The article says it works with Firefox and Explorer. What about Chrome (Google's own browser)?
dcfemella
· 2 months ago
Exactly! It makes no sense that it doesn't work on Google Chrome. FireFox is slow, and IE is not even an option.
drsyb
· 2 months ago
I think it is yet another way for Google to gain the type of information that Facebook already has. When I signed up, it asked for more in-depth information to be added to my profile, where I grew up, what I do, places I've lived, etc. This type of information will surely be added to the digital identity database. It's shiny right now, let's see what happens when the glare fades.
Christopher Cox
· 2 months ago
What, no love for its own browser? =(
Lori Anne Brown
· 1 month ago
My guess is that sidewiki is going to be tightly integrated wtih google wave and probably will be added to Chrome the same time as Wave. I can see sidewiki, Wave and Friend Connect working very well together for marketing and interaction.
Ronnie
· 2 months ago
Interesting enough - why wasn't this part of Chrome?
Alex Jago
· 2 months ago
Maybe because they don't want to bloat chrome with this feature yet and google haven't yet sorted out a plugin architecture for chrome?
r0uter
· 2 months ago
I wonder if these "helpful information" submissions will be moderated.
...I only use firefox when browsing Nico Nico Douga, Because Chrome doesn't work with it, and IE only when browsing Gaia. so this doesn't Matter to me much
Arijit Das
· 2 months ago
Great News!!
SuburbanOblivion
· 2 months ago
Meh..Not very interesting.
Tom Aplomb
· 2 months ago
Google says Sidewiki will work in Chrome when Chrome supports extensions. I think they should be upgrading Chrome instead of developing new extensions for Explorer and Firefox.
Christopher Cox
· 2 months ago
Well that shouldn't be too far away now. The newest dev builds have supported extentions for quite some time now.
Tom Aplomb
· 2 months ago
Thanks, Christopher. I'm looking forward to it. I'm trying to migrate from Firefox to Chrome.
Shitij Nigam
· 2 months ago
Classic. I'm hoping they're not doing anything weird by sidelining Chrome. Let's see.
wins55
· 2 months ago
I think, it continues from Diigo?
klaus
· 2 months ago
IE8 has an amazing tool to filter gigoloogle ads psychoanalitycs ;-) Ctrl+Shift+F
Jesse Poe
· 2 months ago
We just downloaded it here at DMDxd, and are giving it a try!
Jesse Poe @DMDxd
Roger Harris
· 2 months ago
So has Google looked at Wikipedia's experience to see what the problems might be?
How are they going to ensure participation by people who have meaningful things to say about a website?
Surely among the first early adopters will be spammers who will see this as the easiest way yet to post their crappy useless links all over the Web.
Nadia
· 2 months ago
I wonder how they will moderate this?
Crier Communications
· 2 months ago
Would these comments be effective in raising SEOs or Key Words??
WisTex
· 2 months ago
Many site owners would probably install this just to figure out what other people are saying.
Murali Kumar
· 2 months ago
Really not much interesting. I still hav a lot of doubts on how it can be enjoyable. Lets wait and see. :)
again
· 2 months ago
Interesting, that's for sure.
WisTex
· 2 months ago
Just noticed that it is bundled with their Google Toolbar. If it is rolled out to all Google Toolbar users, you could see a significant amount of people using it soon.
triphen
· 2 months ago
intersting news....
thanks!
AA
· 2 months ago
Does anyone know how a website can be taken off of participating in this feature?
EricVP
· 2 months ago
Why?
AA
· 2 months ago
Why would you allow anyone to litter around your website?
EricVP
· 2 months ago
I can understand, but in reality it does nothing to your website. Once you decide to put your site out there; it is out there.
AA
· 2 months ago
>>Once you decide to put your site out there; it is out there.<<
That's not really the proper context under the discussion. However, it is true that there are tons of other similar services out there, but it is obvious that we're talking about a big giant company which has more influence than anyone else. When Google provides something, people flock to it. They should at least provide some mechanisms for website owners to opt out from leaving unwelcome comments by strangers even outside their framework.
Wouldn't this be like your city government (Google) allowing non-residents (passer by) to write graffiti around your house (website) without even asking the home owners association (your hosting service and yourself)?
Shivraj
· 2 months ago
Exactly AA. I should have control on how I present my website (or my storefront, or my front lawn) and be able to control/prevent any "grafiti". For those commenting on my website, Yelp (and likes) are doing a commendable job.
