex you can run automated tests for web and desktop applications as well as mobile apps, while competing products such as Selenium and Katalon Studio don’t support desktop testing, and Watir aims at web testing only. + Codeless test creation Ranorex Recorder with its drag-and-drop interface allows for conducting script-free tests applying keyword-driven testing. Once keywords are set by technically experienced team members, no programming background is needed to create and maintain automated tests with these keywords. Consequently, tests are easy to read and fast to design, since keywords can be reused throughout test cases. Ranorex provides two approaches to keyword-driven tests: Keyword-driven framework with automation modules Keyword-driven testing using . the action table While the former option can be followed without writing a single line of code, the latter one is more advanced as it requires basic programming skills. As we can see, Ranorex codeless testing allows non-programmers to apply test automation to their projects. Selenium, on the other hand, requires solid programming knowledge, which leaves non-technical testers behind. + Smooth learning curve Given its user-friendly UI on top of the code layer, Ranorex is considered one of the most approachable test automation tools on the market. In addition, Ranorex Help Center offers a variety of resources to ease the first steps of working with the framework: leads you through the process of creating, recording, and analyzing your automated software tests. Accompanied by detailed instructions, the app helps you get familiar with the Ranorex Studio user interface. Ranorex Demo Application trainings are in three languages — English, French, and German guides have step-by-step tutorials free test automation webinars are held regularly Ranorex Studio does a good job in facilitating the workflow with their tool, compared to other providers. In particular, Selenium courses and tutorials are supplied by third parties. + Built-in image comparison Automated software testing mostly relies on UI-elements recognition. Although many UI-elements may be identified by text, oftentimes there are cases where image-based automation is the way to go. For example, when a tested item changes its screen position within the GUI, text-based automation may still be tracking its original position, which will lead to incorrect results at the end. Image-based automation gets around such problems. Ranorex smart object identification technique is able to automatically detect any change in the UI. It includes the following : GUI recognition elements — a subset of XPath that serves to describe, search, identify, and find even dynamic UI-elements within an application RanoreXPath — a tool for specifying and editing tracked and identified UI-elements for RanoreXPath The path editor — a major functionality that makes Ranorex unique from other test automation tools. It explores and analyzes the application under test capturing necessary elements. Ranorex Spy While Ranorex offers image-based automation, Selenium, on the other hand, doesn’t provide such feature which requires you to either use another library or do it manually. + High-quality customer support According to , Ranorex customer service is professional, helpful, and quick to reply. The reviews show that 10 out of 48 users mention the timely support and comprehensive response provided by personnel through the Ranorex forum. user reviews However, some users claim that the support provides only standard answers and the only way to resolve complex issues is to allow the Ranorex support team to connect directly to the user’s machine. This may be forbidden by corporate data protection policies. + Effective in-team collaboration In many ways, automated test development needs to be treated as software development; therefore, the collaboration between team members should be coordinated accordingly. While most competitors rely on source control tools, Ranorex offers its own solutions for cross-functional teams. Based on an open XML format, Unified Functional Testing (UFT) is another QA automation tool designed with team collaboration in mind. However, it doesn’t have the workflow segmentation that allows Ranorex teams to consistently introduce specific skillsets into a project. The Ranorex test automation project comprises the following layers: Developers and technical testers script flexible automation elements on the Ranorex core automation framework; Meanwhile, non-technical testers are able to create codeless test cases or reuse existing core modules; Then, using the comprehensive XML-based test report, project owners and managers can review test results and check the project progress. This way, teams can effectively cooperate on test automation projects. Team collaboration within Ranorex test automation project; Source: Ranorex Brochure + Automatically generated reports Every test run in Ranorex Studio ends with an automatic report that provides details on test execution including visual screenshots for validation. This makes the workflow much easier than Selenium’s, where you have to build a separate reporting tool to plug into your test solutions. TestComplete also offers test reports, but they contain results only on current test runs. Ranorex reports are more comprehensive, as they provide Pie Charts with both current and previous test runs. Cons of using Ranorex – Paid license Ranorex is a licensed tool, which can be a considerable drawback taking into account many open-source competitive alternatives such as Selenium, Katalon Studio, and Watir. Ranorex is