
Mary Meeker’s eye-popping annual Internet Trends report hits the web - Codhisattva
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/30/mary-meeker-internet-trends-2012/
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Aloisius
I find most of her slides interesting, but she circled the area from around
2002 to 2011 on slide 96 as _"the biggest peacetime gap between revenue and
expenses in USA history."_

I'm not sure Ms. Meeker is aware, but we are _at war_ right now. For most of
that period, we were fighting multiple wars at once.

Further, she used the 2010 budget outlook report from the CBO which takes the
most pessimistic view that the Bush Tax Cuts are kept indefinitely in the
heart of a deep recession. The CBO has released a 2011 budget outlook report
(2012 is due next week). Even under the pessimistic alternative fiscal
scenario, that 2025 date now doesn't happen until well after 2035 (the last
date they try to estimate for)

That's not to say thing aren't out of control, but most of those problems are
related to healthcare not "entitlements." Social security has only an
extremely modest increase in cost. Healthcare is where the big hit comes from
caused by and large by baby boomers aging and the restriction placed on the
federal government to really negotiate rates.

If Obama had had support to implement single payer and got rid of the
restrictions about negotiating rates, we'd live in a far more fiscally sound
place today.

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waterlesscloud
Healthcare falls under entitlements.

~~~
Aloisius
Yes, but people like to rally against "entitlements" when they really mean a
very specific part of entitlements: healthcare. It is politically dangerous
for anyone who swings conservative to use accurate terminology because they've
demonized healthcare reform so much.

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ojbyrne
Hard to not be skeptical about something so positive from someone who played a
key part in creating the first tech bubble.

~~~
adventureful
What key role did Meeker play in creating the first tech bubble?

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dxbydt
Google page 179 "Hedgehogging" by Barton Biggs.

There's one whole chapter in that book that's an indictment of Meeker,
Blodget, Quattrone, Glassman ( the Dow 36000 guy ) and the rest of the folks
who supplied the oxygen for the previous bubble. And now Meeker's back...so
that should signal something.

The key incident was the conference were Biggs was asked "Is the internet
revolutionary ?".Biggs said "No". A collective boo from the audience. "Ok so
what is revolutionary ?". Biggs thought for a while and said "The Air
Conditioner. Without an AC, the entire south of the USA like the Carolinas,
Florida & parts of Texas would remain unpopulated" Biggs was laughed at. A
month later the Dow plunged 2000 points over a 2 month period. Fun times ;)

~~~
eli
"Meeker's back" does not signal anything. She gives a similar presentation
every year. [http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/18/mary-
meekers-2011-presentat...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/18/mary-
meekers-2011-presentation-on-internet-trends-slides/)

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nick_urban
The biggest take-away for me is that we are changing the way we do... pretty
much everything.

Two things I noticed:

1\. There is a big shift towards convenience and broader participation.

2\. An increasing proportion of our activities are conducted through smart
phones and tablets instead of going somewhere or using a device specifically
designed for a given purpose. Many activities are becoming "just another app"
and losing their traditional context.

Finally, there's a cautionary message about US debt. The disturbing chart of
US entitlement and interest spending vs. revenue. At the current rate, in
2025, the government will be spending more on entitlements and interest alone
(NOT taking into account government spending on defense, education, etc.) than
they have revenue.

~~~
muzz
The "cautionary" message appears to be more political than anything else. The
extrapolated line for "entitlements and interest" is almost identical to that
of Paul Ryan's budget and groups things like Social Security-- which those
receiving it PAID for-- as "entitlements".

~~~
acheron
"those receiving it paid for"? I don't think you understand how Social
Security works. Look up "Ponzi scheme" for more information.

~~~
Aloisius
A ponzi scheme requires intentional fraud. You have to believe you are
investing in something real, not simply paying back someone else.

Social security is very clear what is going on. It also has mandatory new
participants which keeps it from collapsing as well as well understood
economic increases. The same thing happens with corporate pension plans,
interest on treasury bills and any number of other systems that require future
growth in order to pay back debt.

