A visual demonstration of how much data is used every minute!

Visualization   |   
Published December 19, 2016   |   

Online users are generating data at an outstanding pace. The stats of 2016 DOMO Data Never Sleeps 4.0 reveal some staggering numbers. Every minute of every day, over 18 billion megabytes of wireless data is used…by Americans alone!

From Twitter to Tinder (and every site in between), here is proof of our multimedia obsession.

Text messages and Tweets

Cell phones are now the preferred communication method of choice. A 2014 Gallup poll shows that only 53% of Americans are making or receiving a phone call using a home landline phone and 64% are using a business landline phone.

The same poll concluded that “texting is the most frequently used form of communication among Americans younger than 50.”

DOMO came to the same conclusion saying that over 3.5 million text messages, as well as 9,678 tweets, are sent in the U.S. every single minute.

Pictures and videos

Everyone loves to take and share their personal and professional photos, with friends and strangers alike.

Every minute of every day:

  • 2,430,555 posts are liked on Instagram.
  • 216,302 photos are shared via Facebook Messenger.

Videos are used to entertain and educate, inspire and sell. Viral videos, in which a clip of animation or film spreads rapidly via online social media sharing, have become a modern phenomenon. Within days, a shared movie can reach millions of viewers around the planet.

Each minute:

  • 86,805 hours are streamed by Netflix subscribers
  • 400 hours of new video are shared by Youtube users
  • 6,944,444 videos are watched on Snapchat
  • 569,217 GIFS are served on Giphy

It is widely assumed that video will make up to 82% of internet traffic by 2020.

Sales and swipes

Amazon, the internet’s top e-tailer, makes $222k every single minute!

Tinder, the most popular dating app, boasts an estimated 50 million users who swipe (approve or disapprove of fellow users) 972,222 times every sixty seconds.

News and information

The hourly, daily, and weekly forecast is requested on The Weather Channel a whopping 14 million times per minute. That’s over 233,333 times per second!

With click-worthy headlines such as “We Had a Single Dude Go Out Alone For a Week and Here’s What He Learned” and “Which Horror Movie Antagonist Are You Based On Your Zodiac Sign?”, Buzzfeed earns a daily 229,507,200 views from its users.

The word for hello in the Zulu language is sawubona. Without Google, 70 million other words per minute wouldn’t be translated.

Dropbox users upload over 800k new files (documents, photos, videos, etc.) every minute in order to gain easy and automatic access on their mobile devices.

“Hey, Siri. What is the capital of Uzbekistan?” Questions like this are answered almost 143,000,000 times per day by Apple’s built-in “Intelligent Assistant”. The answer is Tashkent, by the way. Thank you, Siri!

What these numbers tell us

Why do we care about all of this big data? What do these numbers tell us about how we can further business? What does it say about ourselves and the environment in which we now live?

Well, first of all, money talks and all of this data can be translated into dollar signs. The potential financial advantage to collecting and analyzing online data usage can be substantial. For insights on consumer usage and the ability to develop successful marketing strategies, there is no substitute for a large amount of both historic and current statistics.

Second of all, as we continue to go forward, more management issues and problems will become complex. However, some benefits of big data are that it can assist companies with making decisions, sidestepping potential pitfalls, and honing in on how to most effectively achieve their overall mission.

  • In fact, according to a study by FCW:
  • 76% of departments or agencies say that big data improves the quality and speed of agency decision-making.
  • 68% say it allowed for better planning and forecasting.
  • 67% say it improves the efficiency of internal processes.
  • 65% say it reduces operating or capital expenditures.
  • 63% say it helps with meeting compliance requirements.
  • 60% say it gives a better quantification of risk.

With thorough and correct information, critical choices can be made quickly and confidently.

What it comes down to is this. In order to keep up to date with technological advances and developments, considering the impact of big data and the story it tells is imperative to the future success of business.

Global internet population growth

The global internet population growth has swollen from 2.1 billion in the year 2012 up to 3.4 billion in 2016. That’s almost HALF of the entire world’s population. Estimates for user population in the next five years range from 4 billion to 7 billion.

The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2020, there will be 25 billion smart-connected devices (cars, homes, appliances, industrial equipment, etc.) used worldwide.

Facebook, Google, and A Human Right have all started initiatives and are working hard to connect every person on earth by the end of this decade. Considering trends in internet usage, their goal will likely be achieved.

And what opportunities will this achievement of entire global connection bring? Access. Transformation. And, lest we forget, an ever-continuing obsession with multimedia.

Conclusion

The amount of data we use every minute of the day is astounding. From video streaming, to social media use, and cloud services there is nothing small about the data we are creating and consuming. Because of all this big data, it is important to keep up to date with all the new technological advances and developments in order to succeed in business.