Key takeaways from Mary Meeker's Internet Trends report

The social media landscape is changing, mobile growth is accelerating, and the future is wearables

KPCB partner Mary Meeker released her Internet Trends report for 2013, and here are some of the key takeaways:

Social Media

While Facebook is still in the lead, its user base is shrinking. Meanwhile, Tumblr, Google+, and Instagram made huge gains in 2012.

Photo sharing continues to be a “thing,” and while Facebook is still the dominant platform for photo sharing, Snapchat is growing rapidly. Every day, 500 million photos are uploaded and shared, and that’s predicted to rise by 2x in the next year.

YouTube isn’t slowing down. Some 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, which is up from 50 hours just two years ago. And that’s up from next to nothing in 2007.

Mobile

Mobile as a percentage of Internet traffic is growing at a rate of 1.5x per year. As of May 2013, mobile traffic accounted for 15% of total Internet traffic, compared to 6% in May 2011. And that growth is on track to accelerate.

Smartphone subscriber growth continues on at an average global rate of 31%.

And there’s still plenty of room for growth.

Wearables

The evolution of technology spells out a bright future for wearables. As Meeker points out, the average smartphone owner reaches for her phone approximately 150 times a day. But most of those activities could be hands-free, such as messaging, making a voice call, checking the time, and listening to music.

The quantified self is a growing movement as wearable sensors like the Fitbit, Nike Fuelband, Jawbone UP, and Basis track users’ health metrics. Mobile fitness data derived from wearable sensors is growing 2x month-over-month.

You can read the report in its entirety here.