It is clearly not a ponzi scheme.

~~~
adventureful
It's a partial ponzi scheme, but it has nothing to do with the system itself,
it has to do with what the Fed is doing to our currency. The people paying in
are not going to get all of their money back out of it.

The fact that you're going to get a massively debased dollar back for each
dollar you put in alone means it's a fraudulent process as it stands today
(again due to our government's fiscal irresponsibility). The calculations used
for inflation adjustments are about as bunk as you can get for govt numbers.
The Fed has managed a catastrophic devaluing of the dollar over the last 50
years, and that's only likely to accelerate given their need to massively
monetize our deficits and debts.

~~~
Aloisius
I'm sorry, but claiming inflation is fraud is complete nonsense. Inflation is
a sign of a growing economy. It is neither good nor bad. It is however
inevitable.

It is not related to fiscal irresponsibility. Sometimes it is due too too much
demand and not enough supply driving the cost of goods up (prices are sticky)
and other times it is due to underlying company costs going up and raising the
prices to keep their profit margin even.

In neither case is it the government's "fault." Most governments around the
world try to maintain an inflation rate of 2-3%. This is well understood.
Don't keep your wealth in currency. No one sane has for over a hundred years
even when we were on the broken gold standard (if you think inflation is bad,
you should see what rapid deflation caused by a spike in gold demand followed
by a rapid drop in demand does to an economy on the gold standard).

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mikecane
Amazed that one of the biggest changes is something she missed. How mobile
tech changed the face and effectiveness of protest, from Egypt and the Mid-
East to Occupy and ongoing (current protests in Quebec).

Also missing is how effective live video -- especially Ustream -- has been in
bypassing the MSM TV news to show the actions of police directly. And how such
footage has been used to void arrests of protesters by perjuring police.

~~~
potatolicious
Not being in the Middle East (or ever having been, ever), I have to question
that narrative, though it's a common one.

We know the Egyptian government eventually shut down internet access (leading
to ingenious hacks, such as the Twitter-voice-recognition-bot Google wrote),
but the protests continued unabated.

I'm sure social media had _some_ role to play in the Arab Spring - but the
extent of it I feel has been blown out of proportion by technocrats all too
ready to self-congratulate.

After all, it feels nicer if you're not building that tool by which millions
can breathlessly follow the every move of B-list celebrities. Indeed, wouldn't
it be nice if all the hours we spend in air-conditioned offices was actually
_freedom fighting_?

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aw3c2
Direct link to PDF: <http://www.kpcb.com/file/kpcb-internet-trends-2012>

The linked story has nothing too interesting or important to say by itself so
you can safely skip it.

edit: Actually, I would say it might not be worth it if you are not an Apple
fanboy and neither too fond of sources like StatCounter.

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127001brewer
I found the following interesting:

 _Lessons from Developed Mobile Markets like Japan ... Mobile Monetization
Levels in USA Could Surpass Desktop Within 1-3 Years_

The "Monetization Levels" are the advertising revenue. The report states that
desktop internet advertising revenue grew from $55 million (estimated) in 1995
to $73 billion in 2011 (estimated). (And advertising revenue per user went
from $9 to $49 in the same period.)

However, I have doubts that internet advertising will be as successful on
mobile devices. Personally, I tend to avoid ad-supported apps or simply do not
"click" on any ads within apps, but that's just me and I may be really off-
base with the overall behavior of app users.

~~~
ChuckMcM
So for reference, when I left Sun in '95 I joined a startup named 'Golfweb' as
their 'technology' guy. Golfweb was an online magazine about Golf, entirely
digital, no print. They had partnered with Golf Digest (print only) because GD
didn't know if this 'Internet thing' was a fad or not. Personally I think our
agreement was with some nerdy kid in the mailroom but I digress.

