Getting Ahead: Learning 2017 Internet Trends

It’s the beginning of summer, and many professionals in the marketing industry know what that means; it’s time for Mary Meeker’s annual internet trends report.

Some skim this report, some read “best-of” articles and summaries, and some painstakingly go through the 355-slide deck in detail. At refine+focus, we decided to tackle the report a little bit differently. We divvied up the content and assigned one member of our team to each section. After reading and taking notes on our section, we came together and each shared a five-minute summary of the things that interested us the most. That’s what we’re bringing to you.

This year’s report is a 355-slide deck that covers a wide array of topics, like gaming, commerce, China’s internet trends, India’s internet trends, healthcare, and the cloud.

Slide #9 – Taken from the “Internet Trends 2017 – Code Conference” by Mary Meeker

Zach Braiker covered trends in online advertising. The growth rate of the internet is about 10 a year, with currently 3.6 billion users. Those 3.6 billion spend 5.6 hours a day on the internet. This shift has allowed advertising to shift from television to internet ads (especially mobile internet) in the form of contextual ads on Facebook, targeted pins on Pinterest, and product listing ads on Google.

Toria Rainey and Daniel Goez focused on gaming trends. Generation X and Millenials were born into a world with gaming technology in place. While this gaming-oriented-mindset is new, it does have its benefits; gaming foreshadows the next 3-5 years of technological advancements, helps develop valuable work ethic and skills, and primes society for human-computer interaction. In short, gaming is making us better at what we do.

Slide #114 – Taken from the “Internet Trends 2017 – Code Conference” by Mary Meeker

Eduardo Pujol spoke about trends related to the cloud. A breakdown of the labor in cloud services revealed that the number of developers remained more or less the same, if not decreasing. Designers, on the other hand, have been hired in larger volumes. This change in designer to developer ratio implies a newfound importance being placed on design.

Slide #188 – Taken from the “Internet Trends 2017 – Code Conference” by Mary Meeker

Jorge Sanabria covered the booming internet in China. Ranking first in video game revenue worldwide, China is leading the charge in focusing more on social interaction in their technology, especially in entertainment. In addition to this golden age of entertainment, China is experiencing healthy internet user growth, setting the bar high for making innovation mainstream.

Slide #206 – Taken from the “Internet Trends 2017 – Code Conference” by Mary Meeker

Purnima Thakre focused on the ever-growing internet in India. With highest young population in the world (with 250 million students enrolled in school grades K-12), India is expected to have the most citizens in the peak working age around 2020-2050. With 64% of the population and 72% of the internet users under 35, India’s internet competition continues to intensify, allowing consumers to profit.

Slide #233 – Taken from the “Internet Trends 2017 – Code Conference” by Mary Meeker

Slide #268 – Taken from the “Internet Trends 2017 – Code Conference” by Mary Meeker

Megha Dahiya spoke about healthcare and macroeconomics in the US. With the digitization of healthcare, including digital and wearable health technology, health care delivery could be changing with more consumer engagement and faster innovation cycles.

Slide #289 – Taken from the “Internet Trends 2017 – Code Conference” by Mary Meeker

After we covered everything in the report, we had a brief reflection that spawned some fascinating questions to consider:

1. How do we place relevant ads without them being annoying? How do we master nonintrusive marketing?

2. How will Boston, a city known for its innovations in healthcare, change the healthcare industry?

3. What implications will the rising young population in India have on innovation, both nationally and globally?

4. Are people placing more emphasis on design rather than development because we’re becoming more and more comfortable with technology?

5. How can we modify existing services in an era of building revue from gamification without making them feel like gaming incentives?

Access the full 355-slide report here, or watch Mary Meeker give this year’s report at the Code Conference here.