Part of the issue is that it\'s hard to snap a photo at the perfect second. A recent change in how iPhones take pictures solves some of this: the photo is actually a 3-second video (with the 3-second window starting just before the button press), so it\'s possible to go back frame-by-frame and capture the perfect moment. This idea is now extending to online games, where a new service, Gif Your Game, lets players convert perfectly-timed gameplay videos into easily shareable GIFs that they can then post on Discord, Reddit, and Twitter.
Sharable snippets have been an increasingly important driver of cultural awareness in the last few years; an apt reaction GIFs play the same kind of linguistic role today that a well-chosen Bible verse might have played in the 19th century. And media companies know that GIFs are a powerful marketing tool, a low-cost means of raising awareness, and of promoting peer endorsement.
For games, traditional GIF generation was challenging, because recording the screen could introduce performance issues during gameplay. Gif Your Game uses a different approach: it\'s really recording the changes in game state, not the video itself, which means that there isn\'t a performance hit and also that the replay can be viewed from different angles. The product can be configured to automatically record specific in-game events, so someone playing a first-person shooter can know that there will be a video of every kill, or a sports gamer will know that they can review every goal.
This doesn’t just improve performance for computer hardware, but for the gamer, too; they want to be thinking about playing the game, not about whether they should be recording. It’s a tool for gamers to never lose their best moments.
This is especially interesting because anxiety about when to enjoy the moment and when to start recording is common in the real world, too; ironically, the digital world is coming up with solutions for living in the moment faster than the analog world can. While recording everything then going back for what you want is currently restricted to gaming, cheaper cameras, storage, and connectivity mean that it will spread to other parts of life, too.
Many online media sites put substantial effort into optimizing their sharing process. For example, when a TikTok video is being viewed in a browser, ⌘-L, the hotkey for selecting the URL, gets hijacked to show a sharing dialogue instead, with prompts to post the link to various social media sites. Sharing is especially important in gaming since so many games are multiplayer; sharing a gameplay GIF is practically inviting someone to buy the game and try it out themselves.
Many image- or GIF-creating sites add a watermark to raise brand awareness, but Gif Your Game does not. Instead, the service operates on the assumption that there\'s wide awareness of its brand in the gamer community, and that if anyone asks how the video was recorded, someone else will chime in and say it was through Gif Your Game. This is much more organic than merely including the watermark; it’s a peer endorsement, rather than an ad.","head":"The Growth of Video Game Playbacks","body_links":"Consumers report that photo anxiety increasingly interferes with many memorable events since people are constantly wondering if they should be taking a picture rather than enjoying the experience. But as cameras and wearables get more common, it will be more and more practical to just record everything and then go back and select the best moments after the fact.
Part of the issue is that it\'s hard to snap a photo at the perfect second. A recent change in how iPhones take pictures solves some of this: the photo is actually a 3-second video (with the 3-second window starting just before the button press), so it\'s possible to go back frame-by-frame and capture the perfect moment. This idea is now extending to online games, where a new service, Gif Your Game, lets players convert perfectly-timed gameplay videos into easily shareable GIFs that they can then post on Discord, Reddit, and Twitter.
Sharable snippets have been an increasingly important driver of cultural awareness in the last few years; an apt reaction GIFs play the same kind of linguistic role today that a well-chosen Bible verse might have played in the 19th century. And media companies know that GIFs are a powerful marketing tool, a low-cost means of raising awareness, and of promoting peer endorsement.
For games, traditional GIF generation was challenging, because recording the screen could introduce performance issues during gameplay. Gif Your Game uses a different approach: it\'s really recording the changes in game state, not the video itself, which means that there isn\'t a performance hit and also that the replay can be viewed from different angles. The product can be configured to automatically record specific in-game events, so someone playing a first-person shooter can know that there will be a video of every kill, or a sports gamer will know that they can review every goal.
This doesn’t just improve performance for computer hardware, but for the gamer, too; they want to be thinking about playing the game, not about whether they should be recording. It’s a tool for gamers to never lose their best moments.
