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The most memorable visualizations, by far, contained elements that fell under the category of "human recognizable objects." These were images with photographs, body parts, icons--things that people regularly encounter in their daily lives. "Human recognizable objects will instantly make it more memorable," says Borkin. All but one of the 12 most memorable images in the study had a recognizable component.

Color was key; visualizations with more than six colors were much more memorable than those with only a few colors or a black-and-white gradient. Visual density--what some of us might call "clutter"--wasn't a bad thing either. In fact, images with a lot going on were significantly more memorable than minimalist approaches. Roundness was another hallmark of memorability (after all, our brains do love curves).

Then again, the researchers emphasize that this study only scratches the surface of what makes a visualization effective. Borkin and the others didn't study how well people retained the information in the images, just that they retained the image itself. An image that's memorable without being comprehensible may not be worth much. Borkin has already moved on to a similar study of visual comprehension, and she suspects in this case that "chart junk" and extraneous design elements will have a negative impact.

Defining Skeuomorphism This obscure word describes the way designs often borrow a particular feature from the past, even when the functional need for it is gone. Examples include pre-recorded shutter noises on smartphones to remind us of film cameras, or calendar apps that feature torn paper and metal rings. Or, as Wikipedia tells us [1]: A skeuomorph is a physical ornament or design on an object copied from a form of the object when made from another material or by other techniques.

the digital world has seen skeuomorphism popularized in the past couple years mainly thanks to the recent iOS-inspired trend of rich textures and life-like controls.

By opposition, the other side of the coin would be the newly popular "flat style", of which Microsoft's Metro UI is probably the main example. Flat Style embraces visual minimalism, eschewing textures and lighting effects for simple shapes and flat colors.

"Blogs were one of the earliest forms of social networking where people were writing 1,000 words," says Dr. William J. Ward, Social Media professor at Syracuse University. "When we moved to status updates on Facebook, our posts became shorter. Then micro-blogs like Twitter came along and shortened our updates to 140 characters. Now we are even skipping words altogether and moving towards more visual communication with social-sharing sites like Pinterest."

This trend toward the visual is also influenced by the shifting habits of technology users. As more people engage with social media via smartphones, they're discovering that taking a picture "on the go" using a high-resolution phone is much less tedious than typing out a status update on a two-inch keyboard.

A 2012 study by ROI Research found that when users engage with friends on social media sites, it's the pictures they took that are enjoyed the most. Forty-four percent of respondents are more likely to engage with brands if they post pictures than any other media

the partnership is a very public acknowledgement of the industry’s faith behind investing in a more visual, native approach to advertising in response to the emergence of the Visual Web.

While Instagram may have been one of the first to lay the groundwork for purely visual content, it is not alone. Every day, more publishers—including Time, Fox News and NBC News—are redesigning their sites in a visual-centric manner and de-emphasizing text. The escalating adoption of mobile has necessitated the change. Images are the way today’s tech-savvy consumers prefer to consume content.

Brands will now create and design ads with the clear objective of having this branded content be shared exponentially.

We don’t allow schemes that buy and sell Pins or pay people per Pin, follow, etc. We know that some popular Pinners have relationships with approved affiliate networks or participate in paid social media campaigns, and that’s still okay, as long as they’re not being compensated for each action on Pinterest. So if you're in a deal to earn $1 every time you pin a corporation's products, you're out of luck. But if you’re a highly influential blogger in a five-figure partnership with a brand, making money is A-OK. Here's more: A business can pay someone to help them put together a board that represents their brand. For example, it’s okay for a guest blogger to curate a board for a local boutique’s profile. We don’t allow that boutique to pay the blogger to Pin products to her own boards. A person can be given commission by an approved affiliate network. For example, it’s okay for a blogger to get paid when someone purchases a product that blogger has Pinned. However, we don’t allow the blogger to be paid just to Pin. In other words, Pinterest isn’t trying to keep brands or bloggers from making money. It just doesn't want anyone paid for filling up its network with garbage images.

“[Pinterest] will be a tremendous type of ad unit—truly based on your interests as a person,” Gupta said. “In a traditional demographic based ad, I might give you an ad for camping equipment because you’re 25 to 35 and male. But on Pinterest, I’d advertise it because you’re pinning a lot of camping equipment. I don’t care that you’re actually 55. I know you’ll be a buyer.”

It’s clear that Pinterest is simply trying to keep its content authentic, not transactional. But when you’re weighing that against a billion dollar valuation, the company has to move carefully.

The parallax style has excited web developers and inspired any number of hype lists. It's also triggered a backlash among critics who feel its bells-and-whistles approach detracts from actual content. Pitchfork creative director Michael Renaud recently told the Atlantic Wire he expects people to "tire" of the trend within a year or two.

the parallax site was only superior in one sense--fun. None of the other survey measures indicated a significant difference in user experience between the two sites. Parallax didn't even edge the standard site in questions about visual appeal (although participants did think it looked slightly more "professional"). Frederick also discovered one critical disadvantage of parallax: test participants who suffered from motion sickness found the style disorienting.

Sobering as this first careful study of parallax might be to web designers, Frederick still believes it's a fad with a future. He cautions developers to think more carefully about the context in which parallax is applied. Text-heavy sites that employ parallax scrolling seem more likely to disorient users, he says. Sites that emphasize visual elements--images, infographics, or data visualizations, in particular--are probably a better fit for the style.

We uploaded over half a million variations of Harlem Shake to YouTube in the past few months. Google searches for Cat GIFs hit an all-time high last month.

The research showed us that far from distracting us from more serious things, these viral pictures, videos, and memes reconnect us to an essential part of ourselves. And by understanding what’s at the root of our obsession with the visual web, brands can create the kind of content that resonates in today’s culture.

It may seem that all we’re doing is just capturing every mundane moment. But look closely. These everyday moments are shot, displayed, and juxtaposed in a way that offers us a new perspective. And then all of a sudden these everyday moments, places, and things look . . . fascinating.

Share breaking news updates: Lavrusik and Hershkowitz said posts that included the terms “breaking” or “breaking news” saw engagement 57 percent higher than non-breaking news posts

Use a conversational tone and include analysis: Posts with a personal tone or clever language saw engagement of 120 percent above the average, and posts with analysis received 20 percent more referral clicks.

Start conversations by asking questions and responding: Posts with prompts for conversation of questions saw engagement 70 percent above the average

I contend Pinterest as a service is best conceived of as a mood board for the company image. It isn’t a place to broadcast specifics or a way to run contests. It’s not that these are impossible, but Twitter and Facebook are better suited. Pinterest is a forum to communicate a brand’s identity, values, and personality. A place to build trust and affinity with consumers. Surprisingly, it might be the best single channel for communicating brand essence that exists today.

Opt for fewer, broadly categorized boards rather than many narrow ones. I have 5 boards total, and just one called "designed," instead of art, product design, graphic design, typography, advertising, and logos. Broad categories give your boards greater variety, and variety equals engagement.

In my experience, following people doesn't really get you followers on Pinterest. This is anecdotal, but I don't think many users do the auto-follow-back thing - that’s more of a Twitter phenomenon.

Creating a layout is like doing a jigsaw puzzle; you have a bunch of pieces and you have to figure out how they should fit together.

designing native layouts for the web—whatever the device—we need to shed the notion that we create layouts from a canvas in. We need to flip it on its head, and create layouts from the content out.

When designing from the canvas in, the canvas dimensions are the constant on which the whole grid is anchored. Everything is sized and positioned relative to them. Designing from the content out means finding a constant in your content—be it the ideal measure of a paragraph or the dimensions of an ad unit—and building your grid out from there to fill the space available.

Gone are the days when you could stuff your website with low-quality articles packed with the right keywords or link spam exchanges to boost your Google rankings. Today the game is all about quality--content that’s authentic, informative, and, most of all, attractive to your intended audience. In short, we need to stop thinking about SEO as “search engine optimization” and more as “social engagement optimization,” as Greg Henderson at SEO Desk put it.

The brain notices how you begin and how you end more than what you’re saying in the middle, so you want to make sure that your site (and your content) has an attention-getting open and a close that really makes your case in dramatic fashion.

focus on quick ways to sum up how your product or service can change the customer’s life for the better.

In February, comScore reported that the site had passed 10 million monthly unique users faster than any standalone site ever.

But numbers from third-party sources like Facebook app tracking service, AppData, are pinning a slightly different picture on the image and link-sharing site. Pinterest’s monthly active users on Facebook — or the number that has connected to Facebook over the past thirty days — have dropped to 8.3 million, from around 12.2 million a month ago when the site did a major redesign. Daily Active Users are also down but not by as much: on April 21 they were 930,000, from 1.1 million on March 22.

A couple other sources including Google search trends, Compete and mobile app tracker App Annie are also showing a picture of decelerating growth

Here are five tips to help you write the ultimate press release 1. Develop and tell a coherent, compelling story. What makes your company tick? How do you delight your customers? What sets you apart from the pack? 2. Don't just tout your product or service. Develop key messages that answer the question: Why should anyone care? 3. Use plain English. Avoid obscuring your message by using industry jargon and talking “inside baseball.” 4. Get your reader to engage. Use compelling elements such as data, visuals, and infographics to illustrate your points. And include a call-to-action that drives people to a landing page. 5. Hook yourself to a star. Tie what you’re doing to something happening in the news--especially if it’s in your sector or a targeted vertical market. Shine brighter in the reflected light of someone in the news.

Authorship photos might cause people to assume that the page is an article or a blog post rather than a product page.

most pages can be optimized by including images that serve as visual cues for where visitors should look next.

Relying on the screen above “the fold” to do all of the heavy lifting is one of the biggest usability mistakes you can make. The idea that it is the only place web users will browse is a complete myth.

a recent study by Shareaholic found that post-click engagement with Facebook posts trailed far behind the results delivered by YouTube, and also lagged behind Google Plus, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Shareaholic examined six months’ worth of data from more than 200,000 websites reaching more than 250 million unique monthly visitors

YouTube drives the most engaged traffic. These referrals have the lowest average bounce rate (43.19 percent), the highest pages per visit (2.99), and the longest visit duration (227.82 seconds).

video watchers are especially receptive to links within video descriptions that complement the audio and visual content they just consumed.

"We did see a decrease in daily users, specifically among younger teens," Facebook CFO David Ebersman said

Facebook may be feeling the burn of alternative social sites like Tumblr and Snapchat that skew towards a younger demographic. But there is a glimmer of hope, Ebersman said: "We remain close to fully penetrated among teens in the U.S."

While the teen embrace of Facebook might be slackening, its Instagram unit has no trouble attracting a younger audience, with teen users rising five percent this year.