Google launched Sidewiki, an add-on to their ubiquitous toolbar, which lets you “contribute helpful information to any page.” You’d think they grew horns, a tail, and started carrying a pitchfork.

Does anyone else see the irony here? Blogs & other social media tools move control of the collective conversation away from established players (corporations, governments, etc.) and give it to the individual. Now we have as much reach and influence as as multi-billion dollar corporation… in theory anyway.

But look out! Here comes Google Sidewiki!

Jeff Jarvis warns: “I have no control over the content associated with my site, essentially on my site.” He worries that someone will post negative comments. And he’s right– that will happen. But that’s beside the point.

You may own the URL, but the user owns the browser.

How about an analogy? I’ve been picketed. Seriously. The company I used to work for ran out of money and couldn’t pay vendors. Some of those vendors decided to picket. They hooted, hollered, jumped up and down, waved their signs at passing cars. It sucked.But it was a conversation that was happening about our company, right outside our doors, on public property– and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it. Think of that failed business as your website, and the sidewalk as the user’s web browser. The picketers are obviously comments in Sidewiki. Not a perfect analogy, I know. But you get the idea.

So, to those of you worried about losing control of the conversation on your websites, I suggest you heed your own advice: join the conversation and be authentic.

You never truly had control anyway.

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Posted by Seth on October 6th, 2009 :: Filed under business, geek, marketing
Tags :: Google, Jeff Jarvis, marketing, Sidewiki, social media

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I know he’s just being provocative, but I’ll bite anyway. In a recent blog post, Seth Godin says “The Internet Is Almost Full.” He goes on to say that there’s so much content out there now, we are full– our attention is full. You used to be able to stay in the know about everything that mattered. You used to be able to make an impact easily. He advises “so if you have something left to say, better hurry. Once it’s full, it’s full.” I call shenanigans.

It’s not about seeing or being or doing everything. It’s about passion.

Whether you’re creating or consuming, it’s about finding that handful of things that you can’t stop thinking about. Joseph Campbell called it “following your bliss.” 

When you’re creating (products, experiences, blogs, etc): focus. Find the things your market is passionate about– recognize the value they’re already creating– and help them on their quest for “psychological self-determination”

When you’re consuming: focus. Unless you’re god or a ninja, you’ll never be omnipresent or omnicient, so don’t even try… unless your bliss is drinking from a firehose of information, ideas, and idiocy.

One of my passions is music– listening, writing, recording. And I particularly enjoy finding new music. Let’s apply Godin’s logic to that crowded, noisy space: people have no more room in their lives for your music, young band, so you should either get in now, or not at all. Tell that to The Beatles. Or Mozart. There was already a plethora of perfectly-good music to go around when they got in the game. But that didn’t matter, because they were following their passion.

Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs happen in a crowded space.

What do you think? Is Godin right? Or is he full of it?

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Posted by Seth on December 10th, 2008 :: Filed under innovation, music
Tags :: joseph campbell, music, social media, strategy, the Internet, the support economy, the three amigos

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