Hey friend, I have a story to tell you. It illustrates why it pays to dig deep when you're writing content. In
other words, it illustrates why it pays to not be lazy. 😁 I've been working on a new Forbes article about A+ content, pulling content marketing wisdom from Amazon's
ecommerce A+ Content program. In the opening, I wanted to talk about how much content is out there, and how much of it is good and/or
crappy. During my research, I uncovered an interesting stat >> Total global data storage is projected to reach 181 zettabytes by 2025. Zettabyte? I'd seen the term before. But
what the heck is a zettabyte? I'd be willing to use the stat in my article, but first I had to figure out a way to make 181 zettabytes meaningful to everyday readers. My first step was to simply ask the AI I was working with for help in making everyday readers understand using relatable analogies and comparisons. It recommended using a:
Books analogy:
- If the average novel has a file size of 2 megabytes, 181 zettabytes would be equivalent to over 90 quadrillion books. This is enough to fill the Library of Congress more than 2.3 trillion times.
Distance analogy: - One zettabyte is equal to one sextillion bytes or a trillion gigabytes. If each terabyte in a zettabyte were a
kilometer, 181 zettabytes would be equivalent to 235,000 round trips to the moon and back (768,800 kilometers per round trip).
Daily data creation analogy: - Approximately 328.77 million terabytes of data are created each day. This means that in a year, we generate around 120 zettabytes of data, and by 2025, this will accumulate to 181 zettabytes.
Digital universe analogy: - To put it in perspective, in 2010, the world collected 2 zettabytes of data. By 2022, this had increased to 97 zettabytes, and it is
projected to reach 181 zettabytes by 2025. This exponential growth highlights the vast amount of digital information being created and stored.
Because I love books and libraries, I most resonated with the first one, the Library of Congress (LOC) analogy. But I still couldn't imagine what it would mean to fill the LOC 2.3 trillion times. Then I wondered how much data was housed in the Library of Congress today. The answer: In 2022, the LOC managed 21 petabytes of digital
content. Then I asked: If the LOC has 21 petabytes, how many LOCs would we need to hold 100 zettabytes. (Ignore the fact that I previously used 181 zettabytes; my source shifted during my research. The thought process is still the same—remember I'm trying to make a statistic come to life for readers.) The response: To calculate how many LOC equivalents we would need to hold 100 zettabytes, we can use the conversion that 1 zettabyte is equal to 1,000,000 petabytes. I'll spare you the calculation, but the end result was this: YouNumber of LOCs=≈4,761,904.76 You would need approximately 4,761,905
LOCs to hold 100 zettabytes of data. That still didn't help. I can image one LOC. Maybe 10 blocks of LOCs, as I've been to the Library of Congress in Washington DC. So, I had to dig further: How can I help readers envision what 4.8 million LOCs is like? Here are the options returned: City Comparison - If each LOC were the size of a building, 4.8 million LOCs could be compared to a major city’s skyline. For instance, imagine a city where every single building is a
massive library, sprawling across an area larger than some countries.
Physical Volume - You could calculate the physical space 4.8 million LOCs would occupy if they were physical books. Considering the average book’s dimensions, stack them side by side and compare the total volume to well-known large structures or natural formations.
Digital
Visualization - Create a digital representation using dots or icons where each dot/icon represents one LOC. This could be an interactive online tool where users can zoom in and out to grasp the scale.
Time to Explore - Calculate how long it would take to explore all 4.8 million LOCs. If a person spent just one minute in each LOC, it would take over nine years without stopping for a
break.
Relatable Quantities - Break down the number into more relatable quantities, such as the number of cars on the road, smartphones in use, or the population of countries.
Historical Context - Compare the number to historical events. For example, if each LOC represented one year, 4.8 million LOCs would stretch back far beyond recorded
history, offering a perspective on the enormity of the number.
Infographics - Use infographics to create a visual comparison between the number of LOCs and other large numbers that people might be familiar with, such as the number of stars in the galaxy or grains of sand on a beach.
That didn't help much, either. So, I
dug further: Can you give me a few actual analogies -- with numbers -- I could use? ⛏️⛏️⛏️ And that's where I hit pay dirt. ⛏️⛏️⛏️ I'll put the winning analogy at the end of the list. Certainly! Here are a few analogies with numbers to help readers visualize the concept of 4.8 million Library of Congress (LOC) equivalents: Stacking books - If we assume each LOC has about 38 million books, then 4.8
million LOCs would have 182.4 billion books. If each book is an average of 2 inches thick, stacking them would create a pile that could reach the moon and back 15 times.
Physical space - The main building of the LOC, the Thomas Jefferson Building, has a floor area of about 839,000 square feet. Multiplying this by 4.8 million gives us 4.0272 trillion square feet. This is enough to cover the entire city of
Los Angeles (about 500 square miles) more than 8 times over.
Time to read - If someone could read one book per day, it would take them over 500 million years to read through the entire collection of 4.8 million LOCs, which is longer than the age of the dinosaurs.
And the winner 🔽🔽🔽... 🥇 Digital Storage - The average smartphone today has about 64GB of storage. One petabyte is approximately one million GB. So, 21 petabytes (one LOC) is equivalent to 16.8 million smartphones. To match 100 zettabytes, you’d need the storage of 80.64 trillion smartphones, or about 10,000 smartphones for every person
on Earth.
🎉 Finally, something I could somewhat relate to! I have a smartphone with 128GB of storage, which means I'd need 5,000 phones to hold all 100 zettabytes of the accessible cloud data that'll be here in 2025. I can somewhat picture 5,000 phones! So, the phone analogy is the one I'm using in my article. I hope you can see how it pays to dig deep when writing content—readers will thank you. Until next time, Write on, Renae :) |
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