Anyway, we tried to sell companies like Ping Golf on banner ads. These guys
were paying $10K - $40K per color page in Golf Digest so maybe $250K an issue
and we were asking them to pay us $40K to have all the ads on our web site
during the Masters Tournament. It was a hard sell even though at the time _we
were one of exactly two professional sites covering golf on the Internet._

The challenge wasn't that Ping didn't understand advertising, what they didn't
know yet was how effective it would be. They measured everything and without
data they didn't know if it was more or less valuable than print. Because of
that they were unwilling to spend any money.

As it turned out that campaign was pretty wildly successful for them. Because
of it they were way ahead of their competitors in exploiting the Internet for
ads. Once they were in, their competitors followed, and that created a market
model for costing golf advertising.

So this is the same issue with mobility monetization today. Since there isn't
a huge amount of experience out there it is not easy to justify spending a lot
on it vs web moneitization which is by now a 'proven' channel. But over time
the data will come in and people will then be able to make reasoned choices
about what they are willing to pay to be on some potential customer's phone at
some given time.

In her presentation, Meeks proposed that mobile monetization should at least
equal web monetization and probably exceed it. I've seen other people get
there by reasoning about how people use their phone to find nearby places that
can service some immediate need like food, car service, gas, Etc. As a
contrived, but plausible, example consider a world with multiple Uber type
livery services, and a user finds a nearby place on their phone's map
application. You can sell the rights to a button that says "Pick me up here
and take me there." to a company like Uber very effectively. As an
'advertisement' that is worth probably $1 - $3 a click depending on what the
fare is going to be if its taken.

Now is that exactly an ad? I don't know. It is a convenient pairing of service
provider offering at a probabilistically determined 'good' time to offer. That
any individual doesn't click on the offer is fine, as long as some percentage
(even a small percent) do.

~~~
127001brewer
Great comment: _... But over time the data will come in and people will then
be able to make reasoned choices about what they are willing to pay to be on
some potential customer's phone at some given time._

And I like your example using Uber, but I immediately see the difficultly of a
car service company supporting that type of interactive technology. (Again, I
may be way off base, but I would think a car service company, using your
example, would have to invest heavily, relatively, in technology to support
your example.)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Uber actually does this today if you have the app. You tell it where you want
to go, it shows you where the nearest car is and you say "pick me up!" (big
green button) and you're done.

What isn't yet done is that when you run the Maps app on the phone and you
look for some place nearby, it 'up-sells' you an option to do what the Uber
app currently does.

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dcaranda
I'm confused.

Having trouble reconciling:

Slide 17: 26% of media consumption time is with Internet vs. 10% with Mobile
(source: IAB)

and separate stats from Flurry: 72 mins/day w Web Browsing vs. 94 mins/day w
Mobile Apps (source: [http://blog.flurry.com/bid/80241/Mobile-App-Usage-
Further-Do...](http://blog.flurry.com/bid/80241/Mobile-App-Usage-Further-
Dominates-Web-Spurred-by-Facebook))

Has mobile not overtaken desktop Web yet?

~~~
samstave
I consume a hell of a lot more content on my desktop than my phone - and I am
on both constantly. The reason is the screen on my laptop is large, my phones
is small. I constantly have 20+ tabs open - on my phone I average ~4 pages
open.

Also, the mobile speed of 3G sucks compared to desktop speeds (even a mobile
browser on wifi at home renders slower than my laptop)

There are just so many reasons why I prefer to consume my internet servings
via my laptop over my phone(s)

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ChuckMcM
Definitely worth scrolling through the slides. The 're-imagining' ones are
really good.

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uptown
I wonder how much of the shift to mobile over desktop has to do with the fact
that they haven't been completely clogged up with advertising yet.

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bashour
pretty awesome slide show

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koglerjs
I was irritated at the re-use of "eye-popping" hype and the somewhat re-hashed
statistics.

But the series of never-ending "Re-imagining X" slides really dramatically
demonstrate technology's impact on every part of our lives.

