Will video replace all images in the future?

In this day and age, images share a peaceful coexistence with video on the Internet. In the future, as download speeds get faster and broadband access reaches all 3rd world countries, is it possible that all images be replaced by video? If so, it might not be smart to create an Internet startup based around images.

Video contains much more information than images. Video is basically a moving series of images plus audio. Video can be decomposed back to an image by pausing it. Video has every advantage over image, except for file size, which is of no concern in the infrastructurally advanced future.

Of the 50 highest trafficked sites as of March 2011, the only two video sites ranked higher than the only image site. Furthermore, those two video sites saw an increase from last year's traffic, while the image site saw a decrease.

• #27 Netflix (+41%)
• #4 Youtube (+19%)
• #38 Flickr (-10%)

This seems to say that media consumption is swaying towards video and away from images.

What are your predictions on the future of images? Will it be a lost art-form once the Internet supports blazing fast downloads. Should a startup interested in media focus all their attention on video? As the song goes, "video killed the radio star " and it might also kill images.

Never.

Videos need too much attention. You cannot scan over videos as you can scan over a bunch of images. And you have no indication where to forward to find the piece you wanted. And if the video is embedded into textual information, it disturbs your reading flow.

It's more difficult to make good videos. For an amateur it's easier to make a series of photos and select the most forgiving, you don't have that advantage with videos.

Videos are tools as Images are. If it's not about art, you have to choose the right medium to transfer information to reach the audience. Often it's better to mix an article with images than just providing a video. For example I don't like tutorial videos for IT topics, because most of them need a speaker, whereas I don't have headphones at my working place (and don't like to put them on).

I'd say that video's importance is definitely increasing, but the other media types won't go away.

When audio tape came on the scene in the early 1960's, people thought it would replace books.

When TV came along, people thought that we wouldn't travel anymore, instead we would look at images from foreign locations on TV, and radio would be a thing of the past too.

And when CD's came along, people thought that they would completely replace vinyl (still hasn't happened after 30 years) and -- again -- radio.

I think all types of media -- including text, still images, video -- will continue to coexist peacefully.

No. Because people value Time and that will never change.

No matter how fast you can scan a video, I can scan an image a magnitude faster.

Different mediums communicate in different ways. New mediums rarely replace old mediums. They may change the desire or the focus or the presentation, or the profitability.

If at the core of your questions is "does it make sense to project growth in video as part of the substantiation of a new company?" -- the answer is yes. But if you need to convince folks that the new disruptive technology of video will completely erase or eliminate a demand for images -- well, that is going to be a hard sale.

Telling stories is still popular. Writing them down is still popular. Illustrating books with drawings is still popular. Black and white photography is still popular. Printing pictures and putting them in frames will never be all replaced by digital frames.

It is not just an age thing-- though from the vantage point of the young it often feels that way. It is an aesthetic thing. And aesthetics change and go in cycles. (Reinforced by marketing dollars that always need to define the next new thing)

Once it seemed that the technology of plastic and metal made old wood furniture out of date. Young people wanted modern lines. But now a new generations has rediscovered the authenticity and quality of handmade wood furniture and craftsmen that have kept the skill alive are growing. As a percentage of total sales i think their growth may exceed the modern furniture makers. But that doesn't mean that modern furniture will dissapear. It just means that at this point of time the market is experiencing shifts.

(Furniture metaphor not work for you try the relationship between "natural organic" foods and "agribusiness foods" The demand for organic and local is exploding -- but does that mean it will put the agribusiness out-of-business? Hardly.)

And if there is anything the internet has shown and demonstrated -- the ability to aggregate niche markets often creates the most lucrative markets.

I am not a futurologist. But I will project that in 10-25-50 years there will be a question on a board just like this that goes something like this:

Will holograms replace all video in the future?

No, video cannot replace all the images since there are many things which videos cant convey but image can.

Making videos is not so easy the exactly the conveyer wanted to convey anything.