A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

Posted on 08. Jan, 2010 by in Business, Websites

pictureWhen you see some of the most creative infographics around today, it’s little wonder that they say that people skim through webpages, focusing on graphics, rather than getting themselves absorbed in all the text. This should tell us all a story, as while the written word is certainly always “king” as we know, if we jam too much of it into one particular visual screen, then the eyes of our dear viewers will tend to glaze over it. Always intersperse your text creatively with graphics and photos and don’t forget that captions can be very powerful, as the eyes will almost certainly focus on the explanation for the presented photograph on page.

Infographics represent intelligent and very creative ways to explain subjects that are, in some cases, rather difficult to get your mind around. We present some of the “cooler” ones here for your consumption.

Over at Digg Labs, the creative guys and gals there have come up with a colored wheel which allows you to interact and select a day, month and year, to be presented with the top 10 stories by category on any given day. Check it out, but be warned you could spend a lot of time here!

digg-labs-screenshot

While we know that Twitter is hot stuff, did you know that only five of 100 community members can be classified as really active? Maybe this graphic and the information here will help you to visualize it better?

twitter-people-screen-shot

Still on the subject of Twitter, how does it stack up against the big daddy, Facebook?
This graphic sums it up very succinctly. For example, did you know that Facebook has almost as many members as there are people living in Indonesia?

facebook-vs-twitter-screen-shot

If you maintain an active blog, as hopefully you do, you may have wondered where those blog posts actually go to and how pinging services interact with your post once you have created it. We found this great interactive graphic tutorial at wired.com, which should actually be required reading or viewing for all Internet marketers. It really helps you to get a handle on the lifecycle and might help you to prepare your blogging campaigns more successfully.

lifcycle-of-a-blog-screen-shot

The Conversation Prism is an inspirational creation, designed to graphically depict the art of listening, learning and sharing. It is visually very attractive as you can see and is available to buy as a really neat wall poster should you wish. Each one of the leaves represents an element of communication and a social media resource, with the inner circles depicting the style of communication and method, all leading back to the central brand. A great creation by Brian Solis.

the-conversation-wheel-screen-shot

Explore the social media landscape at fredcavazza.net and see which sites are linked according to purpose or intent. A handy little graphic to remind you which social media tools or services would be most appropriate for your needs.

social-media-landscape-screenshot

Have you spied any cool infographics? Let us know.

Adam Toren

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17 Responses to “A Picture Tells a Thousand Words”

  1. Consolidation School Loan

    08. Jan, 2010

    I had a teacher in engineering school in college who used to say the same thing… back in 1995… guess she was right already back then!

    Reply to this comment

  2. Essays

    08. Jan, 2010

    Each picture contains it’s own story. We can write something about it and it can become the blog post. It is the best way to convert pic into an interesting blog post

    Reply to this comment

  3. John Paul Aguiar

    08. Jan, 2010

    This is great,, I really like the Life Cycle of a Blog post.. I never knew all this.. very cool

    Reply to this comment

  4. Sparya

    10. Jan, 2010

    Yea you very right! I picture is a almost full story in itself if drawn properly. I like the combination of pictures and writings for a blog as best medium of expression.
    Sparya

    Reply to this comment

  5. Website Marketplace

    10. Jan, 2010

    wow i love the conversation prism infographic, it’s got everything I can think of. I love how they’re selling the image in poster format on their website.

    Reply to this comment

  6. Liane

    11. Jan, 2010

    And here I am thinking you’re going to write a post about Mona Lisa :p

    I think the beauty of infographics is that you incentivize people into understanding a concept without having to push them so hard. Once the attention kicks in, the whole information process follows naturally.

    Reply to this comment

  7. Legitimate Work From Home Jobs

    11. Jan, 2010

    For the most part, we gravitate towards images rather than words. If a picture can tell the story, then the words won’t be read.

    Reply to this comment

  8. Web Design Beach

    11. Jan, 2010

    These pictures are really telling at least a thousand words :). It’s very interesting to analyze them.

    Reply to this comment

  9. Suzanne Wells

    12. Jan, 2010

    The Twitter visual is interesting – and I will agree about the 50 lazy and 5 loud mouths. Although it seems there is a larger percentage of loudmouths….LOL

    Reply to this comment

  10. Free Autoresponder

    13. Jan, 2010

    WOWO!
    These pics are simlpy mind buggling!
    Thanks for making me discover about them.

    Reply to this comment

  11. Laptop Briefcases

    14. Jan, 2010

    While images do help visitors skim content, I think their necessity depends on the type of website. In some niches, visitors are much more likely to just skim through content and not actually read much text. In other niches, people are so interested in the text that they might actually subconsciously block out the images. If in doubt, you might want to check out clicktale. There you can watch videos of people interacting with your site to see what works for you.

    Reply to this comment

  12. used tires

    16. Jan, 2010

    Pictures do a good job of telling a story, but at times you know they can tell the wrong story or be misleading.

    Till then,

    Jean

    Reply to this comment

  13. Bidet

    16. Jan, 2010

    Pictures are a great way to get readers interested in a blog, sometimes it is boring just to stare a wall of text. Adding pictures makes it easier on the eyes to read the text.

    Reply to this comment

  14. Umbro England

    16. Jan, 2010

    hmmm I guess they do! i learned that the hard way – everybody knew my gf was cheating on me but it wasn’t only till i saw a few pics of her with some other guy that i opened my eyes

    Reply to this comment

  15. vektör

    25. Jan, 2010

    These pictures are really telling at least a thousand words :). It’s very interesting to analyze them.

    Reply to this comment

  16. oyun

    26. Jan, 2010

    it can become the blog post. It is the best way to convert pic into an interesting blog post..

    Reply to this comment

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