Furniture big gainer in online sales, but electronics & fashion continue to dominate

The e-commerce marketplace in India has been traditionally dominated by electronics and fashion, a trend driven by its younger customer base.

However, 2016 is going to be the year for furniture, says Flipkart. According to a study conducted by Flipkart of over 50 million shoppers, the home and furnishing market seems to be an emerging segment and South India has been leading the run.

E-commerce major Flipkart forayed into home and furnishings with the launch of its home decor range in March 2015 and furniture in August 2015. Witnessing a growth of 50% month-onmonth, Flipkart is banking big on this segment. "With the furniture and furnishings market in India valued at $20 billion today, this is emerging as a big category for us," said Anil Goteti, VP (retail), Flipkart.

The last few years have seen the rise of several vertical players in the furniture market including Mumbai-based Pepperfry, Ratan Tata-backed Urban Ladder and Gurgaon-headquartered Fab Furnish.

Offering a wide range of furniture at attractive prices at just a click, these startups have been giving tech savvy customers value for money and their time. Driven by the rise of these startups, horizontal players such as like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon have also forayed into the category.

"There is sufficient room for horizontal and vertical players," said Goteti. "We offer a wide range of furniture on possibly the biggest platform available today. The moot question is whether businesses are able to give customers the best value proposition," he added.

A trend that Flipkart has observed is the increasing adoption of online purchasing by a younger audience. Products such as 2-seater sofas, coffee tables, queen beds rather than king-sized beds leading within the home market, are considered indicators. "Youngsters do not have time to visit a showroom and inspect furniture. They look at making such choices by looking up online and relying on the seller for the quality of the product," said Goteti.

South has emerged as the largest customer base for large furniture, clocking more than half of the total sales across India for Flipkart. Bangalore and Hyderabad are driving sales followed by Delhi-NCR and Mumbai.

With rise of furniture rental startups like Bangalore-based Furlenco and Mumbai-centred Rentomojo, is there enough in the pie for everyone? It's too early to comment, said Goteti.

"Such players target the moving population or the paying guest type of setup. Renting furniture works on a temporary basis but if somebody is looking at it long term, cost of ownership will work out cheaper," he said.The e-commerce marketplace in India has been traditionally dominated by electronics and fashion, a trend driven by its younger customer base.

However, 2016 is going to be the year for furniture, says Flipkart. According to a study conducted by Flipkart of over 50 million shoppers, the home and furnishing market seems to be an emerging segment and South India has been leading the run.

E-commerce major Flipkart forayed into home and furnishings with the launch of its home decor range in March 2015 and furniture in August 2015. Witnessing a growth of 50% month-onmonth, Flipkart is banking big on this segment. "With the furniture and furnishings market in India valued at $20 billion today, this is emerging as a big category for us," said Anil Goteti, VP (retail), Flipkart.

The last few years have seen the rise of several vertical players in the furniture market including Mumbai-based Pepperfry, Ratan Tata-backed Urban Ladder and Gurgaon-headquartered Fab Furnish.

Offering a wide range of furniture at attractive prices at just a click, these startups have been giving tech savvy customers value for money and their time. Driven by the rise of these startups, horizontal players such as like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon have also forayed into the category.

"There is sufficient room for horizontal and vertical players," said Goteti. "We offer a wide range of furniture on possibly the biggest platform available today. The moot question is whether businesses are able to give customers the best value proposition," he added.

A trend that Flipkart has observed is the increasing adoption of online purchasing by a younger audience. Products such as 2-seater sofas, coffee tables, queen beds rather than king-sized beds leading within the home market, are considered indicators. "Youngsters do not have time to visit a showroom and inspect furniture. They look at making such choices by looking up online and relying on the seller for the quality of the product," said Goteti.

South has emerged as the largest customer base for large furniture, clocking more than half of the total sales across India for Flipkart. Bangalore and Hyderabad are driving sales followed by Delhi-NCR and Mumbai.

With rise of furniture rental startups like Bangalore-based Furlenco and Mumbai-centred Rentomojo, is there enough in the pie for everyone? It's too early to comment, said Goteti.

"Such players target the moving population or the paying guest type of setup. Renting furniture works on a temporary basis but if somebody is looking at it long term, cost of ownership will work out cheaper," he said.