This is especially interesting because anxiety about when to enjoy the moment and when to start recording is common in the real world, too; ironically, the digital world is coming up with solutions for living in the moment faster than the analog world can. While recording everything then going back for what you want is currently restricted to gaming, cheaper cameras, storage, and connectivity mean that it will spread to other parts of life, too.
Many online media sites put substantial effort into optimizing their sharing process. For example, when a TikTok video is being viewed in a browser, ⌘-L, the hotkey for selecting the URL, gets hijacked to show a sharing dialogue instead, with prompts to post the link to various social media sites. Sharing is especially important in gaming since so many games are multiplayer; sharing a gameplay GIF is practically inviting someone to buy the game and try it out themselves.
Many image- or GIF-creating sites add a watermark to raise brand awareness, but Gif Your Game does not. Instead, the service operates on the assumption that there\'s wide awareness of its brand in the gamer community, and that if anyone asks how the video was recorded, someone else will chime in and say it was through Gif Your Game. This is much more organic than merely including the watermark; it’s a peer endorsement, rather than an ad.","replaced_keywords":{}},{"body":"Gaming earbuds represent the divergence of two separate trends: some people game to relax, and some people game to win.
Sites like Twitch have made it possible for gamers to earn a full-time living by playing video games and chatting with their audience. While some of these players are skilled, their role is not just to demonstrate elite gameplay; it\'s also to keep the audience engaged and entertained, whether or not the game itself is interesting. For these players, an important part of their work is their physical appearance, and they often opt for gaming earbuds, as opposed to more bulky over-ear headphones, as a way to look better while staying engaged with the game.
This also affects more than just professional streamers, as gaming is increasingly used as a way to socialize and how you look when you socialize—even when gaming—is sometimes important to gamers. Consumers even say they favor earbuds to over-ear headphones when going on pandemic Zoom dates, as they report the over-ear variety can look bulky and distracting.
Earbuds are a category that has rapidly grown in popularity in the last few years, and as demand rises, there’s often pull from the market to offer niche-focused variants. In addition to gaming earbuds, there are earbuds designed for swimming, earbuds for sleep, even earbuds designed for pets. Since each of these products is optimized for one specific use case, it’s often suboptimal for others—a great set of noise-cancelling earbuds, for example, is dangerous while driving. Meanwhile, this same proliferation makes users more sensitive to price and features; no one wants to overpay for elements that don\'t benefit them, and gamers in particular are sensitive to the \\"gamer tax\\"—the fact that some high-performance products have a higher price point when targeting gamers.","head":"The Rise of Gaming Earbuds","body_links":"Gaming earbuds represent the divergence of two separate trends: some people game to relax, and some people game to win.
Sites like Twitch have made it possible for gamers to earn a full-time living by playing video games and chatting with their audience. While some of these players are skilled, their role is not just to demonstrate elite gameplay; it\'s also to keep the audience engaged and entertained, whether or not the game itself is interesting. For these players, an important part of their work is their physical appearance, and they often opt for gaming earbuds, as opposed to more bulky over-ear headphones, as a way to look better while staying engaged with the game.
This also affects more than just professional streamers, as gaming is increasingly used as a way to socialize and how you look when you socialize—even when gaming—is sometimes important to gamers. Consumers even say they favor earbuds to over-ear headphones when going on pandemic Zoom dates, as they report the over-ear variety can look bulky and distracting.
