It may be a little disconcerting to see Google Sidewiki entries from people you don't recognize on your Facebook | Home page. Don't worry, the people shown in Sidewiki entries (like this one) don't really have access to your Facebook | Home page (or any other Facebook page) unless you have explicitly granted them access.

Also, use caution when posting new Sidewiki entries on a Facebook page. All Sidewiki entries are PUBLIC, and are not in any way controlled by Facebook permission settings.

The idea of web annotation has been around for a long time.  In a nutshell, a web annotation is user contributed information that can be added, updated, or removed from an existing web resource (typically a web page) without modifying the original resource.  Much the the way you might annotate a book or printed document using little yellow sticky notes, you might annotate a web site using web annotations.

Over the years, there have been many web annotation product/service offerings (e.g., see Web Annotation And Markup - Tools And Services: A Mini-Guide).  Today, the newest incarnation was released by Google.

The latest Google Toolbar (for Firefox and Internet Explorer, Chrome in the works) includes a new feature called "Sidewiki" that lets you contribute information next to any webpage.

Google Sidewiki presents annotation entries as a browser sidebar, where you (and anyone else using Google Toolbar) can read and write entries along the side of the page.

This is really cool technology.  I think the Google engineers, once again, have done a bang up job.

But... how carefully has Google vetted the idea?  Is this going to be good for the Web?  Is this going to be good for site owners?  Is the net impact more good than evil?

I am a long time proponent of the semantic web, knowledge management, information enhancement and discovery.  Almost a decade ago, I was chief architect on Starbase's Elmer project, focused on doing exactly this within corporate information assets.  Five years ago, I blogged about the critical importance (I called it a "holy grail") of effective knowledge capture, persistence, enhancement, and transfer.  From this perspective, Google's new Sidewiki is a very cool advancement.

But I have also spent much of the last five years working in the world of online content publishing, social media, search engine visibility, content discoverability, SEO, and so on.  From this perspective, I'm not sure I like Google Sidewiki at all.

In the Web 2.0 world, content is king, but conversations are queen.  Fresh, relevant, discoverable content is foundational for almost every modern online initiative.  And building on this foundation, is the value created by cultivating relationships with people drawn to that content.  Google Sidewiki has the potential to greatly interfere with an organization's ability to build online value in this way.

The first problem is that Google will begin to amass user generated content (UGC) in the form of annotation entries that would otherwise have accrued as assets to the site owner in the form of comments, forum entries, blog posts, and so on.  Remember, content is king and Sidewiki provides a content siphon that moves content from an organization to Google.

Next, Google is injecting itself into the conversations and dialogs among the organization's online community.  Not only does Google own these conversational assets, it controls how, when, and where these assets are presented.  For example, Google states:

"In developing Sidewiki, we wanted to make sure that you'll see the most relevant entries first. We worked hard from the beginning to figure out which ones should appear on top and how to best order them. So instead of displaying the most recent entries first, we rank Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries."

Further, Google may decide to take annotations from one organization's web site and attach it to the web site of a completely different organization:

"Under the hood, we have even more technology that will take your entry about the current page and show it next to webpages that contain the same snippet of text."

In short, Google is moving to become the owner and arbiter of web conversations.  This feels, to me, as though it is failing the "do no evil" test.

And there's another important point that should not be lost in all of this.  Specifically, if you're not using the Google Toolbar, you can't participate in these Sidewiki conversations.  So, the more successful Google becomes in siphoning UGC into Sidewiki (and away from an organization's domain), the more an organization's audiences will bifurcate into those that can see Sidewiki and those that can not.  And, of course, the more pressure there will be on users to install the Google Toolbar.  Again, this seems to be failing the "do no evil" test.

There is still one more important issue to think about here.  Google Sidewiki will create a whole new industry for spammers.  In the same way that comments, forums, and other UGC mechanisms provide spammers ways to publish their garbage on an organization's site, Sidewiki will also become a target for spammers.  (And with Google's intent to present entries across multiple sites, it could be a very, very attractive target.)  But unlike conventional UGC mechanisms that can be moderated by each organization, Sidewiki provides an organization with no moderation or opt in/out controls.  So, let the spammer arms race begin.

I'm a big Google fan.  But I think, in this case, they may have been overly excited about the (admittedly very cool) technology and overlooked some of its implications.

There's something about medicine and health care that have a way of stirring up emotions.  When I was growing up, my dad was the director of International Marketing for Upjohn Pharmaceuticals.  Our close family friend and next door neighbor was the president of one of the largest insurance companies.  My uncle and godfather was an eye surgeon and a hospital owner.   Fortunately, all three were great friends—and very diplomatic.  But the dinner conversations were—educational, to say the least.