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Exclusive: Microsoft to warn email users of suspected hacking by governments

A Microsoft logo is seen at a pop-up site for the new Windows 10 operating system at Roosevelt Field in Garden City, New York July 29, 2015.

REUTERS/SHANNON STAPLETON

Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it will begin warning users of its consumer services including Outlook.com email when the company suspects that a government has been trying to hack into their accounts.

The policy change comes nine days after Reuters asked the company why it had decided not tell victims of a hacking campaign, discovered in 2011, that had targeted international leaders of China's Tibetan and Uighur minorities in particular.

According to two former employees of Microsoft, the company's own experts had concluded several years ago that Chinese authorities had been behind the campaign but the company did not pass on that information to users of its Hotmail service, which is now called Outlook.com.

In its statement, Microsoft said neither it nor the U.S. government could pinpoint the sources of the hacking attacks and that they didn't come from a single country.

The policy shift at the world's largest software company follows similar moves since October by Internet giants Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and most recently Yahoo Inc.

Google Inc pioneered the practice in 2012 and said it now alerts tens of thousands of users every few months.

For two years, Microsoft has offered alerts about potential security breaches without specifying the likely suspect.

In a statement to Reuters, Microsoft said: "As the threat landscape has evolved our approach has too, and we'll now go beyond notification and guidance to specify if we reasonably believe the attacker is 'state-sponsored'."

In a blog post published late Wednesday, Microsoft said: "We're taking this additional step of specifically letting you know if we have evidence that the attacker may be 'state-sponsored' because it is likely that the attack could be more sophisticated or more sustained than attacks from cybercriminals and others. (here)

The Hotmail attacks targeted diplomats, media workers, human rights lawyers, and others in sensitive positions inside China, according to the former employees.

Microsoft had told the targets to reset their passwords but did not tell them that they had been hacked. Five victims interviewed by Reuters said they had not taken the password reset as an indication of hacking.

Online free-speech activists and security experts have long called for more direct warnings, saying that they prompt behavioral changes from email users.

(Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Martin Howell and Richard Pullin)

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New version of WhatsApp Plus gets around the ban

Less than 48 hours after its withdrawal, a new version of WhatsApp Plus is out that can get around the temporary ban that many users have been suffering since WhatsApp took measures against unofficial mods. The new version, called WhatsApp Plus ReBorn (2.76 according to its previous version numbering system or 1.0 now that it has changed hands) is not developed by Rafalense et al, and doesn’t get rid of the block but goes around it (meaning if you’re still banned you’ll have to wait the required hours to be able to use it).

This revision maintains the features of its predecessor. In other words, you can hide your status, add themes, and upload photos and videos in their original size and with a much larger file size. In addition, it includes features from other mods like removing ads and a Material Design-adapted aesthetic. Over atOSMDroid they explain the steps to follow to install it in case you already have the official version of WhatsApp installed.

• Open WhatsApp and go to Settings > Chat settings > Save conversations.
• Uninstall WhatsApp.
• Download and install the new APK.
• Open it, click Accept, and carry on to confirm your telephone number.
• If you’ve properly backed up your conversations, a Restore button should appear. If you get a message indicating that the app has been downloaded illegally, you’ll need to reinstall the official WhatsApp, chat with a couple people, and the go back and re-do the steps listed here from the beginning.
• If you still have WhatsApp Plus and haven’t been banned, you’ll just need to update the app, although in most cases you’ll need to uninstall and reinstall it anyway as the new app has a different signature.

The precautions and things to keep in mind are the same as with any other unofficial WhatsApp mod since these are neither officially supported nor permitted. Thus the possibility can’t be discarded that the company will take further action to get rid of this new version, just as happened with its predecessor (in fact, the XDA Developers thread where this info was published has already been shut down). Nevertheless, we already know that developer communities are always two steps ahead.

ANDROID       

IPHON           

ASK                 

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Top 10 Education Tech Blogs

This post was written by Romane Robinson, who is currently pursuing an MA in Cognitive Studies in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. A passionate student and proponent of human development, Romane has a BS in Research and Experimental Psychology and interned at Brainscape as a CEO Relations Manager in 2014.

