The Nine Slides That Matter From Mary Meeker's State of the Internet
Everyone hates drab PowerPoint presentations -- unless, of course, that drab presentation is Mary Meeker's Annual Internet Trends Report. The famed venture capitalist presented her deep dive into tech trends on Wednesday morning, deploying 197 slides while promising to break down the things technologists need to know about the state of the world in 2015.
You can see the full show from Re/Code's Code Conference here. Below, here are Ms. Meeker's presentation condensed to the nine most interesting slides.
It's Still Morning in America for Tech
American adults are still increasing the amount of time they spend with digital media, and almost all of the extra time is spent with mobile devices. Time spent on a desktop seems to have peaked in 2011, back when we were spending less than an hour each day gazing at smartphones. The amount of time people spend with other connected devices has remained steady. In terms of the types of digital media drawing more attention, the video boom hasn't slowed. Video now accounts for 55% of mobile traffic (up from 52% last year) and 64% of all consumer traffic (up from 62%last year.)
Advertisers Are Still Overspending on Print
Six of the top 10 mobile apps globally are messaging apps. Ms. Meeker believes that messaging apps could evolve into the central hubs for communications, in part because new Internet users are likely to come from relatively low-income countries and might not use smartphones.
That means their first trips online are coming through messaging platforms.
Young people still think Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are the most important social networks, but both Facebook and Twitter declined in usage over the last year. Snapchat is in fourth place, having jumped from practically nothing to almost even with Facebook. The other big increase comes from the "other" category: Parents, be prepared to spend the rest of the year worrying about apps you've never even heard of.
Further evidence of the inability of the old to understand the young: the diverging opinions between millennials in the workforce and their managers when asked what millennials find important. Unsurprisingly, managers take a dimmer view of the next generation.
Regulators Haven't Yet Ruined the Drone Boom
The industry for consumer drones is expected to jump 167% this year. Despite the hand-wringing among drone enthusiasts about how the federal government's slow-but-steady approach is ruining things for the American drone industry, the U.S. is still the largest market for consumer drones, accounting for 35% of total drone revenue last year. (Of course, there's no comparison to years past.) Ms. Meeker ranks the U.S. rather low in terms of friendliness to drones, behind France Britain, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
Physical Retail Is Still in Danger
E-commerce in the U.S. is creeping up on 10% of total commerce, and the growth curve shows no signs of slowing.
India Is Next. Who Will Lead?
India's Internet penetration in 2014 was where China was in 2008, and the U.S. in 1996. If India's curve follows the same pattern, get ready for big things in the next five years. One thing that India is lacking is the catalyst companies that will lead its Internet revolution.
