Marketing Strategy Blog

Mega Internet Trends of 2014

Blue Stream

Want to peek into the future and see what the Internet will be bringing? Mary Meeker helps you do just that. Each year, the Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers (KPCB) partner produces her compilation of Internet trends data and projections for an eager audience of marketers, venture capitalists and tech geeks. The 2014 version did not disappoint.

Internet Trends 2014

Saving you from having to flip through the entire 164-page report (that’s right, 164!), Digital Marketing NOW has culled out a few of the most critical trends for you below:

Mobile

25% of total web usage is mobile. Each new computing cycle generates a 10X increase in user base (i.e., Mainframe > Minicomputer > PC > Desktop Internet > Mobile Internet). Expect the percentage of mobile web usage to seriously climb!

Smartphones

Smartphones are eating the telecom world. 30% of all mobile phones worldwide are currently smartphones and the market grew 20% this past year.

Tablets

Tablets are growing faster than PCs ever did. Unit sales of tablets were up 51% in 2013, with loads of additional growth projected ahead.

Advertising

Internet advertising is not dead, with 16% YoY growth in 2013.

Social Sharing

If you want your content to be shared, better move fast. The average article achieves 50% of its shares within 6.5 hours on Twitter and within 9 hours on Facebook.

Computing Costs

Computing costs are declining at jaw-dropping rates, from $527 per 1 million transistors in 1990 to 5 cents in 2012. (No, that’s not a typo.)

User Interfaces

Thankfully, user interfaces are becoming more design-centric and beautiful. Think of Airbnb, Uber, Waze, Spotify, etc.

Apps

There’s an unbundling of apps in process. Whereas apps started as multi-purpose web apps, and then became multi-purpose mobile apps, we are now seeing the popularity of single-purpose mobile apps. And these apps are increasingly replacing traditional media channels.

Sensors

We are moving from a world of clicks to a world of sensors and sensing.

Video

Consumers love, love, love online video. On the business side, YouTube’s TrueView Ads have been a total game changer.

Re-imagining

Re-imagining the reality of life around us due to digital disruption is invading everything from education (430 million video views on Khan Academy’s YouTube channel, representing a 69% YoY increase) to healthcare to music consumption to hotels to grocery stores.

Think Global

Although 6 of the top 10 global web properties are U.S.-based, 86% of their users are from outside the U.S.

Data

Data everywhere!!! More than 1.8 billion photos are uploaded and shared EVERY DAY. The size of the “digital universe” jumped 50% YoY in 2013, and it is set to grow rapidly into the future.

However, only 7% of this data is tagged and merely 1% analyzed. This is going to be a HUGE business opportunity in the future.

The Full Report

See the slides below for the entire Internet Trends 2014 report. It’s definitely worth a read!