Taking on Google
Yesterday, I mentioned Google’s new “Internet graffiti” project, Sidewiki.
Here’s another perspective: “Sidewiki Can KILL Your Business.”
Of course, for those of you who aren’t running businesses on the web, and just have your blog, you may be wondering how this affects you.
Well, think of all the hard work you’ve put into your blog.
Think of all the time you’ve spent getting traffic to your blog.
Think of all the effort you’ve put into commenting on other blogs in order to build a community of people commenting on your blog.
Now, imagine some big bully comes along and puts up a big sign that says “COMMENT HERE INSTEAD” and invites people to comment not on your blog but in their bulletin area instead.
Now, imagine you cannot do a thing about it. You did not invite the bully and you can not get him to leave. You’re just supposed to live with it and be happy he’s there.
What this bully is doing is siphoning off of your hard work and effort, leeching off of your traffic and using it to build his own community without even a penny for compensation to you for the blog you have built and the content you have created that gave this bully something to get people to comment on.
That’s what Google Sidewiki will be doing to your site.
Granted, Sidewiki is only (currently) accessible to Google Toolbar users. But, with the ubiquitousness of Google, how widespread do you imagine this could become? So, now someone can visit your site and, instead of leaving a comment on your site, leave the comment in the Sidewiki next to your site.
So, this user uses up your bandwidth, consumes your resource and builds Google’s community at your expense.
The only way you can respond is by getting your own Google Account (where you will have to surrender some of your personal info), installing the Google Toolbar (which will track your online activities) and using the Sidewiki tool. Now, your blog has a split community. There are those that comment on your blog and those that comment on Sidewiki.
How long do you suppose you can maintain your own community? With Sidewiki, you’ll be able to comment not only on blogs that allow comments but any website at all, even if it doesn’t allow comments. So, do you imagine that people will continue to comment directly on your blog when it may be so much easier to just use the Sidewiki that’s in their browser?
And, there you go! Forget commenting on blogs. Forget Facebook. Forget Twitter. The focus will be on Google Sidewiki. Google builds its own community at the expense of everyone else. They couldn’t buy Twitter, so instead they will try to kill its effectiveness with Sidewiki.
You see, not only can you access Sidewiki through the Google Toolbar, but Google also has made available an API for developers to build additional tools around Sidewiki.
You see what happens here? Google becomes the community. Google controls the conversation. And, Google controls the conversation not just on its own sites, but on every site on the Internet.
People used to joke about Google taking over the world. Are you still laughing?
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