Education is evolving fast. Every day, we hear about some new technology that will change the world and the way we learn in it. At Brainscape, we are dedicated to improving the way you learn with our own innovative smart flashcard technology (check out our subjects here), but there are many other educational technologies that are key to improving learning around the world. Because these rapid changes offer us the chance to improve education at every level for all people, it is more important now than ever before for teachers and students to have access to the best new methods, programs, and devices in the field right away.

Luckily, many dedicated educators blog about some of the best education technologies available and the evolution of their uses. These 10 blogs are our favorites here at Brainscape. Smart, pithy, and immediately useful, these blogs will teach you plenty about the best and most up-to-date technologies for use inside classrooms, at home, and wherever there are students who want to learn.

Top 10 Education Tech Blogs

1. The Innovative Educator

If you have ever felt that school was boring or irrelevant, the Innovative Educator, Lisa Nielson, understands how you feel. Motivated by her own disillusionment with the way public schools today approach teaching, Nielson focuses on showing other educators ways that they can use freely available resources and technologies already within students’ grasps to make classes more engaging and relevant. Not only does Nielson deal with broad ideas about technology in the classroom, but also the nitty gritty details of implementation, so that teachers will be able to use her ideas without having to struggle against a budget process or other restrictions.

2. The Daring Librarian

Gwyneth Jones, the Daring Librarian herself, knows that librarians can have lots of fun. Approaching ed-tech with a sense of humor and plenty of Vines and cartoons to illustrate her stories, Jones writes a blog that entertains as it informs. Not only does she provide plenty of excellent content on new apps and ideas on how to use everyday websites as learning opportunities, but also a good measure of fun stories that will have you laughing out loud.

3. EdTech RoundUp

With weekly posts on the state of technology in education, EdTech RoundUp is the best place to go to find out the latest news related to education tech. The comprehensive coverage of news and recently released apps and devices allows you to find out the latest happenings in just one place every week. While this blog may not have as many original ideas as some other blogs in the field, the RoundUp provides you with the best place to keep informed on progress in the field.

4. Edudemic

Easily the largest hub for education content out there, Edudemic provides teachers with advice, ideas, and lesson plans to better integrate technology in the classroom. While a visit to this site may be a bit overwhelming at first due to the sheer amount of attention-grabbing content, you will always be able to find new ideas that make your visit worth your time.

5. MindShift

When you are tired of reading the same ideas over and over again written in different words on different blogs, head over to MindShift for something unique. Focusing on slightly edgier, more fringe topics within the educational technology field, MindShift opens your eyes to totally new ideas. With its wide scope and its dedication to sharing all unique opinions on education, MindShift will give you plenty to talk about with your colleagues.

6. Free Technology 4 Teachers

While ideas are great, implementation remains the biggest challenge for many teachers. A lack of resources and tools plagues many schools, making it more difficult to use technology in the classroom. Richard Byrne addresses this in his blog, Free Technology 4 Teachers. His well-organized site is a treasure trove of free apps, software, videos, and graphics that teachers can use in the classroom right away. Practical and clear, Byrne gives suggestions that even the least tech-savvy teacher can use.

7. Cycles of Learning

Who doesn’t like a good life hack? Ramsay Musallam recognized how useful hacks could be in classrooms, so he set up Cycles of Learning to share practical education tech hacks to make teachers’ lives just a bit easier. Once you see his TED Talk on sparking learning, you won’t be able to get enough of his content. By focusing on simple ways to inspire real learning in students using technology in the classroom, Musallam shows us that even learning can be hacked.

8. Edutopia

Hosted by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, Edutopia has plenty of well-indexed information on how technology can be used in classrooms. Since information is filed by age group and topic, teachers can easily get practical ideas that are relevant to their current curriculum without wading through lots of ideas that won’t quite work for their individual situations. With plenty of videos and fun quizzes, Edutopia can be a fun place to browse even if you aren’t looking for anything specific. Make sure to click on their “Trending Topics” section to find out what the hottest topics are currently in education technology.

9. Steve Hargadon

Don’t let the simple design and lack of flash fool you; Steve Hargadon’s blog provides plenty of worthwhile current information on educational technologies. A true ed-tech leader, Hargadon is the director of the Web 2.0 Labs, host of the Future of Education interview series, chair of the Social Learning Summit and the Learning 2.0 Conference, and co-chair of the annual Global Education and Library 2.0 worldwide conferences. As Hargadon is one of the top experts on educational technology, you can be assured that reading his blog will give you plenty of innovative ideas.

