Top 20 takeaways from the KPCB Internet Trends Report

The Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers (KPCB) Internet Trends report is one of the most important and interesting productions of its kind. KPCB has helped companies like Google, Amazon, and Twitter to accelerate growth by providing high-quality data for smart decision-making.

In summary, the findings are fascinating, but not surprising. The web is (obviously) continuing to grow, and video is more critical to the web each year. China continues to grow as a world power. People like their phones, and messaging apps, and shopping online. Brick-and-mortar institutions like retailers and universities had better be iterating unless they want to go the way of Blockbuster Video. Also, StitchFix (one of the coolest companies around right now) has a cameo on slide 79.

So what’s the matter? Don’t you have time to read the 295-page report? No problem - I read it for you. Here are my top 20 takeaways.

KPCB Internet Trends Report Highlights:

1. Internet growth and penetration still on the rise (slide 7 and 8).
2. Daily hours spent with digital media grows overall, thanks mostly to mobile usage (slide 11).
3. Transactions by payment channel are 60% digital (slide 18).
4. Video continues to eat more of the web (slide 23 and 24).
5. Personalized and collective data improves UX (slides 28 - 30 & 190 & 195-197).
6. E-Commerce acceleration continues (slide 45).
7. 49% of product searches start on Amazon. 36% start on a search engine (slide 62)
8. Social media is effective for product discovery and purchases (slide 71).
9. Social media ad engagement is rising (slide 74).
10. Retention is more important than ever as customer acquisition cost increases - especially important for retailers (slide 76 and 77).
11. Internet advertising increases again (slide 97).
12. PAY ATTENTION, HIGHER EDUCATION [emphasis mine]: Budgets are tight for consumers, and the web makes things cheaper (slides 101-114).
13. The sharing economy is alive and well (slides 123-130).
14. Hard drives are so insanely cheap it is amazing (slide 145).
15. The most desired non-monetary benefit for workers is flexible schedule, followed by the ability to work from home (slide 162).
16. Time spent on social media increases (slide 187).
17. Query growth for "___ near me" grows 90% between 2015 and 2017 (slide 192).
18. Under the right circumstances, and if the information isn’t terribly sensitive, and if there is a benefit to them, online consumers are willing to share personal data. This is especially true in China than in the US. (slides 205 & 223).
19. PAY ATTENTION, HIGHER EDUCATION [emphasis mine]: People want to learn online (slides 232-234).
20. In China, content budgets for video platforms exceed budgets for tv networks in 2017 (slide 248).

Read the full report here: http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

Photo by: Avi Richards