[Note to Readers: We will be posting this blog as a 3-part series. Please view Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.]

TREND #3: DEATH OF THE DESKTOP COMPUTER & RISE OF THE TABLET + MOBILE PHONES

Smartphones are not necessary. But they do come with amazing benefits. If you are lost in the middle of the boonies, you can:

1. Find a local starbucks

2. Search on Yelp for the best local restaurant

3. Take a picture of your location and crowdsource it to see if anyone in your network knows where you are.

Beyond the obvious benefits, Meeker and Wu show how you can now watch videos on YouTube and Twitter’s Vine app, and upload sound bites to SoundCloud.

In only 3 years, worldwide Internet traffic via mobile devices has increased by 150 percent, according to VentureBeat.

Not surprisingly, mobile app advertising and internet advertising are bound to continue increasing at an exponential rate. Right now, this revenue brings in $19 billion dollars. Who knows how much more it will bring in?

China has the highest number of smartphone subscribers in the world at 354 million. And the U.S. comes in at a close second with 219 million.

Mobile internet traffic is greater than desktop internet traffic in both China and South Korea. Now is the time to shift products into the mobile space.

VentureBeat reports that 29 percent of U.S. adults own either a tablet or an e-reader. These numbers are astounding.

In reality, it’s not all about mobile phone growth. It’s actually about tablet growth. The iPad has sold 3 times more than the iPhone. Plus, tablet shipments surpassed both desktops and notebooks in Q4 of 2012.

The trend is clear. Companies will begin reframing their R&D to focus on creating mobile and tablet apps. They will probably target their marketing towards blossoming international markets.  Making their apps available on all types of mobile devices is the best way to address the growing demand.

Presenting an outstanding amount of data, Meeker and Wu highlight the major global internet trends. With this knowledge, we can reframe our current sales and marketing techniques.

We hope you enjoyed reading this series. Please comment below!

[Note to Readers: We will be posting this blog as a 3-part series. Please view Part 1 here.]

Trend #2. Innovative, Cutting-Edge Technologies

Cutting-edge technology in the 1980s was a measly personal computer. Now, it’s a combination of jaw-dropping technologies such as Jawbone’s Up, Fitbit, Google Glass, and Google’s Self-Driving Car.

Favored by young people, Jawbone’s Up is a device that tracks your sleep, tracks your activity 24/7, and even your caloric consumption. Its coolest feature is that it alerts you when you have been idle and inactive for too long.

The Fitbit device does similar things to the Jawbone. But with the Fitbit, you can buy a nifty scale that connects to your Fitbit device wirelessly. Now, you no longer have to meticulously input your weight. Rather, you can wait for it to pop up on your screen. It’s smart. It’s fast. It’s easy. So it pleases many, because it simplifies their life. Plus, it helps them take control of their health.

Released with much fanfare in 2012, Google Glass is one of the newest, and sexiest devices around. Did you know that you can immediately translate something from Chinese into English using your own voice?

Also, you can quickly record and send a message to your family member or friend. How’s that for innovative?

Highlighted in the presentation is Google’s self-driving car. Breaking the barrier between dreams and reality, Google is paving the way for outstanding technology. We used to dream about it. And now it exists.

A child says: Look mom! A blind man is “driving” a car.

What’s next? Personalized flying saucers that can travel at the speed of light? We sure hope so.

Trend #3 will be posted this Thursday.

Did you know that  2.4 billion people are now consuming the internet? Mary Meeker and Liang Wu published a fascinating study highlighting the major trends of 2013.

Startling facts are plentiful in these 117 slides. Currently, there are 564 million Chinese internet users. And while the bulk of the world’s top websites are made in the U.S., the majority of internet users are not American.

The growth potential is enormous! As shown below, Meeker and Wu suggest it’s a $20 billion dollar opportunity to invest in internet and mobile advertisements.

The top 3 noteworthy trends in this study are:

Trend #1: Explosion of Content Curation
Trend #2: Innovatie, Cutting-Edge Technologies
Trend #3: Death of the Desktop Computer & the Rise of the Tablet + Mobile Phones

Hundreds of startups are sprouting up that only create customized mobile apps for corporations. Many develop chic tablet apps such as DocuSign.

[Note to Readers: We will be posting this blog as a 3-part series.] 

TREND #1: EXPLOSION OF CONTENT CURATION.

Content curation sites have exploded! Now, you can get content-rich information on X, Y or Z topic. And the good websites are chic.

Type your interest into Addict-o-matic and see what pops up. There, you will find small boxes, the size of an iPhone screen. Each box contains curated information from Google, WordPress, Twitter and more. In a matter of a few seconds, all of the data you ever wanted to know about your interests pops up.

Another innovative website is Learnist. Because of the dynamic design, you can quickly navigate it. Skim through snapshots of popular topics, and when you find something that interests you, click on it. You’ll enter a new dimension of small frames with piercing images and vivid text, where you can scroll through the trending information about your chosen topic.

As Meeker and Wu note, the ability to rapidly share photos, videos, sounds and data, has led to an explosion of new services and technologies. Many startups have already capitalized on this trend. And they are continuously innovating their product to fulfill their customers’ desires. Even so, there is still more room to grow — astronomically.

Trend #2 will be posted this Tuesday.

Earlier this year, Max Schrems, a 24-year-old Austrian law student, famously asked Facebook to send him everything they had on him since 2008, when he started using the site. Facebook sent him a computer disc containing 1,222 pages of information.

As more of more of us will end up sharing most of our lives on the Internet, the battle between lawmakers and internet companies are often centred on arguments over the right to freedom of expressions and the right to privacy. Among Facebook’s one billion users, the most vulnerable group are minors.

As legislators in Europe consider a hard-to-implement policy called “the right to be forgotten,” which would allow users to delete their digital past records, lawmakers are in the U.S. are proposing changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). It is the first revisions since COPPA was implemented in 1999, back then there was no Facebook and no smartphone apps.

A November study by the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) showed that the current COPPA may unintentionally lead children to reveal too much on Facebook.

COPPA requires that websites obtain parental permission before collecting personal information from children less than 13 years of age. However, children often lie about their age when registering with online social networking sites, sometimes with the help of parents. According to the study, children that claim to be adults lose privacy protections and expose their friends’ personal information.

“The problem with the COPPA law is that it introduces an incentive for minors to lie about their age. Lying about their age not only puts their own privacy at risk, but those of other minors who do not lie,” says research team leader Professor Keith Ross.

Ross suggests that social media sites could better protect children by disabling the reverse look-up of friends feature that allows anyone to find a child’s hidden information through a friend’s page. Parents and children should be aware that the actions of a virtual friend could compromise a child’s privacy.

The Pew Internet Center recently asked parents of American teenagers who use the Internet if they were concerned that their child’s online activities “might affect their future academic or employment opportunities.” Middle class parents, this who had annual class incomes from $30,000 to $75,000 were most concerned.

Children interviewed for the study, however, had different opinions about befriending their parents on Facebook. Some said they were cool with it. Others said it kept them from posting things that might be embarrassing later. Some said they tweaked their settings so their parents could see their basic profiles on Facebook, but not their status updates nor pictures.

Earlier this year, Facebook was accused in a lawsuit of taking the names, photographs and identities of users to advertise products without their permission.  The company’s “sponsored stories” were a “misleading advertising scheme” using material posted by Facebook members on their profile pages, according to the complaint. The social networking site has since revised its terms of usage.

In another development, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has approved legislation that would require police to obtain a search warrant from a judge before they can review a person’s emails or other electronic communications.

In previous times, flirtation involved physical communication. Today, a flirt is sent over the Internet and seduction takes place in real time regardless of location. Digital flirting is fast, uncomplicated, requires no logistics and is also less painful in the event of a rejection. The old ways of writing poems, sending love letters and flowers have been replaced by emoticons and tweets like RYS (Are you single?), NSA (No strings attached) and LMIRL (Let’s meet in real life). Loved affairs are now conducted over a device. There are now Skype dates and breaking up is as easy as changing your Facebook Relationship Status, unfriending or deleting a contact. A marriage proposal may be witnessed over You Tube or followed on Twitter.

The Internet and social media has helped to speed up make ups and break ups. Traditional dating is now an old-fashion relic. Some will argue that the shortcuts have cheapened love and courtship and killed intimacy. For the young millennial, it is a different norm as texting replaces talking and courtship etiquette is about what words to use (no M-words – Marriage, Monogamy and Motherhood), what types of photos to post and being sensitive about when to change your Facebook’s Relationship einarmiger bandit Status.

However, there are advantages. The Internet has made it easier to meet someone. In the U.S., online dating websites that help find your match through algorithms are growing at 70% a year. Others say technology allows us to stay in touch with loved ones more frequently and helps to facilitate communication and bonding. According a survey of 6,000 members on dating website Zoosk, 81% of couples say they use technology to interact with each other throughout the day. And 60% of couples say the primary role of social media in their relationship involves publicly expressing feelings of love or sharing photos/videos or relationship updates with family and friends.

In a world where complete sentences are no longer necessary, 78% regarded texting as more romantic compared to an affectionate Facebook post or Tweet.

French-born sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann says “there was now a vast hypermarket for love and sex, in which everyone was both a buyer and seller who openly stated what they wanted and tried to satisfy their needs as efficiently as possible. All they needed to do was sign up, pay a modest fee, write a blog or use a social networking site. Nothing could be easier.”

As more people hide behind technology, the Internet and the advent of social networks have added to the confusion of courtship and love. The anonymity of the Internet has also led to tragic endings as increasingly real and virtual lives divert.

Many relationship coaches will argue that when it comes down to finding a partner, picking up the phone and making that call will never go out of style. In reality, dating technology is big business. In the pursuit for love, Americans now use dating apps more than online dating sites, according to a 2011 report by Flurry Analytics. Globally, the mobile dating market is expected to be worth $2.3 billion by 2016, up from $1 billion in 2011, according to Juniper Research.