Video Content is Driving Innovation

Mary Meeker from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers released her eagerly awaited Internet Trends for 2014 report yesterday and as always it did not disappoint.  At 164 pages, this year’s presentation was packed full of interesting and insightful data on a wide range of topics including the continued growth of the mobile marketplace, immigration and even the future of the remote control. For me this year’s report enforced the impact that content, video content in particular, has in driving both growth and innovation across many Internet technology sectors.  Specifically:

– Video continues to be a strong driver of mobile data traffic growth, with consumers creating two-thirds of all content on the Internet – effectively everyone is a creator.  Paring this growth with the proliferation of screens and advances in social interaction results in increased media engagement that boosts the impact of advertising.

– With the increase in availability and the use of Smart TVs and Smart TV adaptors (such as Roku and Amazon Fire TV) channel specific on-demand applications are starting to replace linear TV channels.  These apps allow consumers to watch TV content on their own terms: when, where and how they want.

– Finally, and perhaps most importantly is the amazing opportunity for growth in the International sector.  In 2014, 86% of the user base for the top 9 global Internet properties (including Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) was outside of America, with China rising fast.

Ms. Meeker believes we are at the “early stages of TV golden age with epic content creation, consumption, curation and distribution” advances leading the way.  With content from our member studios playing a vital part in this new golden age, in addition to the growth and continued innovation on the Internet, I am personally very excited to watch how things continue to evolve over the next few years.