10. My Paperless Classroom

Sam Patterson, K-5 tech integration specialist, talks about his own experiences trying to implement tech ideas in classes in My Paperless Classroom. Not only does Patterson have some excellent ideas on how to effectively use technologies less commonly allowed in classes, including MineCraft worlds, toys, and video games, but he also candidly reveals some of the challenges and pitfalls of these technologies. Be prepared to learn what tech integration really means in the classroom.

*****

While all of these favorites are worth bookmarking in our opinion, every day more creative education tech blogs pop up with new approaches and unique ideas. At Brainscape, we love reading any education technology blog we happen upon, because we always learn something new. Do you know any excellent education technology blog we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments below, because we’d love to hear from more brilliant educators. Education technology never stops changing, but by following some of the leaders in the field, we can make sure that we are in the know about the best ideas out there to help our students. And if you’re interested in education technology, make sure to check out all the smart, adaptive flashcards from Brainscape!

Brainscape is a web & mobile education platform that helps you learn anything faster, using cognitive science. Join the millions of students, teachers, language learners, test-takers, and corporate trainees who are doubling their learning results. Visit education-technology or find us on the App Store .

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Looking Ahead to 2016

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Next week is CES, and I am so looking forward to coming home from that show. It used to be a lot of fun, but it covers such a massive amount of space that just getting around takes up much of the time.

Given that most folks do prebriefings if they are smart, and that most of the really cool stuff is behind closed doors and not on the show floor, every year I question the intelligence of going. However, this year it does herald what should be a rather amazing year.
I'll close with my product of the year. I thought long and hard about this one, as there were a lot of good contenders: Tesla's SUV, Microsoft's Surface, Hootsuite, Dell XPS 13, Lenovo Carbon, and the Linksys Mu-MIMO router, to name a few. It came down to which product set the best example, and my choice may surprise you.

The Year of Artificial Intelligence

2016 is looking like the year when we really see the impact of AI. That isn't just because Elon Musk launched a startup with that in mind -- it is also because so much of what we'll be seeing around us has some advanced form of intelligence in it.
Examples include drones that automatically navigate around obstacles, the first viable self-driving car prototypes, IBM Watson solutions average people can use, and robotic vacuum cleaners that seem to think about the room and bounce around walls far less often.
By the end of 2016, I expect we'll see a number of companies that are raised up because of their unique use of AI, and a bunch that either fail or are on the ropes because they didn't see either the risk or opportunity until it was too late. I also expect that 2016 may be the first year when a major election is won or lost by the use of some intelligent system -- just like the last ones were the result of better management of social media.

MU-MIMO Arrives

Your WiFi becomes obsolete in 2016 as phones that support MU-MIMO start showing up -- and I expect laptops and tablets also will start arriving with this feature. This means a huge jump in bandwidth, particularly for those attending conferences.
The folks who have phones, tablets and PCs that don't support it will be waiting even longer for their mail to download and their Web pages to load. This is good news if this is the year you typically replace your phone. If it isn't, you are likely to wish it was.
It is going to be interesting to see which phone vendors do and don't get how important the radio is to a smartphone buyer. It may even be time for you to consider that the aging tablet you thought would last you forever might need to be replaced.

The Internet of Things

Yep, you likely won't be able to hide next year, as you suddenly realize everything you are seeing in the stores at the high end is fully connected. I'm not sure how much of this stuff really will make sense -- but, in the end, you'll see an Internet-connected option for everything from your smoke detectors and thermostats to your ovens and refrigerators.
Sadly, I doubt most of these will be MU-MIMO, which suggests you'll likely have to think about replacing them again within five years. Anticipate a recommendation to hold off until the technology in these devices matches the new technology that is rolling out to market.

