29 May 12

Images are the rising stars of the Internet

by Christina Tulloch, Trainee Econometrician

While the internet is becoming increasingly important in many areas of life, images are still the most popular way to get information across. Here are a few examples:

• Pinterest: Pinterest is a visually driven social network and is the fastest growing social site today. Users collect and share images from all over the web and “pin” them on virtual pinboards. Pinterest is truly all about the image.

• The Facebook Timeline: Facebook’s growing focus on images led to the recent Timeline switch. Timeline draws people’s attention to images on Facebook like never before with massive cover photos and larger sized photos within your Timeline.

• Acquisition of Instagram: Facebook’s billion dollar acquisition of Instagram is another indication of Facebook’s growing image obsession.

• Articles: When it comes to grabbing attention online, images can be as important as headlines. Skyword conducted a study to measure the performance of content online and found that “embedding relevant images in content meaningfully improve content performance”.

• Infographics: With the growing amount of data available, more and more data is being visualized for easier consumption. This has led to the rapid increase in the popularity of infographics.

• E-commerce: A recent report by the National Research Federation revealed that most consumers believe a product’s image is more important than customer ratings/reviews and product information.

• Social: It’s not just Pinterest and Facebook that rely on the power of images. Even choosing the right Twitter photo can influence the amount of followers you have.