From the article "5 Tech Trends You Can't Afford to Ignore"
by Eric Markowitz in Inc.com
Silicon Valley was aflutter this week with Mary Meeker's bold new report on Internet trends. Here's what you missed.
When Mary Meeker speaks, the Valley listens.
This week, Meeker, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (the venture firm founded in 1972 that's invested in pretty much every major tech company of the last quarter century) unveiled her 88-page analysis of Web, mobile, technology, and societal trends.
Here, we've excerpted the most important elements of the report, especially trends that may affect small business and startups.
1) Your mobile strategy may be the most important part of your business.
In 2008, only about $0.7 billion was made on mobile. By the end of 2012, the mobile market will have ballooned to a staggering $19 billion, split 67 percent between apps and 33 percent ads. According to Meeker, when looking at the average time users spend on on media, people spend about ten percent of their "media time" on mobile--but just 1 percent of ad spend is spent on mobile. In other words, despite current user adoption, there's still plenty of room for growth. Another fact to note: In India, mobile Internet traffic surpassed desktop Internet traffic in May, 2012.
2) Don't forget about Android users.
Meeker is bullish on Android as a platform. According to her calculations, iPhone adoption has exploded in the last four years, but Android phone adoption "has ramped even faster – nearly 6x iPhone."
3) If you sell a product, you'd be crazy not to focus your e-commerce on mobile and tablet apps.
This chart pretty much speaks for itself: By 2012, about a quarter of all Internet shopping traffic on Black Friday were made on either mobile or a tablet...READ MORE >
