2013 – the year of the #selfie – was full of good times for Aviary. We helped millions of people across the globe play with their own visual worlds using Aviary’s photo editing technology. Those experiences happened in many places: in one of our own-brand, Top-10, mobile photo apps; or in one of thousands of partner apps utilizing Aviary’s SDKs. But wherever the magic happened, we’re delighted it happened with Aviary and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
We can’t wait to get started on 2014 – to bring to Aviary’s magic to even more people in even more ways. But we thought it would be fun first to reflect on 2013 and share some insights on what is now, undisputedly, a global photo phenomenon that we are all part of (including The President).
Capturing Reality – and Editing Reality – Are Booming:
It's estimated that 500 billion photos were taken in 2013, and this might balloon to some 880 billion in 2014. That’s more than 10 photos for every person on the planet.
More than 1% of this massive number of photos is edited with Aviary. A staggering 6 billion photos were edited in our mobile apps, or in partner apps using Aviary’s SDK, in the last year. In November 2013, 70 million people edited photos with Aviary. That’s up from just 25 million people in November 2012.
Our own-brand app – Photo Editor by Aviary – grew like wildfire this year. On Android alone we jumped from 1.6 million MAUs at the end of 2012 to over 10 million MAUs now. Photo Editor by Aviary was also recognized by both Apple's and Google's "Best of 2013" lists.
At the same time, our partner network grew to almost 7,000 strong. Many of them – including Tango, Walgreens and Pic Stitch – also made Apple’s Best of 2013 list, which was a real thrill.
But perhaps the most telling trend is the diversity of apps that have joined our partner ecosystem this year. We’ve seen an explosion of interest beyond photo apps – which were the majority of our partners previously. In 2013, we found ourselves (and our SDK magic) happily tucked inside increasing numbers of messaging apps, social apps, commerce apps and many more.
A New Visual Lingua Franca Has Emerged:
Unquestionably, photos have become the communication language of the mobile generation. We are long past the point when photo editing was just about turning an average picture into a good one. Photo editing is now about enhancing visual communication between billions of people across the planet, in a way that embodies the full richness of emotions, feelings and inspiration.
That range of expressive possibilities is driving a huge increase in the volume of photos shared to social networks, as well as the increase in diversity of sharing destinations.
In November 2013, 8% of photos shared from Aviary’s apps were shared to Facebook and 8% to Instagram – reasonably consistent with percentages in 2012, but at massively larger volumes. However, in that same period, 7% of photos were also shared to WhatsApp – which barely registered with us this time last year. A picture is worth a thousand words, and apparently now almost as many messages. Meanwhile, in December, users shared to over 350 different social networks from Aviary's apps. Mobile photography is truly social.