expensive, but it can be cost-effective in the long run given the number of features it supports out of the box. – Only a few supported languages While Ranorex provides flexibility in terms of platforms and browsers, it supports only two scripting languages: C# and VB.NET, unlike Selenium that allows for coding with ten popular programming languages. – No macOS support Although Ranorex now supports web testing of Mac apps integrating with Selenium WebDriver, the framework still can’t be launched on macOS. Ranorex is built on .NET, which doesn’t run on macOS unless using the cross-platform project. However, Mono isn’t supported by Ranorex. In addition, Ranorex needs access to certain parts of the OS that Mac does not allow. Locking down their systems, macOS hinders many Ranorex features that work on Windows systems. Mono – Small community While free tools such as Selenium and Watir are backed by a massive community, the Ranorex user base is much smaller. iDataLabs research shows that Selenium and Watir are used by and respectively, while only 954 companies are applying Ranorex. As a result, it might be difficult to find solutions to your problems and pieces of advice you’re seeking on the web. Users believe that the Ranorex team should work on organizing the community to share more plugins, problem-solving, etc. 24,725 1,376 companies – Unstable releases While being one of the most popular test automation providers, Ranorex frequently releases new versions. This, in turn, takes up time for updating the existing suites of automated tests. While new releases isn’t something to complain about, oftentimes it turns out that the new features are still unstable and contain bugs. That’s why it might be necessary to wait for the second update of a new version before making the change. Is Ranorex a good choice for your project? Although Ranorex might not be the first choice for a small development team due to many open-source alternatives, companies with large budgets can safely invest in the framework. That said, shows that the largest number of companies using Ranorex have more than one thousand workers employed. Organization size. Ranorex Customer Survey 2018 Companies using Ranorex arranged according to the number of personnel; Source: Ranorex Customer Survey 2018 Given the Ranorex script-free test automation, a non-programmer can make use of this framework. At the same time, Ranorex’s full IDE empowers automation experts to enhance their test suites and recordings. User groups. Ranorex user groups; Source: Ranorex Customer Survey 2018 A lot of well-known brands are automating their test process with Ranorex Studio. Use cases. As a healthcare technology supplier, implemented automated UI tests in their project Siemens Healthcare Computed Tomography. Ranorex’s modularization approach enabled sharing test automation steps and code modules globally among testing teams located in Germany and China. The storing of Ranorex test cases and results as .xml files simplified the implementation process. As a result, Ranorex helped cut down test execution time by more than 40 percent. Siemens , IP Management Software, chose the Ranorex automation tool for both its web and desktop support, as well as rapid test development. With Ranorex automated tests, the QA staff is now able to build multiple tests and complete them overnight. Unycom , a company for traffic, navigation and mapping products, applied Ranorex for mobile test automation of their Portable Navigation Device feature. After switching from the Calabash tool to Ranorex, TomTom benefitted from its friendly learning curve, interaction between multiple devices, and integration into HP tools for test case management. The company claims to have saved over 90 percent in time with Ranorex automated tests. TomTom Final word Ranorex is an effective GUI test automation tool that helps counteract challenges you may encounter while shifting towards . This framework accommodates different skillsets and ensures productive team collaboration while being integrable and innovative. agile software development That said, Ranorex has its drawbacks too, so it makes sense to define your priorities while choosing a test automation tool for your team. Whether your project has budget constraints or a lot of junior testers aboard, whether you develop primarily on macOS devices or look for strong image recognition features — all these and many other specifications will help you decide if Ranorex is the framework you should go for. This post is a part of our “The Good and the Bad” series. For more information about the pros and cons of the most popular technologies, see the other articles from the series: The Good and the Bad of Selenium Test Automation Tool The Good and the Bad of .NET Framework Programming The Good and the Bad of Android App Development The Good and the Bad of Java Programming Originally published at AltexSoft Tech Blog “ The Good and the Bad of Ranorex GUI Test Automation Tool ”

The Good and the Bad of Ranorex GUI Test Automation Tool

You can read Part 1 of the SaaS Growth Series here . So you spent many weeks or months in building your SaaS product. How do you then go about building traction for your product? How do you get your first 100 paying customers? In this post, I will cover what I have learnt about building traction for SaaS products. In order to make the post more relevant, I am going to make some broad assumptions. I assume that the product being built is for the SMB market (self-service sales) and not enterprises (where you need a sales team to pitch the product). I also assume that you have done enough customer development throughout your initial build stage such that you have built a product that the market really wants ( , if you will). This would involve working fairly regularly with a set of 5 or 10 customers or potential customers throughout your build stage — researching and validating the idea before you start building, regular feedback on what you’ve built etc. Product-Market Fit Once your basic product is in place, you then start building traction. Traction for SaaS startups can be defined in many ways — some define it as getting to $1 Million in ARR, some define it as getting your first 100 paying customers, some define it as getting 1,000 free or paying customers to use your product etc. I define traction as getting your first 100 paying customers. These are customers who have not worked with you during the build stage. These are customers who have perhaps never even heard of you. non-affiliated Channels to Acquire Non-Affiliated Customers The foundation of all customer acquisition is built on identifying the customers, targeting them and then acquiring them. Let’s now explore the channels you can use to acquire these 100 non-affiliated paying customers. right Personal Contacts If you can depend on your personal network to get your first 100 customers, you can ignore the rest of this post. On a serious note, if you can actually depend on your personal contacts or contacts of your personal contacts to get your first 100 customers, your job of building traction just became easier. Some of the popular folks in the SaaS domain (eg. ) have such a massive following that building traction for any new product they make becomes very easy. Hiten Shah You could also attend industry conferences to personally invite potential customers to use your product. Remember, the point here is to get to your first 100 customers. So even reaching out to people on Twitter who have in the past tweeted about a problem that is directly or indirectly related to the space your product is in, just might help in getting those first set of customers. PR / Communities / Bloggers/ Influencers / Directory Listings I have put a lot of things under this all encompassing category of PR. Anything that can help you build awareness through publicity comes under this category. This could involve introducing your product on (and there’s a complete process on how to do this right — , and ), , , or any such online community, blog etc. Another way in which you can identify these online communities or blogs is by checking out the acquisition sources of your competitors on and targeting those sources. You should also list your product on the software directly lists such as , etc. Product Hunt here here here Hacker News TechCrunch VentureBeat SimilarWeb Capterra G2 Crowd Also included in this channel is the coverage you can get from influencers. Influencers are a much abused channel in B2C startups. However, the dividends could be significantly high for SaaS products if influential people can start talking about your product. When launched their product, known folks in the front-end engineering domain such as , and used the product, loved it and tweeted about it of their own volition. There could not have been a better way for to acquire its first set of customers. BrowserStack John Resig Chris Coyier Paul Irish BrowserStack Content and SEO Generating content and optimizing for SEO is a gradual long-term strategy that provides massive benefits but only after sustained efforts over a period of time. To optimize the time it takes to reap the benefits of SEO, you could start building content (blog articles) while you’re building your product so that SEO can start delivering as soon as you are ready to launch your product. Please note that you have to be smart about the kind of content you create. To figure out the content you should be creating, go on to see the keywords people search for, pay attention to the suggested or related keywords on Google, or go on to see the keywords that your competitors rank highly for and build content accordingly. Google Ads SimilarWeb If you are able to attract visitors based on your content, you should be asking them for their email addresses so that you have a solid list of potential customers even before your launch! Paid Ads If you have funding, you could explore the domain of paid advertisements. Perhaps your findings on keywords for could be used here. However, you could end up burning money on dozens of keywords to eventually find a set of keywords that work for you. Content and SEO Business Development and Sales This is applicable if you’re selling to enterprises where your ACV (Annual Contract Value) is large (anywhere upwards of $20,000 per year). Also, with such large ACVs, traction could even mean getting your first 10 paying customers who use your product extensively. If you’re selling to enterprises, you would likely need some sort of an inside sales team that can go sell for you. Of course, in the initial stages where you’re trying to get your first few customers, it is mostly the founder who would do the selling before you hire sales folks. Partnerships Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could ride on the coattails of a bigger, much popular product? It is difficult to establish mutually beneficial partnerships for a startup launching its first product. However, if done right, it could be a great way to acquire new customers. Microsoft publicized both and on their page a few years ago as simpler website testing alternatives to downloading VM (virtual machine) software from the Microsoft website