amcho blog

Back in the 70s IBM was considered to be the large megacorporation that used its monopoly power in the computer market to get its own way and maximise its profits at the expense of smaller players in the market.

Then along came Microsoft – the new player in the market – they revolutionised the pc and made it accessible to everyone with their windows software. Everyone loved Microsoft!

On the back of the success of Windows, Microsoft grew large and powerful and profitable. Soon Microsoft took over as the ‘Bad Guy’. Everyone used Windows and hated Microsoft.

At the start of the 21st century Google took over the internet search market and everyone loved Google, who’s motto is “Don’t be evil”. Google became the search engine used to find information on the web. The English language gained a new verb – ‘to google’.

On the back of the success of it’s search engine Google is now growing large, rich and powerful. History seems to be repeating itself and slowly questions are starting to be asked about Google abusing its dominant position on the internet. The latest example of this apparent abuse is the release of Google’s SideWiki where anyone can post anything on any page on the web, and only Google and not the website owner has any control over what appears on his website.

For more about SideWiki please follow the links below:

Google’s own page about Sidewiki at www.google.com/sidewiki – Contribute and Publish helpful information to any web page.

Paul Myers of talkbiz.com well argued and well written article about the potential downside of Sidewiki from the point of view of website owners.

A reluctant defense of googles sidewiki from Simon Abramovitch