# The Internet Transformation (Talk Outline)

By [Continuations](https://continuations.com) · 2010-03-05

internet, transformation, industries

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Today at noon I am giving a talk to the Japan Business Network in New York – an informal get together organized by my brother-in-law, [Charles Danziger](http://danziger.com/danzigerusa.html).   The topic is the fundamental transformation of industries that the Internet will bring about.  I am planning to use the following outline.

Some background on [Union Square Ventures](http://www.unionsquareventures.com/)  
\- about $300 million under management across two funds  
\- invest exclusively in the Internet  
\- based in New York but national mandate (and some international investments)  
\- mostly lead first institutional round  
\- well-known investments include Twitter, Zynga, Etsy, Foursquare  
  
Fundamental USV thesis  
\- The Internet will change everything  
\- This will go on for a long time (decades)  
\- Will provide significant startup and new investment opportunities along the way  
  
First story:  Newspapers  
\- these were big and mighty businesses  
\- they existed for a long time (100+ years)  
\- highly profitable for a long time  
  
Along comes: the Internet  
  
Step 1: Unbundling of economics (online classifieds)  
\- job classifieds: HotJobs, Monster  
\- for sale: eBay  
\- dating: various sites  
\- all of the above: Craigslist  
\-> result: major source of profits removed  
  
Step 2: Unbundling of content  
\- the rise of blogs  
\- specialist publications  
\- user generated content  
\-> result: splitting of audiences  
  
Net result: newspapers everywhere are struggling  
  
Second story: Disrupting the disruptors  
  
Job classifieds: HotJobs, Monster  
\- 1:1 translation of offline model to online  
\- listing for a fee  
\- really just playing on cost advantage  
  
Along comes: Indeed  
  
Vertical search for jobs  
\- find jobs wherever they are  
\- can only be done on the Internet  
\- native revenue model: keyword advertising  
  
Third story: The new news businesses  
  
Blogs  
\- Blogs have low cost structure  
\- Many blogs don’t need to make money directly (side project, lead generation, etc)  
\- Targeting specific audiences  
\- Highly varying levels of analysis / original thinking / reporting  
  
Aggregators: Techmeme  
\- Analyze link structure  
\- Analyze social media / real-time web  
\- Run software in the cloud – all variable cost  
\- Small team  
  
Extrapolating  
\- Not just the news business – all businesses  
\- Why?  
  
Many other businesses with huge information/content components  
\- Education  
\- Healthcare  
  
Education example  
  
What about manufacturing?  
\- 3D printing  
\- separation of model making and “printing”  
\- lot size 1  
\- mass customization  
  
But goes deeper: fundamental fabric of organizations  
\- Modern corporation now > 100 years old  
\- Command and control structure  
\- Trade-off between motivation and cooperation/information sharing  
\- Transition to “small pieces, loosely joined” (like architecture of the Internet)  
  
Doesn’t stop there: governments?  
  
We are in for an exciting ride into the future.

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*Originally published on [Continuations](https://continuations.com/the-internet-transformation-talk-outline)*