This is not the only annotation service (I prefer AddATweet), but is catching most of the attention since Google’s name is attached to it.

The response to SideWiki has been very mixed. Especially small entrepreneurs seem to be worried, voicing concerns like “what if my competitors start leaving fake negative reviews”.

Here’s how I see it…

It was never your RIGHT to control comments in the first place.

The Internet enabled this and now it’s disabling the control again. In real life, you cannot control what people say about you or your business. Since the Internet makes sharing ones opinions and reviews so easy, you better make sure you adapt to it and do a great job for others and always stay ethical! If not, sooner or later you will be called on it. This is why I also think we shouldn’t worry about competitors that try to spam your site’s SideWiki with negative comments – because if that’s their business mentality, the Web will destroy their reputation.

Google SideWiki and other annotation services make a more transparent web.

For instance, go to any hotel’s website and usually you can see customer reviews. Of course the hotels moderate these reviews, but with the Internet becoming more central to our lives by its increasing mobility (laptops, netbooks, mobile devices), it will get harder and harder to rip people off by not delivering what you promise. You have to meet expectations and exceed them if you want to succeed in a transparent world.

It’s inevitable.

To be honest, I think the cries for a ‘ban’ of Google SideWiki are absolutely ridiculous and show a complete lack of understanding of the Internet. Within the next ten years, augmented reality will become common. This would let people aim the camera of their mobile device at a restaurant and instantly receive reviews in an overlay on the screen of their mobile device – but this will be possible for every and anything. For an example of this, check out Layar in the video below.

People are already leaving comments about your business in channels you don’t own or control.

For instance on Twitter. It was just a matter of time before someone brought the reviews and the subjects of the reviews together. AddATweet has doen that, which is why I prefer AddATweet over Google’s SideWiki; it combines existing social networks with annotation… plus it doesn’t require me to download some toolbar I really don’t need or want.

The problems will solve themselves.

Yes, anonymous commenters might be a nuisance, but how much weight do people really give to such comments compared to a non-anonymous comment? Also, your personality reflects in everything that you do, so if you’re a troll, people will have trouble trusting your business and they’ll leave non-anonymous comments about this through annotation services. Perhaps there are other concerns – let’s talk about them, leave a comment!

In the end, I think these annotation services will do many times more good than bad (if they’ll do any bad at all, besides create a little more clutter to sift through).

So in short, here’s how I think annotation services, like Google SideWiki, will make the world a better place:

- Increased transparency; you can no longer say A and do B. The web will catch up with you.
- Democratization; we get to say what we want, about who we want and make others listen.
- Creating conversation; this will force any business to converse with and listen to its (potential) consumers.
- Collaboration; you can leave helpful hints for others on any website. For instance, if a website is unclear, you can point others in the right direction.

So, suck it up people. You no longer control the conversation – and you never have. If you’re worried about this, adapt your business model to something more ethical and aim to exceed expectations. Be confident!

Comments? Let’s have a discussion. You can also reach me on Twitter.

UPDATE
Within minutes of posting this, somebody called “SidewikiSux” already tweeted that there’s a lot of “BS” here in his or her honest opinion. Not sure why. Figured I would share this to show the amount of animosity towards Google’s annotation service. Opinions don’t convince me, arguments do… Let’s DISCUSS like mature people.

See the post in its original format at BasBasBas.com - Serial Expat.

Why Google SideWiki is not the source of all evil – and how it will make the web a better place

I always find it really tough who to recommend, but I love the principle. That’s why I have decided to recommend some of the blogs I subscribe to so I stay in the know about developments in the (new) music business. Maybe you can recommend some to me too?

Digipendent
Looks at trends in music & the digital world.

Digital Audio Insider
Describes itself as a blog about the economics of digital music and I think that’s quite an accurate description.

Digital Music News
Definitely one of the best blogs out there on this topic! So I gave it some sweet italic loving!

Digital Noise
A CNET blog about music and technology. Hightlights lots of interesting innovative initiatives in the digital music business.

FileShareFreak
A blog about filesharing, piracy, torrent sites, lawsuits and other fun stuff.

Future of Music Coalition
A non-profit organisation looking at the future of the music business and how artists can cope with the rapid changes.

Hypebot
A blog about the new music business. Hardly misses a thing. Very impressive!

Make It In Music
Artists have to take more and more control of the tasks record labels previously used to take care of. This blog educates them on how to do that. Also interesting for people who are simply interested in the music business, but not as an artist.

me*dia*or
Kind of a monitor of the music business blogs. Everything in one place here, but I prefer visiting the individual blogs / reading their RSS feeds.