Earbuds are a category that has rapidly grown in popularity in the last few years, and as demand rises, there’s often pull from the market to offer niche-focused variants. In addition to gaming earbuds, there are earbuds designed for swimming, earbuds for sleep, even earbuds designed for pets. Since each of these products is optimized for one specific use case, it’s often suboptimal for others—a great set of noise-cancelling earbuds, for example, is dangerous while driving. Meanwhile, this same proliferation makes users more sensitive to price and features; no one wants to overpay for elements that don\'t benefit them, and gamers in particular are sensitive to the \\"gamer tax\\"—the fact that some high-performance products have a higher price point when targeting gamers.","replaced_keywords":{"Gaming Earbuds":"Gaming earbuds"}},{"body":"","head":"","body_links":"","replaced_keywords":{}},{"body":"","head":"","body_links":"","replaced_keywords":{}},{"body":"","head":"","body_links":"","replaced_keywords":{}},{"body":"","head":"","body_links":"","replaced_keywords":{}},{"body":"","head":"","body_links":"","replaced_keywords":{}}],"meta_desc":"","cta_header":""},{"desc":"The top Travel Trends of 2022 including everything from Elopement Packages to Backpack Cooler","name":"Travel","slug":"travel-trends","title":"Travel Trends","trends":["Elopement Packages","Backpack Cooler","SnapTravel","Kyte","Airalo","Limehome","SafetyWing","Sonder","Onfly","Wheel The World","TrovaTrip","Beis","Yogasleep","Ayahuasca Retreat","Hidden Gem Restaurants","Bounce Storage","Cruise Door Decorations","Pricelabs","Portable Bottle Warmer","Clothes Storage Bag","OOONO","TurnoverBnB"],"insights":[{"body":"Wedding costs have been rising faster than inflation, reaching an average of nearly $30,000, in 2019 in the US.
This has been driven by several factors: people are getting married older, meaning they\'re often in a better financial position by the time they marry, making it easier to splurge. And the rise of living together before marriage means that marriage is a less significant milestone, so some couples feel the need to make the party a bigger deal to compensate. Meanwhile, rising wedding costs are a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy; if it only happens once, no one wants theirs to be noticeably cheap.
But this trend is leading to a reaction, accelerated by the pandemic: elopement is getting more popular, and it\'s creating a mini-industry in elopement packages, which simplify and standardize the process to make it even easier. Elopement has always been an option, but its recent growth is not just because of the lower price.
For one, there are typically far more people in the orbit of a 30-year-old compared to a 20-year-old. This means more seats to pay for and more debate over who does and doesn’t make the invitation list. Plus, travel and destinations are an even more important part of the wedding cost equation after Covid, when many relationships got spread around the country, and people might not even be sure where all their friends are living; a guest list that was within a short travel distance in 2019 can involve international travel for some guests in 2021. Elopement neatly solves both sides of this problem by reducing the guest list to the bare minimum.
As well, the rising average age of marriage not only pushes traditional wedding costs up, but it also has a direct effect on the demand for elopement. Older couples are less likely to conform to their parents’ wedding arrangement wishes over their own. And divorces mean that there are many second weddings, which are often lesser investments than the first.
And with significantly decreased spend on the wedding itself, destination elopements are becoming much more common. This also means more impressive wedding photos, which is a bigger part of elopements’ appeal in the age of social media.","head":"The Rise of Elopement Packages","body_links":"Wedding costs have been rising faster than inflation, reaching an average of nearly $30,000, in 2019 in the US.
This has been driven by several factors: people are getting married older, meaning they\'re often in a better financial position by the time they marry, making it easier to splurge. And the rise of living together before marriage means that marriage is a less significant milestone, so some couples feel the need to make the party a bigger deal to compensate. Meanwhile, rising wedding costs are a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy; if it only happens once, no one wants theirs to be noticeably cheap.
But this trend is leading to a reaction, accelerated by the pandemic: elopement is getting more popular, and it\'s creating a mini-industry in elopement packages, which simplify and standardize the process to make it even easier. Elopement has always been an option, but its recent growth is not just because of the lower price.
For one, there are typically far more people in the orbit of a 30-year-old compared to a 20-year-old. This means more seats to pay for and more debate over who does and doesn’t make the invitation list. Plus, travel and destinations are an even more important part of the wedding cost equation after Covid, when many relationships got spread around the country, and people might not even be sure where all their friends are living; a guest list that was within a short travel distance in 2019 can involve international travel for some guests in 2021. Elopement neatly solves both sides of this problem by reducing the guest list to the bare minimum.