Self-Driving Light

You'll see the first big step to self-driving with enhanced cruise control systems that generally will keep you on the road most of the time while you're on a freeway. Other than Tesla's system, most of these will be obsolete within 18 months. That suggests you might want to save your pennies and avoid this option or avoid buying a new car until this technology is fully cooked in a couple of years.
I'm expecting most of the cars sold in this pre self-driving window to depreciate like they fell off a cliff, with the exception of Tesla models, because they're designed to accept upgrades.
I expect we'll see some interesting accidents as people ask limited self-driving systems to do things they weren't designed to do, proving yet again that some of us are idiots.

Goodbye Yahoo

Unless something dramatic happens, I think we are going to say goodbye to Yahoo in 2016. Its plan to raise money by selling off its stake in Alibaba fell through this year, and its large investors are now in an open battle with very different plans for Yahoo's future.
None of these folks appear to have the critical mass needed to drive forward any of the plans focused on raising cash or massively cutting costs, however. The end result is likely to be the confused death of a company. I hope I'm wrong here, but it looks like the sharks are circling the body -- and that doesn't bode well for Yahoo's future.

The Dell/EMC Merger

Dell/EMC is arguably the biggest technology merger in history, and it is in sharp contrast to HP's breakup.
In 2016, we'll get to see if Dell can pull off another miracle and create the biggest privately owned technology company in history.
If it pulls this off, it will have the most advanced customer loyalty program and technology forecasting programs under one roof and no drag from public investors, either in cost or decision making.
It should be kind of like what would happen if an F1 Car raced a NASCAR car. (Hint: The F1 car is much faster.)

Electric Cars Live or Die

Until this year, only Tesla seemed to get that the real electric car market was in the luxury segment. The problem, though, is that with gas dropping toward US$2 a gallon, the justification for an electric car has become far more difficult to argue.
If the Republicans win the presidential campaign -- long odds at this point, I know -- they are likely to kill electric subsidies, and the continued high cost of batteries coupled with the low cost of gas could kill off much of the segment.
If electric cars can survive 2016 on more than life support, then they are likely to make it until 2020, when they should be able displace gas cars broadly. If not...

Microsoft's Hardware Wars

This year Microsoft threw down the gauntlet with its excellent Surface 4 tablet, and really rubbed folks' faces in its Surface Book -- a stunning halo product. That hardly went unnoticed. In 2016, Dell, HP and Lenovo (among others) will bring to market their response and a fight over whether Microsoft or its OEM partners can build a better 2-in-1 PC.
This is a no-holds-barred fight, and the OEMs are pissed, which means we are likely to see some rather amazing products, including the Surface Pro 5 and Surface Book 2. The only certain winner is us, because we'll get amazing choices we likely wouldn't have seen otherwise.

The Dyson Robot Vacuum Killer

Or maybe I mean the killer Dyson robotic vacuum. This product has been a long time in coming, and, on paper, it looks to be able to eat everything else in the market -- including the new and smarter Roomba.
I doubt Roomba or Neato will be sitting this one out, so expect a robotic vacuum battle royal for your home -- and let's just hope none of them show up armed.

Wrapping Up: 2016 Should Be Amazing

We have a lot to look forward to in 2016: smarter cars, smarter tech companies, smarter wireless, and smarter appliances -- which we may want to purchase wisely, because much of what will be in the market will be in massive transition, making decisions risky.
Those risks may get worse through the end of the decade -- likely making a lot of Luddites look really smart.
That said, we'll see some amazingly tempting things. From your PCs, tablets and smartphones to your smartwatches and smarter cars, you may find that by the end of the year, much of what you own is smarter than you are. Now isn't that aggravating?

Every year I look for a product that seems both to tickle my fancy the most and to move the technology ball in a positive fashion. This year it was the BlackBerry Priv, which combined BlackBerry's market leading productivity platform (hardware and software) with the massive Android app ecosystem, bringing back the heart of the old Microsoft "embrace and extend" strategy to create the most secure and productive smartphone on Android. Apparently it is so popular it sold out, and it popped BlackBerry's stock.

BlackBerry Priv

The Priv has been like a kiss of heaven, because it gives me all the things I missed in BlackBerry and the app support I had to have to operate my smarthome. Constantly having to locate an Android tablet or borrow my wife's iOS device in order to use the gate and lights -- or even operate the house sound system -- was getting to be a pain in the butt.
With the Priv, that pain is now past, and I live off my phone. So, the product that really knocked my socks off in 2015 was the BlackBerry Priv. Who would have thought that a BlackBerry would be my favorite product any year this decade, let alone half the way through? The BlackBerry Priv was my favorite product in 2015, and it rules, so it is my product of the year. 

