Photos and videos are certainly crazy popular these days. It seems that everyone is posting, sharing, and commenting on them. And photo-centric startups are all the rage. While probably obvious, what’s interesting about photos is that it’s like reading: the viewer can digest the photos at their own rate. For videos (and music for that matter) the viewer is required to slow down and sync their experience with the playback of the video. In other words: photos don’t take time, videos/music take time.

I guess if you’re building a startup or project and you want the maximum amount of throughput you’d probably want to do the following:

• Focus on photos.
• Make the eye go mostly in a vertical pattern or at least a very short Z pattern (maybe no more than 1/3rd of the screen width).
• Use space to clearly demarcate one item from the next.
• Maybe use subtle colors for all information that isn’t critical to enjoying the experience of the photo, even smaller photo sizes.
• Use information layers (i.e. you have to mouse onto the photo) to reveal more information.