Queen of the Net, Mary Meeker, presented her “Internet Trends” for the year at the Web 2.0 Summit 2011 in San Francisco earlier this month. Meeker’s vision has not changed radically from last year, with an increased emphasis on how much of the tech market is now driven by users outside of the United States. In this article, I’d like to take a look at some of her key points and investigate what they mean for emerging markets, especially within the BRICS countries.
Before we dive into the nuts and bolts of her presentation, it is worth keeping in mind that Meeker is a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. She opens her talk with a slide showing the brand names for many of the bigger projects that her company has invested in. With this in mind, one needs to remember that the hype and predictions surrounding anything she says from this point on will also be geared toward the success of the businesses that she has investment in. That said, Meeker has generally been hailed as an internet visionary by much of the financial press, and people tend to listen when she talks. You can find her slides here, and you can watch her talk on Youtube.
