Tag: State of Internet

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State of the Internet – Death of the Swiss Army App

Another takeaway from the 2014 “Internet Trends” report – http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

Apps are going away from multi-function… to single purpose

Early apps (especially brand apps) took a web concept, and applied it to our apps. (Think of the Facebook app). These are multi-purpose apps that do a number of different “brand tasks”.

Increasingly, apps are becoming “single purpose”. We are looking for simple apps that do one thing… not a “Swiss Army Knife” approach.

We are seeing massive acquisitions or development of these stand-alone apps (Facebook messenger, Instagram, Whatsapp)

Implications:

As we talk app-development in the future let’s continue to think through the best approach. Are we better off creating the “swiss-army” app with a number of different functions? Or is that best left to the mobile web? Should we be thinking more of developing our apps around specific tasks our users want do accomplish?

Apps

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State of the Internet – Social

Here’s another takeaway from this year’s “Internet Trends” report (http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends)

Social Networking is moving from “Broadcast” to “Private Share”

As individuals, we are migrating from sharing with our entire ecosystem of contacts (The Facebook status update?), and more with a smaller group of friends (Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp).

Or rather:… Increasingly, our social interactions happen with smaller groups.

Implications:

  • While this may not be the time to start a Snapchat account for your brand… we need to realize the changing expectation in user experience.
  • The user will increasingly be expecting targeted, personal messaging on all of our channels.
  • How can targeted messages help us cultivate our most valuable relationships?
from: http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

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State of the Internet – Mobile

Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report from KPCB has become an annual event for the connected world.

You can check it out all 164 slides of goodness here.

Like so many others (much smarter than I) I started putting together a post with my key observations and takeaways, but it started to get pretty long. So, I did thought what any good blogger would think… “Hey… a series!”

So, over the next week or two, I’m planning to trickle out some fairly digestible takeaways, observations and implications.

Today… it’s all mobile.

Mobile continues to grow… a lot.

I think we’ve been here before… but the numbers continue to astound.

Tablet usage is up 52% in the last year, and mobile now makes up 25% of Internet traffic (up from 14% last year).

What this means…

This means we need continue to assess our experiences in the mobile space. I need to keep an eye on my entire engagement platform

Some key communication mechanisms like email and social could even be considered “Mobile First” (They should look good on mobile, even if it’s at the expense of Desktop).

With every digital initiative, we should be asking “how will this experience be on a phone or tablet?”

from: http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends
from: http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends