Photo credit DOMO, Visual Capitalist.
This article originally appeared in The Tennessean.
The holidays are supposed to be a time when things slow down. It’s a time to catch our breath, spend time with family, and recharge our batteries before starting off a new year.
In its annual report entitled “Data Never Sleeps,” cloud software provider Domo does a deep dive into what the world has been up to on the internet over the past year. As you may have experienced yourself, most of us have been busier than ever before.
It’s no wonder that many of us relish the slower pace.
When I was a kid the “New York minute” was the standard expression for moving at a fast pace. But the internet, with its billions of users spanning the entire globe, has made a New York minute look like a leisurely walk in the park.
According to this year’s report, the amount of activity that occurs across the world in an “internet minute” is staggering.
Here are just a few highlights of what happens on the internet every 60 seconds:
- Amazon.com customers spend $283,000
- Instagram users share 65,000 photos
- Facebook live gets 44 million views
- 5.7 million searches are done on Google
- Six million people shop online
- Twitter users post 575,000 tweets
- YouTube and Netflix customers stream over 1.4 million hours of video
- Venmo users send each other $340,000
- Zoom hosts 856 minutes of webinars and Microsoft Teams connects 100,000 people
So, what do these numbers tell us about ourselves? Where does opportunity lie and what will the future look like?
First and foremost, it’s clear that the internet is the busiest place on earth, ever. The internet is the world’s biggest movie theater, biggest shopping mall, and biggest conference room. It’s our core medium for communication and collaboration, and for most people it’s their primary source of information.
And what’s surprising is that there’s plenty of room for growth. With only 60% of the global population online, the gold rush is still on. There are billions of new users out there for innovative companies to sell to. So, even with all the activity that occurs every 60 seconds every single day, with every passing year it is sure to grow exponentially.
It’s no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity that everyone depends on. Just like having access to electricity and running water, it’s nearly impossible to participate in business or society without being online.
With the internet being this central to nearly every aspect of life, analyzing the usage-data is critical not only for every business who wants to survive, but for those who want to grow.
When you look at all that happens in an internet minute, you can see some interesting trends:
“Big tech” dominates. There are relatively few companies that account for the vast majority of this activity. “Big tech” companies are powerful and difficult to compete with.
Instant communication is in high demand. Companies like Zoom, Slack, Discord, Twitter, and Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and more), that provide platforms for immediate communication are busier than ever.
Everything is remote. Accelerated by the pandemic, remote services are replacing physical spaces. These include shopping online, watching movies online, going to work online. Services that enable remote access and convenience are changing the way we work and live.
Google can make or break a business. With nearly six million searches a minute, it’s essential to be seen on Google in a positive light.
For our IT services and custom software development firm, these trends have become the basis of our strategic planning and have given us some action items for 2022.
We are focused on strategies that will help us leverage the infrastructures of the big tech companies instead of competing with them. We know that immediate response to our customers is the expectation that we must meet. We are aiming to make it easier for our customers to work with us remotely. And we are investing more in our digital marketing efforts on Google and social media.
These are the kinds of efforts that we hope will help us navigate the future, which will be here quicker than a New York minute.
JJ Rosen is the founder of Atiba, a Nashville software development and IT support firm. Visit www.atiba.com for more info.
