2017 State of the Internet Trends Report

[engine]

The annual State of the Internet Trends Report for 2017 was just published, and here are a few of the takeaways.

Global smartphone growth is slowing, along with Internet growth.

Voice search is up to 20% of mobile queries.

China and India remain huge growth opportunities.

Here's one of the key factors that will be of interest to webmasters: Internet traffic from bots surpassed human-generated traffic in 2016. [recode.net] Although it happened a couple of times previously.

The link to recode includes the video presentation, which is embedded in the site. There's also a slide deck at KPCB [kpcb.com...] and a PDF [dq756f9pzlyr3.cloudfront.net...]

Here's a link to the 2016 State of the Internet Trends Report [webmasterworld.com]

[smilie]

Great report.

I like a few slides so far.

1. Internet advertising will surpass TV within 6 months.

2. Social media top challenges - measuring ROI ( no sht sherlock, with all the mobile bots )

3. Percentage of Adwords that are PLA ads - 52% and growing like a hockey stick (no ROI on regular ads as well, with 50%+ bots)

4. In the past have you clicked on Facebook ad or purchased Facebook advertised product - 93% did not click on ads or made a purchase. 90% not sure (which means they think they did not or not sure if they did, otherwise they'd know?)

5. Smartphone growth is 0. (internet audience growth is larger than smartphone , which is a few percentage points , 4%? this makes it mathematically negative in developed countries).

6. Adblocking - desktop USA 18%, Canada 24%, Germany 28%, UK 16%, and growing like a hockey stick. Mobile ad blocking is still at 1% (and long overdue).

There's a whole bunch about games which is all the rage as companies spend on ads like there's no tomorrow. Staggering numbers, 2. 6 billion gamers and I think they project $260 Billion on ad spend(? or something crazy like that)

[engine]

Where does it say smartphone growth is zero? It talks about growth slowing, but still growing.

Anyway, more importantly, with global ad growth being in mobile, it suggest that the stellar growth seen for mobile advertising will slow, too. Developments such as this one from google should help the disconnect between online and bricks and mortar, and keep ad growth opportunities. [webmasterworld.com]

[keyplyr]

5. Smartphone growth is 0. (internet audience growth is larger than smartphone , which is a few percentage points , 4%? this makes it mathematically negative in developed countries).

This is a fraudulent statement and detrimental to this discussion.

For those of us that diligently watch who/what accesses our servers, the announce that "Internet traffic from bots surpassed human-generated traffic in 2016" comes as no surprise. I sometimes feel a bit sad when I have to explain that to site owners who think their new site is a big success due to all the (perceived) traffic.

Also as no surprise is "China and India remain huge growth opportunities." The puzzle is how to monetise that demographic from outside. Here again the dynamic is mobile.

[phranque]

5. Smartphone growth is 0.

slides 7 & 8 from that deck regarding smartphone growth:
3% Y/Y Global Smartphone Unit Shipments [slideshare.net]
12% Y/Y Global Smartphone Installed Base [slideshare.net]

is this where you got the 0?

[smilie]

Guys, check where they are growing, India and poor markets. People have no internet there and buy smartphones, and even THEN the internet usage growth is more than smartphone growth. I see "global" Y/Y 3%, which is a deceiving number, as if it was still growth in US-UK etc. markets, they would publish it. But they did not.

So it looks like avoiding to say "no growth in developed countries" to me.

[image.slidesharecdn.com...]

You have to read between the lines into these reports and see what they were trying to hide.

[engine]

Recode didn't publish the video until recently.

Here it is.

[smilie]

Guys, this is actually, priceless.

Facebook is claiming 1.8 Billion active monthly users.

Let's count together, shall we.
7 bln people on the planet.
1.9 bln children / disabled, etc. so 5.1 bln available adults.
50% don't have internet access. 2.55 bln left
1.3 Bln China population where FB is blocked. Let's assume half of them are in the previous "50% no internet access" category. 2.55 bln - 0.65 = 1.9 Bln.

Now, look around you. Does everyone around you is on FB every single Day? Serously doubt it. I would assume that majority is the FB tags on various websites that people who go online , they hit. Not on actual FB. Realistically let's half the above number.
0.95 Bln.

Now, I am not done. According to the article above, 51% of all internet traffic is Bots. Let's account for that.
We have just under 0.5 Bln people left.

Technically, FB can't have more than 0.5 Bln active monthly users. Everything else is fudged.

No wonder they are trying hard to find "growth" in India and China. India is where people buy a $12 phone made in China and a $2 SIM card to get on the Airtel network (indian guys here can prove me right or wrong, please). Yeah, that's a lot of $700 iphone buyers right there.