Yours Truly
· 2 weeks ago
Your thinking and metaphors are wrong. Sidewiki lets people make a comment *about* a page (or part of it).
It is just the same as comments made about something elsewhere, just that those comments are displayed alongside it.
As the site owner you can write a "sticky" comment, if you feel too exposed by the idea of comments "about" (not on) your site.
Jared Tracy
· 2 months ago
I like this. I think it coming from Google will make this more useful. I've already installed and left a couple comments on pages... I don't think sidewiki is a good name for it, since it really isn't wiki.
Timo Luege
· 2 months ago
I don't like commenting features that are only visible to some users and not automatically visible to the site owner.
DebbyBruck
· 2 months ago
Thanks Mashable. All websites going social. How will we keep up?
Rahul Agarwal
· 2 months ago
ah! it requires google toolbar. doesn't work independently :(
louiseevans222
· 2 months ago
CHECK OUT MY EFT TAPPING TECHNING ON MY BLOG....ITS A NEW BLOG SO I NEED TO WORK ON IT BUT I HOPE PEOPLE LIKE
Geoff Peterson
· 2 months ago
You're right Ben. It's not a new or innovative idea. It's been out there for awhile. This one seems really interesting though. Wondering how many people will buy-into it. I can see more comments vs. the big article like posts Google shows in the video. I also see the potential for a TON of spam.
Marcial Cambronero
· 2 months ago
I disagree with Google on this one. I don't use the Google Toolbar, so I won't know any of those comments, so I lost them. And I picked my commenting system so people can use them, why can't Google respect that?
I don't know, maybe I'm been a little bit paranoid, but I just simply don't like this new "feature"
SEO Services
· 2 months ago
Won't Google Wave make this redundant?
Marco Carag
· 2 months ago
Haven't tried this yet (actually in Opera at the moment, which is unsupported by it), but does it allow users to rate pages? It'd be interesting if wiki activity influenced Google search result rankings.
el desalmado
· 2 months ago
failG
John Mihalik
· 2 months ago
This is pretty cool!
Shivraj
· 2 months ago
Allow others to smear my website with comments that I have no control over? Helpful? Maybe not! What about Google collecting information on who the commentator was and passing it through the API! Now that is a marketing boon!!
I Can’t Tell You How Excited I Am To See Google Sidewiki’s Potential Actualized. Unfortunately, As Marketers Have Done With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, (MySpace – Remember Her?) And Every Other Facet of “The Social Web,” Sidewiki provides yet another means for those who just don’t ‘get it’ to exploit the system and barrage us with broadcast, branded, messaging.
Until now, this usurpation of online communities and the manipulation of our fundamental human desire to generate content and share information has been limited to custom-tailored (if we’re lucky) invasions of specific platforms or desperate attempts at creating their own.
Sidewiki, has, without a doubt, an enormous potential – one to utterly destroy any limitations or barriers on the “information sharing” currently allowed by the internet. We’re looking at the possible information exchange of exponential proportions. Unfortunately, I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be the tool that unlocks the whole of the internet to the pervasive, abusive tactics of irresponsible marketers.You know the type – the ones who build facebook pages that collect dust and twitter accounts that auto-follow and auto-DM promotional messaging.
I sincerely hope that Google has developed, within it’s algorithm, protection from this parasitism but I fear that these individuals, for all their irresponsibility, have one talent, namely, circumventing those protocols. Take a look at this video – What stops me from using sidewiki to just hop from site to page to blog, highlighting portions of text and promising readers further explanation, only to lead them elsewhere – a deceptive practice that seems to be aligned today’s spammy zeitgeist.
Saren Sakurai
· 2 months ago
It's a lot like the sidebar in the Zingr plug-in for FF and IE. http://bit.ly/gXgFe
pinoytutorial
· 2 months ago
I made a detailed review on this one.
Clearly sidewiki add-on is an innovative tool with dual-edge benefits.
web-publishers should have control on the type of feedback their website will receive. (allow-disallow sidewiki option)
Not sure why anyone would switch on another multi tasking, attention stealing, screen real estate using sidebar. To read others' comments? It would make sense to me to read product reviews this way but for general blah comments (without the thread order) and the inevitable brand-squatting torrents of advertising spam I don't think so...
Jason ON
· 2 months ago
I think this would be better if you had the option to just auto select the webpage (paragraph, image, whatever) and choose where to post your comment: Twitter, Blogger, FB, etc, with a link to said selection.
