Top 11 in Tech - What to know for Week ending June 28, 2019 (SPECIAL EDITION)

This week - I'm taking it to 11. 

Every year since 2004 Mary Meeker (a top-ranked VC) has been releasing an incredibly in-depth analysis of Internet Trends which has become a must-read for insight into the diverse and ever-evolving tech ecosystem. Between last year and this year Mary dramatically departed VC behemoth, Kleiner Perkins, to start a new $1.25 billion investment fund called call Bond but that did not stop her from creating another monster report - 333 slides long. 

Condensing the information from the 11 categories into something digestible took longer than the normal newsletter (I postponed it twice) and there is so much densely packed data in etc report that an expanded form article can also be found here. Below are the email digestible highlights:

1. USERS: Over 50 percent of the world (3.8 billion people) are now online and using/consuming on the internet. This is up from 3.6 billion in 2017. But overall growth is slowing to about 6 percent as new users become harder to come by (also evidenced by the stall in growth of smartphone shipments)
2. E-COMMERCE: Continues to grow, especially when compared to the percentage of all retail sales in the US. eCommerce still only accounts for just over 15% of all retail sales, so there is plenty of room to grow.
3. ADVERTISING: This topic is really interesting and showing the most dramatic changes, with a significant shift in digital advertising spend that is directed at peoples pockets, as Mobile Ad spend is skyrocketing and will more than likely surpass TV in next years report (34% vs 35%). Most of the spending is still on the big two platforms (Google and Facebook), but other companies (such as Amazon and Twitter) are seeing an increase in market share. 
4. USAGE: The Average American spends over 6 hours on digital per day day, 3.6 of which are on mobile (thats one hour/day more than we did in 2014). But time spent on computers/desktop has been sacrificed and has seen a decline (there are only so many hours in a day). Mobile usage has also (probably permanently) surpassed TV viewing (226 vs 216 minutes/day on average). 
5. FREEMIUM: It’s not just for B2C businesses like Dropbox and Spotify. Freemium is now a strategy employed in gaming,  Enterprise, Cloud, and online Payments.
6. DATA GROWTH: Data volume is growing extraordinarily and forecast to grow even more so in future years. The whole concept of “data" is in transition from a noun to a verb and it can be leveraged to win customers through insightful intelligence. 
7. WORK: On-demand/Gig economy workers are increasing in volume the US, due to companies like Uber and Etsy. Remote workers are also on the rise thanks to online collaboration tools such as Zoom and Slack.
8. EDUCATION: Traditional tertiary education schools are expanding online offering classes and full online degrees but completion and retention rates still vary.
9. IMMIGRATION: Immigrant founders have been an important driver for highly valued tech innovation in the US. Something that will likely be impacted by the current administrations stricter views on immigration.
10. HEALTHCARE (TECH): Health care is increasingly heading towards a more digitized industry, with industry outsiders and the Big Tech Leaders taking larger roles. There is also a significant rise in telemedicine and on-demand consultations and digitization of health records.
11. ASIA: We seem to be migrating over to a less Western Internet as most of internet growth is occurring in Asia, namely the Asia-Pacific region and China also seems to be on the rise with innovation.

POD OF THE WEEK: Brain Fanzo talks about digital empathy (another new concept for your tech dictionaries) -- the notion of using digital tools to really understand a buyer.

BONUS: This is not quite tech, but I found it fascinating. This Bloomberg Article discusses a renegade company in Japan called Disco Corp, that charges employees for everything, from $100/hour conference rooms, to desks, and even co-worker advice (at varying rates). They claim to have created an intense free-market atmosphere that eliminates most redundant or unnecessary tasks.