Visual.ly is a community platform for

data visualization Data and information visualization (data viz/vis or info viz/vis) is the practice of designing and creating Graphics, graphic or visual Representation (arts), representations of a large amount of complex quantitative and qualitative data and i ...

and

infographic Infographics (a clipped compound of "information" and "graphics") are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly.Doug Newsom and Jim Haynes (2004). ''Public Relations Wr ...

s.Tsotsis, Alexia
Visual.ly Raises $2 Million To Make Even More Infographics
October 20, 2011. It was founded by Stew Langille, Lee Sherman, Tal Siach, and Adam Breckler in 2011.

History

Visual.ly was inspired by the founders’ time at Mint.com.Team
Visual.ly. As Mint's Director of Marketing, Langille noticed that the infographics posted to MintLife, the company blog, generated 30 times more traffic than a comparable text article. According to Langille, “we knew we were onto something big.”O’Dell. Jolie
Find & Make Your Own Infographics With Visual.ly
Mashable. July 13, 2011. In April 2011, Langille, along with MintLife's Editor-in-Chief Lee Sherman and Adam Breckler, a Mint web developer, left Mint.com to co-found Visual.ly with Tal Siach, the founder o
Walyou
an

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

i gadget site.Kuang, Cliff
Visual.ly Wants To Make It Easy to Hire Infographic Genius
Fast Company. Langille states that Visual.ly works towards evolving how digital news media outlets present information, similar to how

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

’s weather infographics transformed news outlets in the early ‘90s and how

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

’s graphic design influenced digital media in the early 2000s.Cheredar, Tom
Visual.ly raises $2M to make your data pretty and interesting
VentureBeat. October 20, 2011. In October 2011, Visual.ly announced a $2 million round in

seed funding Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' suggests ...

, led by Crosslink Capital,

500 Startups 500 Global (previously 500 Startups) is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, Californ ...

, and SoftTech. At the time of the announcement, Visual.ly had 26,000 users, 7,000 infographics, and 1 million monthly page views. They have partnered with

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

Buzzfeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet mass media, media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Seward Johnson III, John S. Johnson III to ...

AskMen AskMen is a free online men's web portal, with international versions in Australia, Canada, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is owned by Ziff Davis and operates through the IGN Entertainment unit. History AskMen wa ...

CNNMoney CNN Business (formerly CNN Money) is a financial news and information website, operated by CNN. The website was originally formed as a joint venture between CNN.com and Time Warner's '' Fortune'' and ''Money'' magazines. Since the spin-off of T ...

, and

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

, among other media outlets, to provide infographics and data visualizations.

Site structure

Visual.ly is structured both as a showcase for infographics as well as a marketplace and community for publishers, designers, and researchers. The site allows users to search images through description, tags, and sources in a variety of categories, ranging from Education to Business or Politics. Users can publish infographics to their personal profile, which they can subsequently share through their social networks. Visual.ly maintains a team of data analysts, journalists, and designers that create infographics and data visualizations using the Visual.ly tools.Zitron, Ed
The Media's Future is Visual.ly Charged
Forbes. April 26, 2011.Gannes, Liz
visual.ly Wants to Bring Nifty Charts and Graphs to the Rest of Us
All Things D. July 13, 2011. They are currently developing a tool that allows anyone to create and publish their own data visualizations. Through this tool, users will be able to gather information from databases and

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

s in an automated service (meaning that users only need to specify the kind of information they want to visually display) to produce an infographic. Visual.ly’s first tool, the Twitter Visualizer tool allows users to input the

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

handles of two people, and then generates an infographic comparing the hobbies, number of followers and occupation of the two accounts.

CBC CBC may refer to: Media * Cadena Baja California or Grupo Cadena, a radio and television broadcaster in Mexico * Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's radio and television public broadcaster ** CBC Television ** CBC Radio One ** CBC Music ** ...

used this feature to compare leading politicians.

Reception

Visual.ly’s infographics have been featured on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

and

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

. They were named as one of

Inc. Magazine ''Inc.'' is an American business media company founded in 1979 and based in New York City. ''Inc.'' publishes several print magazine issues per year, and is anchored by journalistic content online and on social media, focused on entrepreneurship a ...

’s 10 new web tools to make life easier. Their YouTube channel has received over 100,000 views.Visual.ly
on YouTube.

References

{{reflist, 2

External links

Visual.ly
Internet properties established in 2011 Companies based in San Francisco Infographics Data and information visualization software 500 Startups companies Online mass media companies of the United States