In general, I've been pretty quiet about the current health care debate, with the exception of letting my various representatives know what I want them to do.  But today, my brother-in-law, Dennis McCarthy, who is one of the smartest guys I know, reminded me how even the experts can get confused.

Dennis posted a Facebook link to A second opinion on death totals for the uninsured that seems to suggest that whether or not one has health insurance makes no difference—that either way, one gets the care he or she needs.  The report looked at an earlier study that suggested as many as 22,000 people die annually in the U.S. for lack of health insurance.  But recently, Richard Kronick published a paper that challenged these findings.  The basis for the challenge

... is that Kronick adjusted [the data] for a number of demographic and health factors, such as status as a smoker and body mass index. When he did that, "the risk of subsequent mortality is no different for uninsured respondents than for those covered by employer-sponsored group insurance."

This brings to mind a wonderful quote by H. L. Mencken: "There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong."

It is easy to argue almost any point you want to make if you use a simplistic model of reality.  The idea that there is an independent, Boolean variable—isInsured—at play here is just too simplistic.  Even Kronick himself quickly adds that his conclusions are "counterintuitive" and points out that "... the difficulties of inferring causality from observational analyses temper the strength of this conclusion."

For example, is insurance status really independent of smoker status and body mass index?  Might it be that regular preventative doctor visits (which uninsured generally do not experience) have some influence on smoker status and/or body mass index?

But, for me anyway, the issues run much deeper than whether or not mortality rates are independent of insurance status.  Even assuming that they are independent (which I doubt), quality of life is very much affected by the nature of health care one has available.

As a parent of three kids—one of whom is denied insurance based on a pre-existing condition (for which our nation's finest doctors at The University of Michigan Hospitals, The National Institutes for Health, and elsewhere can't even agree on the diagnosis, or even if there is definitively a long term problem)—I have given this matter a great deal of thought.   Fortunately, in our case, Carol and I are able to provide health care for ourselves and all of our kids, though at considerable expense.  But what about people that don't have the resources we have?  To bad, so sad?  Go to an emergency room whenever you have a problem?  (And forget about any preventative care?)

In my view, that is not moral.

In my view, quality health care, including preventative care, is a human right.  Just as is the right to not be a slave, to live in safety, etc.  I realize that some people may not agree with me on this, but nevertheless, I chose to believe it is—to define it as—a fundamental human right.

Still, I'm not a socialist.  Far from it.  I am an entrepreneur who has started a number of businesses and who as made a very good living.  I believe that health care workers—doctors, nurses, PAs, etc.—should make a very good living as they provide a very valuable service.  But, profiteering on a fundamental human right is wrong.  In addition, our current system is failing economically.  If you compare our per capita health care costs with any other industrial nation, we are way out of line—often more than double what the "socialists" experience and we are doing a terrible job of providing preventative care for many of our citizens.  We can do much better.

One of my friends has insurance; he is not one of the "40 million."  He'll be 51 in a few days and has yet to have a colonoscopy because his insurance won't cover it (in other words, has rationed his care).  And this despite the fact that his father died of colon cancer.  He is currently underemployed and cannot afford to pay for it himself, nor can he walk into an emergency room and get it.  But if he gets cancer, he will receive some emergency care.  This is not a good system.

This is a messy, complicated problem.  And it is made worse by the fact that enormous (and enormously powerful) institutions already exist that are precisely in the business of profiteering on health care.  But because it already exists, does not make it right.

Almost a year ago to the day, I blogged:

"Google's new browser looks to me to be a textbook example of disruption in the making."

While a few folks agreed at the time, most of the feedback was unsupportive of the idea—"Ho-hum", "Not quite", "just another me too".  This prompted me a few days later to say in another post:

"Most techno-geeks think Google Chrome was stillborn; I think they are missing the longer view."

Well, I still see Google Chrome as a disruptive technology that's been hiding in plain sight.  And disruptive technologies have a way of sneaking up on established markets, even when they see it coming.

Over the past year, Chrome has been rather quietly collecting market share—roughly 2% so far.  With yesterday's announcement that Sony will ship all Vaio PCs in the U.S. with Chrome as the default browser, it is clear that Google is serious about playing in this space.  There's no doubt that Microsoft, Mozilla, and the other browser makers have been paying attention.  Now, as this FOX video shows, even the mainstream media is paying attention (even if they do think Bing is a browser.)

My opinion from a year ago remains unchanged:  Chrome will not "kill" IE, nor will IE squash Chrome.  But, Chrome will likely change the browser landscape... and it might significantly change it.

via @pzmyers