Media Futurist – Gerd Leonhard
The blog of Gerd Leonhard, who’s a media futurist. He appears to be touring constantly, speaking at conferences about technologies and how our society could adopt them. He shares many of his presentations, slideshows and ideas on his blog. Great material! Also check out the interview I had with him about the future of music distribution.

MIDEM(Net) Blog
MIDEM is one of the world’s biggest music business conferences. MidemNet is its simultaneous digital music business conference. The blog is filled with interesting analyses by industry experts.

Music Ally
The corporate blog of this digital music business information and strategy company.

Music Business and Trend Mongering
A blog about the great ideas and trends in the new music business.

Music Think Tank
Awesome blog about what works and doesn’t work (and why!) in the music industry. Highly recommended.

MusicBizGuy Speaks
A music business veteran’s view on the new music business. Very impressive track record and highly insightful articles.

Net, Blogs and Rock’n'Roll
A blog about the digital discovery of music and entertainment.

New Music Strategies
The name more or less speaks for itself. Sporadic posts, but high quality guaranteed.

P2P Blog
Lots of news about innovation in peer to peer technology.

p2pnet
About filesharing, peer-to-peer technology, RIAA madness, and innovation in the sharing of digital information.

Remix Theory
A blog about remix culture.

Rocketsurgeon’s Music 2.0 Directory
A listing of all the tools and services participating in the ‘new media revolution’. Very cool.

RouteNote’s Blog
RouteNote’s a company specializing in the distribution of artists’ music to (digital) music stores. Their blog offers a great look into the world of digital music distribution.

Techdirt
About innovations in technology and how this affects government policy and the economy around us. Probably my favourite blog of this whole list.

The Daily Swarm
A bit like me*dia*or, in the sense that it aggregates content from other places and links back to the full articles. Sometimes they catch something I had missed, so I try to keep up with them as much as I can.

The Forrester Blog for Consumer Strategy Professionals
Not necessarily about the music business, but definitely gives great insight into marketplaces that are changing because of technology. These guys are really on top of the trends and give valuable insights into them.

TorrentFreak
Another favourite blog. They ask some very tough questions to the music business about how they deal with filesharing. Also has a lot of news about torrent trackers, politics, what’s hot in the filesharing networks, and much much more.

TuneCorner
TuneCore also specializes in distributing signed artists’ music to digital music stores. On their blog, great tips about music and technology, insights into the new music business, and how to use the web to your advantage.

Wired | Music
Wired is a technology news website and has a music section too. Great read! They have a very talented staff.

ZeroPaid
Another (good) blog about filesharing.

What are blogs you would recommend? Did I miss any good ones?

See the post in its original format at BasBasBas.com - Serial Expat.

Follow Friday: blogs that keep me up to date on the new music industry

I submitted it to Techdirt, probably my favourite technology blog, where Mike Masnick blogged about it. This blog post was then mentioned in the daily newsletter of the ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

It was also posted to the great Make It In Music blog, as a guestpost. Students of the music business course at the NYU were given this paper to read. Someone is even making a Spanish version of it to increase the reach of the paper, especially in Latin America. Thanks Pp! I’ve also been spreading it around LinkedIn with some pretty good results.

Wow!

To be honest, part of the strategy of my thesis was to build some momentum, release it, make it go viral and brand myself as an expert on this topic, but even this paper is making some ripples.

The ironic thing is that in the paper I say that giving away something of value for free can be a great promotional tool… especially if what you’re giving away is easily reproduced and easy to share. The reception of the paper proves exactly that.

Extremely motivated to get that thesis done asap and start utilizing the momentum I’ve built! More soon!

P.S. If you’d like to read the paper, click here for the PDF.

See the post in its original format at BasBasBas.com - Serial Expat.

Reception of my paper about online promotion of new music

It looks at artists like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, Mos Def, and Groove Armada, and analyzes what they’ve been doing right and wrong and why they’ve been doing it in the first place.

So while you wait for the thesis and the launch of FutureOfMusicDistribution.com, how about going through this 20 page paper?

To download and read the whole paper, just use this link:

http://www.basbasbas.com/online_promotion_of_new_musical_content-Bas_Grasmayer.pdf

And feel free to redistribute it, it’s licensed under a Creative Commons license!