to test how your website rendered on the IE browser. The process of downloading and using VMs was complicated and time consuming. Therefore, Microsoft developed a lot of goodwill with the software developers for introducing them to these easier website testing alternatives. Additionally, and ended up acquiring hundreds and thousands of customers who had a genuine need for the product through this partnership with Microsoft. SauceLabs BrowserStack Developers SauceLabs BrowserStack Virality / Word of Mouth If you have a great product, hopefully people will talk about it with their friends and colleagues. went from 0 to double digit million $ revenues purely on the basis of word of mouth. People tried the product, loved it and went and evangelized it to their networks. BrowserStack Or you could put mechanisms in the product to make it go viral. gave you more space if you got your friends to sign up. When launched their first website notification product, you could see WebEngage’s logo and a link back to WebEngage on all notifications being used by free users of the product. This built great virality into the product. Similarly, when you use to submit a form or to take a survey, you will notice that both these products prompt you to create your own form or your own survey once you’ve submitted the original form or survey. This then creates tremendous virality into the product that can help you acquire new users fairly quickly. Dropbox WebEngage Typeform SurveyMonkey Onboarding Experience Even if you are able to harness your channels of acquisition to acquire users, your efforts will not yield results unless you have a great product onboarding experience. New users should be able to perceive the value that your product provides to them quickly. The faster the users get to the proverbial with your product, the faster they will convert into paying customers. does this beautifully where hundreds of browsers and devices are available to you to test your app or website on as soon as you sign-up. Getting to the with BrowserStack literally takes less than 10 seconds. Aha moment BrowserStack Aha moment BrowserStack Onboarding Experience Almost all great companies I can think of such as , , , etc. have invested many hours in building that great onboarding experience from the start. In fact, in some ways your onboarding starts even before the user actually signs up. If you don’t have a convincing message on your homepage or if you’re not able to convey the value your product provides or the problem it addresses, chances are that the majority of your visitors will not even sign up on your website. Mailchimp Dropbox Asana Zendesk Metrics to Track Assuming you have been able to generate enough traction and your onboarding experience is great, how do you quantitatively track whether your initial customers are actually able to derive value from your product over a period of time. The behavior of your initial customers could portend success in the longer term with a much larger customer base. Following are some of the key metrics you should track and analyze on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to infer whether your initial customers are actually able to derive value from your product. : If your product is being used 3 or more unique days in a week over a sustained period of time, you know that there is some value that your product provides to the users that is driving such behavior Unique Days of Usage : The more your users spend time on your product on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, the higher the value the product provides to them Total Time of Usage : I define activation rate as the ratio of users who signed up and used your product to the total users who signed up. The extensive usage can be defined in many ways. At , we developed a formula that would score the user’s engagement in the first few days after registration. Certain parameters like usage of certain features or testing on multiple devices resulted in a higher score representing a more engaged user. The objective was to identify the cut-off score where you then invest efforts in increasing the activation rate of those users whose engagement was below the cut-off scores Activation Rate extensively BrowserStack : If you have a product like or that caters to teams, you should track whether users have invited their team members to the account and also the activation rates of each of the members in the team. If the activation rate for the team members is low, then there should be mechanisms built into the product through which you can increase the adoption rate of the product within teams Adoption Rate Asana Front : If majority of your users are canceling their subscription or are not using the product even after activation, then you should question whether your product has even reached the PMF stage Churn Rate Closing Notes While you might invest your efforts in multiple channels of acquisition, you would generally find that only one or two channels of acquisition tend to give you the most returns. The faster your process of identifying these key channels of acquisition, the faster you will be able to acquire your first 100 non-affiliated paying customers. Lastly, regardless of the channels of acquisition, if you’re targeting self-service sales (i.e SMB customers), you should expend enough efforts in onboarding. The key to building great products that leave a lasting impression on the customers almost always begins with a great onboarding experience! You can read Part 1 of the SaaS Growth Series . here

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