5 Tech Trends You Can't Afford to Ignore

Silicon Valley was aflutter this week with Mary Meeker's bold new report on Internet trends. Here's what you missed.

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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) You should care about China. And India. And Indonesia.

Emerging markets have always played a key role in expansion, but the Internet has magnified this principle. Here, Meeker outlines the role of international Internet adoption. As you can see, it's huge. From 2008 to 2012, China added 282 million Internet users, bringing their total number of users close to double the population of the United States.

 

2) 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.

3) 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."

4) 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.

 

5) Tech start-ups are leading the charge.

Meeker has a lengthy section "reimagining" what the world will look like--going from desktops to tablets, cash to cashless, maps to navigation systems, etc. Of course, like any good venture capitalist, Meeker found a way here to plug a few of Kleiner's portfolio companies, including Gumroad (e-payments), Quirky (product design), Evernote (note taking), DocuSign (electronic signatures), and Square (mobile payments). 

Eric Markowitz reports on start-ups, entrepreneurs, and issues that affect small businesses. Previously, he worked at Vanity Fair. He lives in New York City. @EricMarkowitz