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Will Marketing Addressability Leave SEO In The Dust?

In a world where digital marketers have greater control over shaping the customer experience, Adam Audette argues that SEO may soon feel obsolete.

For marketers, the promise of the web is data, and whoever owns the most (and best) data wins.

Facebook and Twitter have been moving quickly to offer advertisers tools and targeting options that leverage first-party data, and Google is now aggressively following suit with its Customer Match abilities. These have been written about quite extensively here on Search Engine Land andelsewhere. The purpose of this piece is to explore what it means for SEO.

For consumers, the promise of organic search, with Google as the preeminent example, is to offer quality, unbiased, highly relevant search results for a given query. Pretty basic on the face of it, right? But behind the scenes are myriad algorithms and even manual editorial choices that curate, organize and assemble the organic results we enjoy every second of the day.

This leads to an essential quandary for SEO (and for search engines like Google). Data-driven marketers are driving incessantly towards personalized digital experiences, achieved by truly understanding what an audience wants. Data and technology enable ever more targeting options and reporting capabilities, which result in improved return on investment.

In this ecosystem, organic search is beginning to look a bit limited, even dated. Will marketing addressability leave SEO behind?

The paradox here is that organic search results are the bread and butter of Google’s economic model. Without credible, trustworthy and relevant organic options, search engines cannot effectively monetize their results.

For future-looking SEO agencies like mine, this means understanding where and how we can apply data-driven marketing decisions to SEO in order to leverage it in the same ways we’re leveraging other marketing platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google paid search. There are three parts to this problem:

1. We need to understand how we can make personalized, addressable (at scale) digital experiences that rank well — and ideally, out-perform “standard” results.
2. Google and other search engines need to give us the tools necessary to apply this targeting to organic results.
3. We need those tools to govern when and how organic search results are delivered to our audiences, in a similar way to Customer Match for paid ads.

We can already apply data-driven principles to content strategy, contextualizing (for example) search query behavior with specific segments of the audience. In this way, we can understand and inform what types of content should exist on a website in order to capture the most revenue from organic search, and we can map the most relevant queries to its pages.

But we can’t manipulate what snippet of text appears for a specific result for a given audience, or if it appears at all. We can do that in paid search.

The golden rule of SEO is that there is a single authoritative and canonical version of a piece of content. Creating multiple personalized versions based on a targeted customer segment seems to go against this principle, and, in fact, would lead to techniques such as cloaking (which could be another article unto itself, but the crib note version is: it’s not black and white).0

If Google and other engines are to improve the quality of their search results and lead SEO into the Promised Land, they need to create personalized experiences in organic search. And they already are doing that, but marketers have no say in the matter.

If you’ve been paying attention, you know that it’s been happening for some time already. Localized, personalized, experimental and individual search results can be found on Google every second of the day. What’s missing is the ability for marketers to “turn the dials” on the results, based on their unique marketing goals, audience segments and customer lists. To do that, you have to pay up.

Brands need a first-party data solution for SEO. We’re accelerating in this area in digital marketing, and you can bet smart organic search marketers will be moving there, too. I know we are.

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Why Manual Link Building Will Never Be Obsolete

Contributor and link building expert Eric Ward discusses why manual link building will stand the test of time, despite popular predictions to the contrary.

I recently read an article titled, “SEO Practices That Will Become Obsolete By The End Of 2016” on (what is normally) a highly respected site. The author is someone I read and respect, but he made the claim that in 2016, manual link building will become obsolete. He has since edited the article and changed “Manual Link Building” to “Bulk Link Building.”

This seemingly minor edit (which I greatly welcome and appreciate) is actually at the crux of a much larger movement that seems to be permeating the SEO community. That movement is based on the belief that doing anything one at a time, or “manually,” is a waste of time, because the sheer mass of the web and link graph makes it impossible to impact it without resorting to automated or mass tactics.

Wrong. Manual link building will never be obsolete.

I agree that there are many more ways to build links today than there were when the web first caught fire. And I also agree that it is technically possible to conduct mass outreach.

The problem is that quality suffers, and I’m not just saying that as an opinion. I see it every day in my own inbox when people send me link requests that seem so perfectly crafted and personalized, yet you can tell they are not. They were sent in bulk, and worse, they are dishonest. Dishonest how? Dishonest because these outreach emails always say things like

“I was reading such and such on your site.”

or

“I noticed you are interested in online marketing and wanted to…”

Lies. All lies, and any of you reading this have probably received similar emails and thought the same thing. What a great way to begin your relationship with me — by lying to me. It’s the modern day version of spam; more sophisticated mail-merge with just enough added personalization to make me feel special.

Except I don’t, and it’s not working. We all delete them. Bragging about a 2.5 percent success rate is laughable.

People Still Need People

Certain aspects of the link-building process have already proven to be pointless and obsolete. But one thing that will never change is human desire to connect with other humans, to share, cultivate, curate and collect useful, valuable and helpful pages, apps, or whatever the digital content is, with each other. If that wasn’t the case, there would be no Twitter, which is tailor-made for link sharing.

Real-Life Example: I conducted an outreach project for a large international hearing aid manufacturer. This is a subject that I care about deeply because my 13-year-old is deaf. The client’s goal was to bring attention to their newly relaunched site and content areas — and yes, their hearing aids, and yes, they make money on them. (I get it.)

One of my recommended strategies was to identify hearing/audiology sites, associations, foundations and others that provided curated outbound hearing loss resources/links. Obviously, one of our hoped-for outcomes was links.

See the image below? That page is from the Colorado Hearing Foundation. The specific page is titled, “Useful Websites for Information on Hearing Loss.” And here’s the truth that “manual link building is dead” believers are completely missing: Getting a link on that page is not something that can be automated.

You can’t “automate” your way onto this kind of page.

I did the research to identify the absolutely most appropriate websites. More importantly, I had to spend extra time to read the “About Us” or “Our Staff” pages so I could find the person/people who make the decisions about what resources are and are not included on those pages. Sometimes that’s not easy, even when doing it manually. Sometimes you might even have to pick up the phone. That’s right, THE PHONE. Don’t pass out.

And the page above did, in fact, link to my client’s site.

Automation will never find the perfect sites. Automation will never find the exact contact that makes the final decisions as to who to link out to. Automation will never fool anyone into thinking the email you are sending them is just for them.

Sure, automation and scrapers can find plenty of email address, like webmaster@, help@, info@, questions@, inquires@, etc. But emails to those addresses are not being received by the decision-makers. Those email addresses are spam holes.

I did the research to identify the absolute most appropriate websites and more importantly, I spent the extra time to find the person/people who make the decisions about what resources are and are not included on those pages.

I often will even make a phone call to the organization to introduce myself and ask for the appropriate contact name. What a shock: actually talking to a human.

And here’s the kicker: When I am able to find the right person and website, and I conduct outreach as I just described, my success rate is close to 100 percent. That won’t happen with bulk outreach. In my case, I’m only contacting a small set of heavily vetted sites that have perfect-match resource lists for the content/site I’m introducing them to. That’s when success can happen.

But the larger point is, why shouldn’t 100 percent success happen? If you’re representing a truly outstanding piece of content, and you’ve taken the time to reach a the exact person who has already demonstrated they are curating content and links in that subject area, a link is the logical, natural outcome of that process.

The End Game Has Not Changed

This is why I laugh when I hear people say that 2.5 percent success rate on email outreach is considered acceptable. What a joke. Automating outreach is just reckless, and frankly, sad.

The internet is always going to be about people connecting with other people, or connecting with content written by people (sorry, Narrative Science). And while I agree there are many link-building strategies, tactics and techniques that need to die a slow and painful death, the process of one person sharing with another person an incredibly useful piece of content that will resonate with that person and result in a link will never go out of style and will never be obsolete.

I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I can assure you that while the methods for identifying the right people have become more challenging, at the end of the day, the end game is still the same: I need to get in touch with the person who will most likely care about what it is I’m sharing or seeking links for.

That cannot be automated, cannot be replicated, cannot be syndicated. It takes a person willing to roll up their sleeves, with the saavy to identify and connect with the appropriate person who will care about what they have to tell them.

Thank you for allowing me a few minutes of your day.

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