Last Wednesday – while you were no doubt reading the 4cast – Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) presented her 20th annual report on Internet trends at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, outside of Los Angeles. Ms. Meeker started doing these reports in 1995 – the same year OPLIN was officially created – and they have become a highly respected and anticipated discussion of the state of the Internet each year. Now that the Internet has become such an integral part of our lives, these discussions often have as much to say about our society as they do about our technology, and this year was no exception.
- The impact of the on-demand economy, as told through Mary Meeker slides (Re/Code | Ina Fried) “You can get groceries from Instacart, lunch from Munchery and other goods from Instacart, but society has yet to catch up to how quickly labor and the workplace is being transformed. The good news is that the next generation of workers isn’t expecting the kind of stability that earlier generations have taken as the norm. They see the neighborhood coffee shop as their office, have no expectation of standard work hours and are far more willing to take on freelance tasks….”
- Mary Meeker’s Internet report: User growth slowing, but disruption full speed ahead (ZDNet | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols) “On the plus side, the Internet social networking has made this kind of work much easier to find. It may not be ideal work, but at least, thanks to the Internet, it’s doable. The down side is that the average income from these services are far below the media US household income of $51,900. For example, an eBay seller will see an average gross of $3,000; a Thumbtack contractor will earn $8,000 a year; and even in New York City, a typical Airbnb host will earn only $7,700 a year.”
- Messaging becoming the heart of mobile, Mary Meeker says (CNET | Ben Fox Rubin) “Bolstering her case, Meeker pointed out that Whatsapp now has 800 million active mobile users, Facebook Messenger has 600 million and WeChat has 549 million. Snapchat, she reported, has 100 million daily active users. On top of those giant user bases, messaging apps also make up six of the top 10 most used apps globally. These statistics build on Meeker’s 2014 report, in which she noted how communicating online was changing, with people using messaging and chat apps more frequently to communicate with small groups of close contacts than they were using sites like Facebook to broadcast messages to larger audiences.”
- Mary Meeker’s vertical video future (Forbes | Steven Rosenbaum) “But as Meeker pointed out – video isn’t getting bigger. It’s getting smaller, and vertical, and mobile. Said Meeker: ‘Small Screen Vertical Viewing Became Big Deal…’ in 2014. Vertical viewing now accounts for 29% of total time spend on screens. Vertical viewing is the only category that’s growing other than tiny growth in ‘other’ connected devices like OTT [Over the Top].”
Articles from Ohio Web Library:
- Meeker, Mary (Current Biography, 1999)
- The indomitable Mary Meeker. (Wired, Oct. 2012, p.100-1 | Steven Levy)
- Not com. (Technology Review, March/April 2000, p.34 | G. Pascal Zachary)