Having it be a permanent attachment to the website via the sidewiki viewer will result in too many companies targeting users negative feedback for lawsuits I also see organizations and individuals having to waste man-hours to monitor sidewiki feedback against their website or just their organizations in general.
For example: if COMPANY A has a PR problem and hundreds or thousands of people suddenly sidewiki negative comments or feedback about the company and not the website, then the company's reputation can be destroyed. While this happens on forums and blogs all over the web-o-sphere already, having a wiki sidebared on webpages makes it easier for COMPANY A to target either Google or the users (through profile information) for legal retribution.
For example: what if right wing Americans start going to Islamic websites and leaving racial slurs and threats?
For example: what if left wing people fanatics start leaving derogatory messages on Republican websites or Senate members personal websites?
For example: What if FOXNews has it's employees leave hundreds of comments on CNN's homepage?
Do you get the idea?
Shivraj
· 2 months ago
Absolutely Jason. Google is collecting ideas on Sidewiki at productideas.appspot.com/#16/e=219a8. (I posted mine). The question is does a website owner (or a store owner or home owner) has a right to control what is being written (or smeared) on the property. Interestingly Google talks about displaying comments based on rating on which website owner has no control.
The API will allow anyone to download all comments about a website...very invasive tool for targeted profiling (something that, according to a recent poll, 66% of Americans do not want)!
Lori Anne Brown
· 1 month ago
It does let you comment on a specific section of a page, though it seems to not work well with php pages I've noticed. On an html page, you can select text/etc and click on sidewiki to post a commong about what is highlighted. Then clicking on the comment, highlights the section it was left about for the reader.
Khaled Hakim
· 2 months ago
If you think about it, we should not be blaming Google for this add-on as much as we should be blaming Fire-fox. If Google had launched this Sidewiki as part of its chrome browser in effort to provide its OWN browser users with this special feature, that would make sense. And I'm starting to think they have not implemened in chrome just yet to keep Sidewiki unattached to the big name of Google. After all, its just a browser plug-in a this point.
I believe that whether it is Google or anyone else, this type of plug-in could have been developed by anyone. And even if Google takes it off the market, with the idea of making browsers more social, someone else will develop the same plug-in under a different name. I do understand that you need to be a Giant in order to be able to have sufficient servers to maintain such a plug-in, but trust me... someone other than Google will take up the challenge. And although Google has the reach that is needed to market such a tool much better than internet entity, the past few years are full of examples of small-time gadgets / startups going BIG.
I'm sure Google does not want a tool bar feature to threaten millions of websites online. They'll find ways to make it moderatable, or blockable even for website owners who do not want comments on their pages. I liked the Graffiti analogy.
Lori Anne Brown
· 1 month ago
Does anyone here see Sidewiki as a threat to site content?
I love the Sidewiki idea myself (and have tried addatweet and some other browser comment systems before) and love that it recognizes you as the site owner (as long as your verify your site with Google Webmaster Tools), but have been having a debate with members of a retailer association (most of whom are not overly tech saavy) I belong to who are threatening legal action against Google feeling that it steals content from their sites and will open the floodgates to "lunatics" who want to spam or slam them on their sites.
Now I do feel site owners should be able to moderate comments or at least be able to reply to them (replies is a feature overall I'd like to see in sidewiki), but I see it as a potentially great marketing tool. Yes, I'm sure there will be abusers of it just as there are of pretty much everything on the web, but I see it as an opportunity to further engage people on my site as well as building more backlinks and improve rankings since the sidewiki comments are indexed by Google.
Just wondered what Mashable readers think.
Kman
· 1 month ago
Im not sure that back links from sidewiki's count. As a matter of fact, I'm just about to Google the SEO impacts of Sidewiki!
All Comments
www.Twitter.com/r0uter
Let's see.
Jesse Poe @DMDxd
How are they going to ensure participation by people who have meaningful things to say about a website?
Surely among the first early adopters will be spammers who will see this as the easiest way yet to post their crappy useless links all over the Web.
I still hav a lot of doubts on how it can be enjoyable.
Lets wait and see. :)
thanks!
That's not really the proper context under the discussion. However, it is true that there are tons of other similar services out there, but it is obvious that we're talking about a big giant company which has more influence than anyone else. When Google provides something, people flock to it. They should at least provide some mechanisms for website owners to opt out from leaving unwelcome comments by strangers even outside their framework.
Wouldn't this be like your city government (Google) allowing non-residents (passer by) to write graffiti around your house (website) without even asking the home owners association (your hosting service and yourself)?