Love,
Bas

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Best practices of the online promotion of new musical content

If you’re following this blog, I bought them. Not just that, I even started a site dedicated to barefoot lifestyle. I’ve become convinced that going barefoot is a very interesting experiment (plus it feels great) and that it’s an upcoming trend. Why? Well, I ended up buying the Vibram Five Fingers. When I first saw them, I ridiculed them, more or less like everybody else. However, I bought these shoes for a great reason and my reasons make sense (you can read about this on my Squidoo lens). The product itself catches the attention of people, just before they start ridiculing it. I’m quite evangelical about my choice though (as with all my choices), so once I have their attention, I explain WHY I bought it, creating interest. Suddenly I find people quite open about  the shoes and suddenly not ridiculing them anymore. As a matter of fact, they’ll start asking questions instead.

That’s the positive side of the experience. The other is a lesson. If you’re going to start barefoot running (or using minimalistic, barefoot simulating shoes, like the Vibram five fingers), then START SLOW. Imagine how slow you should start. Then HALF that. I normally do a 2 kilometer lap every two days or so. Just a 10 minute run, because I enjoy it. So when I went to try out the shoes, I loved the new way in which I was running. I ran about half and walked the other half, but I overdid it. Next day: terrible muscle ache. Day after that: STILL terrible muscle ache.

Really, do yourself a favour and start slow! But not before doing yourself a bigger favour: go barefoot!

See the post in its original format at BasBasBas.com - Serial Expat.

Ouch, my calves! (A lesson about barefoot running)

It’s not just this case that makes me wonder, but also the fact that Dutch ISPs are required to store the surfing history of their clients for 12 months. They are required to keep a whole list of information, which can be seen at the previous link. Since I don’t trust my backwards, Christian democrat government with my data, let alone the possibility of a right-wing extremist gaining access to it after the next parliamentary elections, I decided to look into proxies.

Then I realized something. Monitoring users and infringing on their privacy, but especially restricting a medium like the internet, turns users into hackers. For instance, a lot of kids are fascinated by hackers – not just because of the picture Hollywood paints of them, but also because they face a lot of restrictions on the internet. Filters on their computer or browsers at home, even worse filters at libraries or their schools, etc. So they figure out how to dodge these filters.

It’s no coincidence that in countries like Iran, or China, which have some of the most restricted internet connections in the world, there are very high amounts of hackers. This should be a warning to those trying to control the flow of information on the internet by banning sites: we, the Internet users, will become better at dodging your filters and will become even less trackable than we are now.

What this means to the content industries (movies, music) is that right now there’s a huge database of information on the use and downloading of music. If the ‘pirates’ weren’t so scared of the industries, they wouldn’t be so anonymous and the information would be even more useful for things like testing popularity of music, but also marketing music to the right people.

Another example are the recent calls in Germany to block right-wing extremist websites. The problem with this is that it will only drive this movement underground, making it harder to track them and to prevent hate crimes. They’re already getting more internet savvy. Instead of spending so much time discussing how they can censor such websites (which will NOT decrease the amount of people with right-wing extremist tendencies), maybe they should look at how they can profile different types of people that fall prey to extremist thoughts and think of ways to integrate them into society, instead of alienating them further and making them more extreme.

By blocking our access, we’re turned into hackers. We go underground. At that point, you lose your opportunity to monetize or to influence us via our favourite medium. You’re not disconnecting us from our favourite sites, you’re disconnecting yourself from us.

Image by LShave, shared under a Creative Commons license on Flickr.

If you liked this post, consider subscribing to my RSS feed (Firefox users, check out Feedly) or follow me on Twitter @Spartz.

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Training Our Kids to Be Hackers

It started with a review on CrunchGear. It’s basically about a type of shoe that wraps around every toe and why it’s so great for running. The article argued that we’re natural long distance runners and that before we had weapons, we’d chase animals for such lengths of time and distances that the animals would collapse after which we could kill them and eat them. This is no longer necessary for us in the west (both the running great distances to get food and the killing animals to use their meat for survival), but it doesn’t take away the fact that we have evolved as long distance runners.

Next I looked at a book called Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen which is in part about athletes that run ultramarathons, which are 40 miles instead of 40 kilometers. One of these athletes joins a tribe of Native Americans in Mexico who are known for their long-distance running abilities.

Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence.

So the author trained with them and he learned a great deal. The Tarahumara Indians run barefoot, which apparently means less injuries and better running. Why? Modern shoes apparently cushion our heels so that we start running on our heels, sending shocks up our ankles, knees, hips and spines. Man is not supposed to run this way naturally, but instead we’re supposed to use the balls of our feet. We’re endurance runners by nature.

