The Visual Internet

December 4, 2017

•

4 min read

The Internet is worth a trillion pictures—from photos and videos to emojis and memes, simple words are being pushed out for a more visual reality. Check out this infographic from FramesDirect to learn more.

The Evolution of Online Visuals

August 1991: First website was black and white HTML text
1996: Flash allowed websites to use background images and animated text
2001: Google Image Search gave users access to 250 million images
April 23, 2005: YouTube cofounder Jawed Karim posted the first YouTube video “Me at the Zoo”
2007: First iPhone popularized mobile photo sharing and Japanese emojis on a global scale, iPhone users with iOS 2.2 and a jailbroken phone could install a Japanese emoji keyboard
2010: Pinterest and Instagram launched as the first social networks to focus on photo and video sharing
2011: Snapchat launched its vanishing photo app
Now:
- In 2017, people will take 1.2 trillion digital photos
- In 2015, 3.25 billion photos were shared on social media every day
- In 2017, 1 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube every day
- In 2016,760 million photos were shared on SnapChat every day
- That’s 8,796 photos every second

Why More Visual?
- Average attention span
  - Human: 8 seconds
  - Goldfish: 9 seconds
- Humans can process an image after looking at for 13 milliseconds

Online reverse image searches allow you to search using images?no need for words

Keeping Up With the Visuals

Written Content
- Internet users only read 20% of the text on a webpage
  - Print readers are slow and thorough?digital readers scan
- Web readers read in an “F” pattern
  - 1. Read horizontally along the first few lines
  - 2. Drop down the page and read a few shorter horizontal lines
  - 3. Scan vertically all the way down the left side of the page
- Web writers should:
  - Put the most important info in the first 2 paragraphs
  - Use subheads and bullet points
  - Highlight important words
  - Supplement text with informative images
    - Articles with an image every 75-100 words get 2X the shares as those with fewer images
Social Media
- Every social platform is embracing visual content
- Facebook Live
  - Launched in April 2016
    - Facebook Live videos are watched 3X longer than prerecorded
    - Surprisingly, most people watch and don’t listen (85% of Facebook videos are watched with the sound off)
- Image Filters
  - In September 2015, Snapchat introduced lenses to add animations such as face-swapping to photo messages
  - In June 2017, Facebook added animated reactions, masks, and filters to Facebook video chats

In September 2017, The iPhone X now includes Animojis: emojis such as unicorns and pandas that you can animate with facial movement.

Advertising
- Psychology of photos in ads
  - Images we like
    - Products we might buy
    - Real people, such as celebrities or author photos on blogs
  - Images we don’t like
  - - Feel-good generic photos
    - Stock photos of models
- Social media users trust user-generated images from individuals 7X more than branded content
  - 56% are more likely to buy a product after seeing it featured in a user’s photo
- 4X as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it
  - 4 in 5 consumers say a video showing how a product or service works is important

We’re seeing more and more on our devices?but soon visual content won’t be isolated to the screen

An Even More Visual Future

Growing Video
- Internet video will increase 31% between 2016 and 2021
  - It would take one person 5 million years to watch all the video that will cross global IP networks in one month in 2021
- How much Internet traffic will be video?
  - 2016: 73%
  - 2021: 82%
- Live video will make up 13% of all video traffic by 2021
Virtual and Augmented Reality
- 2016 VR products
  - Google Daydream
  - HTC Vive
  - Oculus Rift
  - PlayStation VR
  - Samsung Gear VR
- VR/AR hardware sales will increase 20X between 2015 and 2021
  - In 2021, an estimated 82.5 million headsets will be shipped
  - Biggest growing VR/AR markets
    - 1. Videogames
    - 2. Healthcare
    - 3. Engineering
    - 4. Entertainment
    - 5. Real Estate
Tracking Tech
- Control the screen with the movement of your eyes
  - Devices will develop a greater understanding of your actions and unconscious urges
- Impacted industries
  - VR/AR: Eye tracking will make virtual experiences feel even more realistic
  - Gaming: Video game navigation and interfaces will be more immersive
  - Advertising: Ad impacts will be measured by precise attentiontracking metrics instead of general impressions