What does a minute on the internet look like?

One of the big trends that anybody running a website will no doubt be aware of at the moment is the huge increase in the amount of data being sent and received. It's vitally important for all website owners that they have adequate bandwidth and processing solutions on their servers to cope with ever-increasing traffic. More sites are now using intensive features such as videos and animations, so you need to have the right infrastructure to back this up.

But what does this data mean in real terms? It's all very well talking about terabytes, petabytes and even bigger numbers, but how does this equate to what people do every day? One company that has been trying to answer this is Intel, which recently offered a snapshot of what goes on across the internet in a typical minute.

A minute in the internet

The firm revealed that every 60 seconds, 204 million emails are sent around the world. What's more, around 20 million photos are viewed online and 3,000 new images are uploaded to Flickr. Meanwhile, at least six million Facebook pages are being viewed at any one time while more than 1.3 million YouTube clips are being watched. In commerce, Amazon alone racks up $83,000 (€64,180) in sales each and every minute. However, the dangers of the internet were also highlighted, as there are 135 new botnet infections and 20 people will fall victim to identity theft online.

Explosion in connectivity

What's driving this huge growth is the increase in the number of connected devices in use. Today, it was observed the number of gadgets is roughly equal to the world's population, but by 2015, the number of networked devices will double, so there will be two connections for every person on the planet.
Intel warned it will therefore be a huge challenge for existing networks to step up and handle the explosion in traffic that will result from this, particularly if infrastructure is to remain secure. Therefore, having scalable web server solutions that can be upgraded on demand to meet the evolving environment could be essential if you're going to be prepared for the years to come.