So I explored if there were any famous athletes that are barefoot runners and one story in particular amazed me. It’s the story of Abebe Bikila, an Ethiopian athlete who was the first black African to win an Olympic gold medal and the first athlete to winning the Olympic marathon twice. The first time he was a bit late with picking out his shoes and the pair he had were uncomfortable, so he couldn’t run a marathon with them. He decided to run barefoot, since that’s how he had practiced in Ethiopia anyway and he ended up breaking the world record. Four years later, just before the Olympics, Bikila had a case of acute appendicitis and was operated on. He then started practicing again almost immediately and won the marathon a second time.

There’s surely something to be said for barefoot running. We are born as barefoot endurance runners, with tons of nerve endings in our foot to give us stimuli and instincts to help us interpret and act according to the stimuli. Now I want to start trying it out… I’m sure my neighbours must think I’m crazy running through their street on my bare feet, but not as crazy as if they’d see me in those shoes. I could always cycle a bit out of town of course.

Love running? What do you think? Ever seriously tried barefoot running? What are your experiences? Will you consider barefoot running?

By the way, in case you didn’t check out the link to the book I mentioned, you really should. Read the description and the interview with the author, it’s so fascinating. This will be the next book I buy!

See the post in its original format at BasBasBas.com - Serial Expat.

Ugly Shoes, an Ethiopian Hero, and a Mexican Tribe of Long Distance Runners

What does this verdict change though? Internet users can make TPB’s servers think they’re not in The Netherlands simply by using a proxy. The less tech-savvy users can simply use one of The Pirate Bay’s clones. Those that are getting paranoid can be relieved that people are constantly working on increasing the quality of filesharing and making it harder to track (see this article about HydraTorrent, which, by the way, has already copied all of TPB’s torrents). Now that The Pirate Bay is gone, will the market for music in The Netherlands suddenly be a little bit bigger? No, no, no. Only the lawyers are profiting from this.

So what does it achieve? It makes it easier for people to get websites banned if they disagree with the content. The Pirate Bay doesn’t host any copyrighted content, it links to it. It also hosts a lot of legal content, I personally use it to distribute my DJ sets, so thanks BREIN for killing one of my best distribution channels.

While living in Turkey I witnessed horrible web censorship. I couldn’t use YouTube, one of the most popular sites on the web, unless I used a proxy or some other workaround that simply kills the user friendliness. Why was YouTube banned? Because the Turkish government didn’t like the content of one of the movies on YouTube, because it was against the law in Turkey. When YouTube didn’t remove it, the government had ALL of YouTube blocked via the courts. For years! In an older post I already mentioned that the whole YouTube ban is pointless anyway. Research in Alexa.com’s traffic ranking system has shown that YouTube is the 10th most popular site in Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan surprised everyone when he stated that even he uses YouTube.

Not only was YouTube banned, at some point ALL of blogger/blogspot was banned, because some blogs contained copyrighted material. The website of atheist Richard Dawkins was blocked, because somebody found it to be offensive.

In Holland, blasphemy is also illegal, so is disturbance of the peace, or insulting people. These could all be precedents to take down websites now that that door has been opened. Tim Kuik is proud, but he’s only keeping lawyers paid and limiting the freedoms of the citizens of The Netherlands.

The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde wants to appeal, but they’re looking for a lawyer that can do the job for free, since they’re out of money. Besides that, they’re suing Tim Kuik for slander, because he accused them of hacking BREIN’s website, which was a hoax by the way, BREIN was never hacked.

Help us out. Spread the word. Understand that blocking sites like this does not help artists make more money, it only helps LAWYERS make more money. When they killed Napster, 10 things came in its place. There is no more stopping it. The business model needs to change. That’s the only way.

Besides that, don’t buy from artists that support this. I personally won’t buy anything anymore from any artist supporting or represented by BREIN. Especially artists shouldn’t align themselves with freedom-infringing practices like this. Art is about expression, not repression and free expression only happens in free environments.

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What the Ban of The Pirate Bay could mean for The Netherlands

Awesome, I know. Go check out YearBookYourself, upload your pic and see what you would’ve looked like anywhere from the 50s to the 2000s, with a 2 year interval. Share the results! (on your blog or in the comments! )

See the post in its original format at BasBasBas.com - Serial Expat.

So this is what I would have looked like in the 80s

Don’t even mention us again, Billyboy.

Thanks @panciuc.

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Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption