RE: Google Sidewiki: Do [No?] Evil

Look at this from another perspective:

digg.com, mixx.com, stumbleupon, yelp.com, etc.

These are all services that are designed to talk ABOUT other destinations. In digg an mixx's case, it's websites. In yelp's case, it's real places.

The whole point is to take an asset (like a URL) and slap ratings, tags and discussions on it. You own the content because it's on YOUR site.

Now you come out with the "digg toolbar" or the "google sidewiki". How is it any different? Stumbleupon has been doing this for a long time. There's also flock and del.icio.us  .

There will always be overlap between what already exists and something "new". The google sidewiki is not "new", it just doesn't require you to go to a site like sidewiki.google.com  to talk about sites. It's right there.

The real "problem" is google toolbar, which you can argue is a native app that you've installed from Google, that can do stuff like this. So yeah, yahoo can start their own commenting service with the yahoo toolbar, and so forth. The toolbar wars happened many years ago, and the winners of those wars now have access to their users and can do "evil" things. But they are only different in the fact that they are always available, so you don't have to go to another site.

After all, you did download the google toolbar, did you not? These things are all seductive. You join facebook to keep up with your friends, and then you get all these other initiatives. Same thing here. With every company.