Sidewiki lets people make a comment *about* a page (or part of it).
It is just the same as comments made about something elsewhere, just that those comments are displayed alongside it.
As the site owner you can write a "sticky" comment, if you feel too exposed by the idea of comments "about" (not on) your site.
I don't know, maybe I'm been a little bit paranoid, but I just simply don't like this new "feature"
What about Google collecting information on who the commentator was and passing it through the API! Now that is a marketing boon!!
I Can’t Tell You How Excited I Am To See Google Sidewiki’s Potential Actualized. Unfortunately, As Marketers Have Done With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, (MySpace – Remember Her?) And Every Other Facet of “The Social Web,” Sidewiki provides yet another means for those who just don’t ‘get it’ to exploit the system and barrage us with broadcast, branded, messaging.
Until now, this usurpation of online communities and the manipulation of our fundamental human desire to generate content and share information has been limited to custom-tailored (if we’re lucky) invasions of specific platforms or desperate attempts at creating their own.
Sidewiki, has, without a doubt, an enormous potential – one to utterly destroy any limitations or barriers on the “information sharing” currently allowed by the internet. We’re looking at the possible information exchange of exponential proportions. Unfortunately, I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be the tool that unlocks the whole of the internet to the pervasive, abusive tactics of irresponsible marketers.You know the type – the ones who build facebook pages that collect dust and twitter accounts that auto-follow and auto-DM promotional messaging.
I sincerely hope that Google has developed, within it’s algorithm, protection from this parasitism but I fear that these individuals, for all their irresponsibility, have one talent, namely, circumventing those protocols. Take a look at this video – What stops me from using sidewiki to just hop from site to page to blog, highlighting portions of text and promising readers further explanation, only to lead them elsewhere – a deceptive practice that seems to be aligned today’s spammy zeitgeist.
Clearly sidewiki add-on is an innovative tool with dual-edge benefits.
web-publishers should have control on the type of feedback their website will receive. (allow-disallow sidewiki option)
hear more: http://pinoytutorial.com/techtorial/google-side...
Having it be a permanent attachment to the website via the sidewiki viewer will result in too many companies targeting users negative feedback for lawsuits I also see organizations and individuals having to waste man-hours to monitor sidewiki feedback against their website or just their organizations in general.
For example: if COMPANY A has a PR problem and hundreds or thousands of people suddenly sidewiki negative comments or feedback about the company and not the website, then the company's reputation can be destroyed. While this happens on forums and blogs all over the web-o-sphere already, having a wiki sidebared on webpages makes it easier for COMPANY A to target either Google or the users (through profile information) for legal retribution.
For example: what if right wing Americans start going to Islamic websites and leaving racial slurs and threats?
For example: what if left wing people fanatics start leaving derogatory messages on Republican websites or Senate members personal websites?
For example: What if FOXNews has it's employees leave hundreds of comments on CNN's homepage?
Do you get the idea?
The API will allow anyone to download all comments about a website...very invasive tool for targeted profiling (something that, according to a recent poll, 66% of Americans do not want)!
I believe that whether it is Google or anyone else, this type of plug-in could have been developed by anyone. And even if Google takes it off the market, with the idea of making browsers more social, someone else will develop the same plug-in under a different name. I do understand that you need to be a Giant in order to be able to have sufficient servers to maintain such a plug-in, but trust me... someone other than Google will take up the challenge. And although Google has the reach that is needed to market such a tool much better than internet entity, the past few years are full of examples of small-time gadgets / startups going BIG.
I'm sure Google does not want a tool bar feature to threaten millions of websites online. They'll find ways to make it moderatable, or blockable even for website owners who do not want comments on their pages. I liked the Graffiti analogy.
I love the Sidewiki idea myself (and have tried addatweet and some other browser comment systems before) and love that it recognizes you as the site owner (as long as your verify your site with Google Webmaster Tools), but have been having a debate with members of a retailer association (most of whom are not overly tech saavy) I belong to who are threatening legal action against Google feeling that it steals content from their sites and will open the floodgates to "lunatics" who want to spam or slam them on their sites.
Now I do feel site owners should be able to moderate comments or at least be able to reply to them (replies is a feature overall I'd like to see in sidewiki), but I see it as a potentially great marketing tool. Yes, I'm sure there will be abusers of it just as there are of pretty much everything on the web, but I see it as an opportunity to further engage people on my site as well as building more backlinks and improve rankings since the sidewiki comments are indexed by Google.
Just wondered what Mashable readers think.