Luminate Corporate Blog

The Endless Appeal of Old Pictures

The New York City Department of Records just uploaded nearly a million photos of the city and its inhabitants taken over the past 150 years, like this one of Babe Ruth at the 1936 World Series.

And it turns out we love old pictures, or at least like them very much. So far 85,000 of us have hit the Like button on the Daily Mail’s story, which features a selection of the images. Compare that to the social likability of Daily Mail stories that feature more current photos: 32 for a story about Obama on the cover of Rolling Stone, 177 for Madonna breaking the record for #1 albums, and 6 for the new lingerie pictures of a Victoria’s Secret model. (Admittedly that last one published only a few hours ago.)

It’s not just gorgeous old NYC photos that are challenging the perception that social media is just for real-time news that can’t wait around for traditional media outlets to break the story. When it rolled out its Open Graph integration last year, London’s Independentlearned that several quirky stories from the late 1990s were the most shared stories of the early 2010s.

 

 

Award from San Francisco Bay Area Innovation Group (sfBIG)

Picture from Jeffrey DeLong - sfBIG

Last night sfBIG (San Francisco Bay Area Innovation Group) held their annual Big Stars Awards ceremony. The ceremony is to recognize the best and the brightest in the digital media industry from around the Bay Area.  

We are thrilled to annouce we were chosen as the "Next Big Digital Start-Up"! This is a huge honor and we are incredibly excited. 

A big thank you to the sfBIG team and the judges. This was a fantastic event and we look forward to next year. 

sfBIG Big Star Winners

About sfBIG

Share Happiness

There are many theories to explain what inspires people to share images via social and email channels. Fast Company suggests that sharers are trying to project an aspirational or idealized version of themselves to their social networks. From images of sophisticated outfits to the latest upscale kitchen designs, we want to be recognized for the life we desire but not necessarily the one that we live. However, if personal recognition is driving image shares, why don't we see more imagery of famine victims in Somalia or graphic news imagery from an ongoing Middle East conflict that we oppose? Wouldn't people be inclined to share those pictures to project an image of social/political awareness and advocacy? Not as much as you'd think. 

In the US, we find that images that contain gory, violent, tragic, or sexually suggestive content are half as likely to be shared via Luminate's Sharing Apps than images that don't contain such explicit content. We see this trend across nearly all verticals, most dramatically on news channels, where graphic war and tragic images are rarely shared. Perhaps we don't want to be personally associated with bad content, even if we have strong opinions about the topic. Entertainment is the only vertical that showed increased sharing for inappropriate or negative content, presumably driven by our insatiable appetite for shock gossip. 

In a world full of tragedy and pain, maybe we surround ourselves with positive imagery because it simply makes us feel happy and secure. Depressing news stories may attract our attention, but we don't want to be constantly reminded of the struggle experienced by so many. Publishers should take note. If their goal is to encourage sharing of their images, try happier image content. 

Hottest Spring Fashions Drive User Image Interaction

While it may not be surprising, the data is now in: Images containing spring's hottest fashion trends drive more user interaction. Through the Products-in-the-Picture App, Luminate enables consumers to find information about the products inside web images. On fashion and entertainment sites, the products they care about most are fashion items and accessories.

During the first three months of 2012, five product categories -- Bathingsuits, Dresses, Glasses, Handbags, and Shoes -- overindexed on user engagement. In other words, products in these five categories drove more clicks than one would expect given the total number of impressions generated by those products. Index score is calculated by dividing a product's share of clicks by its share of impressions ((% of clicks)/(% of impressions)). The relatively small category of Bathingsuits represented less than 2.8% of total impressions but attracted 6.7% of total clicks, for a 244 index. Body Glove's Women's Swim Shorts and Jag's Reversible Retro Bathingsuits were the most popular styles of the quarter. The Dresses category also showed outsized interest -- 155 index -- capturing 17% of total user clicks. Regardless of season, we see Dresses consistently generate the most clicks of any category with the Luminate Products-in-the-Picture App. This season's most popular styles are JS Boutique's Strapless Beaded Mesh Gown among a variety of Maxi dresses.

Viewers engaged heavily with Luminate's shopping carousels to accessorize their wardrobe with the latest fashions. Products from Glasses (144 index), Handbags (136 index), and Shoes (118 index) categories provided striking accents to everyday looks. Overall, Nerd glasses were among the hottest accessories, but Rayban Classic sunglasses were the hit among shopped images featuring males. Because the perfect handbag apparently completes every woman's ensemble, we saw interest ranging from larger model Michael Kors Bedford Large Dressy Couture Tote Handbag to hand-held styles like Big Buddha Malibu Clutch and Wristlet. Platform Shoes, in both sandal and formal styles, showed high click-through rates driven by popular Mossimo Black and Silver Viviana Satin Platfom Pumps and Luxury Rebel Josy High Sandals.

Unseasonably warm weather throughout the country could be the reason we saw reduced interest in Sweaters and Outerwear. Blast from the past Twisted beaded necklaces, large drop earrings, and headbands did not appear to resonate with viewers, contributing to lower index scores for Jewelry and Accessory categories.  

Twitter Shares Drive More Return Traffic

Yahoo recently released a study showing 50% of all viewed tweets are generated by the top elite .05% of Twitter users. Some people are more influential than others! Through Luminate Share Apps, consumers can easily share what they like within an image or the entire image via Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or Email. Among US Twitter image shares, there are 20 readers ("followers") for every one person who posts something on Twitter. In Facebook, since its members are much more likely to post content, we see only 5.5 silent observers for every one person who shares an image.  

When you look at the data, it shows that images shared in Twitter result in more clicks -- in other words, traffic back to the original image -- than images shared in Facebook. What makes Twitter so different than Facebook? Is it because Facebook filters status updates, so not all of your friends gets the chance to see your status updates & links? Is it because Facebook presents a thumbnail of the original image, so your friends get the chance to preview before they click? Perhaps it's because people are more often using Twitter to discover new information (they are mostly silent followers), whereas Facebook users are more likely to use it as a platform for *sharing.* Or maybe we're so busy *talking* in Facebook that we have less time (or interest) in listening, reading and discovering the stuff our friends share? We don't know. But whatever the reason, Twitter is driving more click-through activity for image publishers than Facebook does.