As well, the rising average age of marriage not only pushes traditional wedding costs up, but it also has a direct effect on the demand for elopement. Older couples are less likely to conform to their parents’ wedding arrangement wishes over their own. And divorces mean that there are many second weddings, which are often lesser investments than the first.
And with significantly decreased spend on the wedding itself, destination elopements are becoming much more common. This also means more impressive wedding photos, which is a bigger part of elopements’ appeal in the age of social media.","replaced_keywords":{"Elopement Packages":"elopement packages"}},{"body":"Before the advent of online photos, part of the ritual of a vacation was showing off photos back home. When photo production and consumption turned digital, it had an effect on vacations: it meant that the bragging rights from an impressive vacation accrued live on Instagram rather than after the fact and in person. This meant that a trip to somewhere exotic enough to have poor or nonexistent Internet access was less attractive. In recent years, cellular Internet access and solar-powered chargers have gotten more affordable and ubiquitous, helping to drive rugged and off-road vacations back into vogue.
Overlanding is the practice of traveling long distances off-road, often in specially-outfitted vehicles. But despite being a hobby of outdoor adventure, it’s very much a gear-centric hobby: more than half of the top ten posts on the overlanding subreddit (113,000+ members) are photos of heavily-outfitted vehicles parked in parking lots. Like vertical GPU mounts (another rising product we’ve covered), part of the point of the equipment is to show off fancy setups, not necessarily to perform. Even when comparing the ratio of YouTube and TikTok views to Google searches for “hiking”, “camping”, and “overlanding”, it’s clear that overlanding outranks its peers in social media shareworthiness.
This trend has created a new market of products for people who intend to travel off-road for days at a time: compact solar panel arrays, ultra-long-lasting coolers, and specialized roof racks. Traction boards, which used to get cars out of muddy ruts, are a very early but growing category on Amazon.
Overlanding is especially appealing to people who have aged out of traditional camping, but still enjoy the outdoors. These older enthusiasts may not be able to hike and camp for days at a time, but they have the disposable income for elaborate off-road setups.","head":"The Impact of Photos on Travel","body_links":"Before the advent of online photos, part of the ritual of a vacation was showing off photos back home. When photo production and consumption turned digital, it had an effect on vacations: it meant that the bragging rights from an impressive vacation accrued live on Instagram rather than after the fact and in person. This meant that a trip to somewhere exotic enough to have poor or nonexistent Internet access was less attractive. In recent years, cellular Internet access and solar-powered chargers have gotten more affordable and ubiquitous, helping to drive rugged and off-road vacations back into vogue.
Overlanding is the practice of traveling long distances off-road, often in specially-outfitted vehicles. But despite being a hobby of outdoor adventure, it’s very much a gear-centric hobby: more than half of the top ten posts on the overlanding subreddit (113,000+ members) are photos of heavily-outfitted vehicles parked in parking lots. Like vertical GPU mounts (another rising product we’ve covered), part of the point of the equipment is to show off fancy setups, not necessarily to perform. Even when comparing the ratio of YouTube and TikTok views to Google searches for “hiking”, “camping”, and “overlanding”, it’s clear that overlanding outranks its peers in social media shareworthiness.
This trend has created a new market of products for people who intend to travel off-road for days at a time: compact solar panel arrays, ultra-long-lasting coolers, and specialized roof racks. Traction boards, which used to get cars out of muddy ruts, are a very early but growing category on Amazon.
Overlanding is especially appealing to people who have aged out of traditional camping, but still enjoy the outdoors. These older enthusiasts may not be able to hike and camp for days at a time, but they have the disposable income for elaborate off-road setups.","replaced_keywords":{}},{"body":"","head":"","body_links":"","replaced_keywords":{}},{"body":"","head":"","body_links":"","replaced_keywords":{}},{"body":"","head":"","body_links":"","replaced_keywords":{}},{"body":"","head":"","body_links":"","replaced_keywords":{}},{"body":"","head":"","body_links":"","replaced_keywords":{}}],"meta_desc":"","cta_header":""}],"resourceType":"category"}}}'