A guest blog post by Lina Arseneault, Senior Director of Marketing at AirTight Networks
Since its debut in 2003, The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference has been breaking news and highlighting innovation by providing straight-up, unvarnished conversations with the most influential figures in media and technology.
D creators and executive producers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher put the industry’s top players to the test during unscripted conversations about the impact digital technology will have on our lives now and in the future.
This year’s event did not disappoint. D11 was held May 28-30 2013 in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. You can find D11 archived coverage here (articles and videos).
For the second year, Mary Meeker, a partner at venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, presented her annual “State of the Internet” report (117 slides, up 5 from the 2012 edition). The massive report is a must read for anyone interested in the convergence of content, mobile and social, and how it impacts our world. Following are some of the highlights.
Meeker predicts a boom in all Internet things related to mobility. Same for all things social and data related. Specifically, she highlights growth of Internet usage and other activities on mobile devices.
It should come as no surprise that most of us spend an inordinate amount of time with head down, phone in hand. According to research conducted on behalf of Facebook and curated by Meeker in her presentation, smartphones make us feel — to varying degrees — connected, excited, curious and productive (slide 31).
Meeker also noted in her presentation that content is growing — to multi-zettabyte proportions — but that it is also increasingly findable, shared and tagged. This is complimentary to Google’s assertion that if Content Is King, Multiscreen Is The Queen.
Meeker contrasted Americans’ online sharing habits compared to the rest of the world. As you can see from the chart below, Great Britain is also deemed to be a sharing underachiever nation. My native home of Canada doesn’t fare much better.
A new addition to this year’s report is the rise of wearable technology as the next big tech cycle in the coming decade. Google Glass is just the beginning, it seems. In addition to wearables, there will be drivables and flyables, according to Meeker (Slides 51-65).
After you’re done flipping through Meeker’s complete slide deck, ask yourself : what shocks me? What makes me anxious? What gives me hope? – For today and in the future.
In December, 2010 Mary Meeker left her position as a managing director at Morgan Stanley and head of the bank’s global technology research team to become a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Meeker was named “one of the ten smartest people in tech” by “Fortune” magazine in 2010.