Forbes has a story today on Mary Meeker's annual report (link to slide deck) on trends in the Internet. Meeker is a former star equity analyst at Morgan Stanley and now at the renown venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Three slides prompted some thoughts.
The increase in student loans in the last ten years is staggering. The increase in loans is in part explained by increased costs for higher education and increased enrollment. However, the shear scale of this debt concerns me and a marked contraction in such borrowing would have significant negative consequences for institutions of higher learning.
The growth in digital information will accelerate which reinforces the point that curation of data is a huge, unheralded business opportunity. I have talked about this point many times but there is still little effort to exploit it. LinkedIn News is a simple example but this approach just scratches the surface of the opportunity.
Tablets have caught on very quickly with children, as shown below, but the key question remains. Will parents pay the iPad/mini-iPad prices, especially for younger children. A rugged tablet built for a child at a better price point still looks like an undeveloped market.