Visual.ly is a community platform for

data visualization Data and information visualization (data viz or info viz) is an interdisciplinary field that deals with the graphic representation of data and information. It is a particularly efficient way of communicating when the data or information is num ...

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 Mint, also known as Intuit Mint (styled in its logo as intuit mint with dotted 't' characters in "intuit" and undotted 'i' characters) and formerly known as Mint.com, is a personal financial management website and mobile app for the US and Canada ...

.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 (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

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

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

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

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

’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, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...

, 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, California ...

, 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. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

Buzzfeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet 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 S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...

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 was ...

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 Time ...

, and

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

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

Site structure

Visual.ly is structured as 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 way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

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 is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

handles of two people, and then generates an infographic comparing the hobbies, number of followers and occupation of the two accounts. CBC used this feature to compare leading politicians.

Reception

Visual.ly’s infographics have been featured on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

and

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

. They were named as one of

Inc. Magazine ''Inc.'' is an American business magazine founded in 1979 and based in New York City. The magazine publishes six issues per year, along with surrounding online and social media content. The magazine also produces several live and virtual events y ...

’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 visualization software 500 Startups companies Online mass media companies of the United States