Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Yours Truly — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:37:03 -0000

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.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Kman — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:49:03 -0000

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!

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Egyptian Marketplace — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:26:39 -0000

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.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Egyptian Marketplace — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:40:44 -0000

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.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Egyptian Marketplace — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:39:40 -0000

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.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Khaled Hakim — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:43:10 -0000

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.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Shivraj — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:26:54 -0000

Absolutely Jason. Google is collecting ideas on Sidewiki at productideas.appspot.com/#1.... (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)!

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Jason ON — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:53:24 -0000

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?

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

georgebaily — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:01:36 -0000

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...

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Shivraj — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:28:24 -0000

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.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Saren Sakurai — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:39:59 -0000

It's a lot like the sidebar in the Zingr plug-in for FF and IE. http://bit.ly/gXgFe

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Aerocles — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:39:45 -0000

I Just Posted About This:

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.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

jrj073000 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:08:55 -0000

This is a good idea. I think if Apple (http://adwido.com/view_cont... went to more web-based products they would be righ tup there with Google.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

AA — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:04:53 -0000

>>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)?

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

EricVP — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:54:49 -0000

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.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Shivraj — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:06:19 -0000

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!!

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

John Mihalik — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:47:42 -0000

This is pretty cool!

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

el desalmado — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:08:17 -0000

failG

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Marco Carag — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:44:03 -0000

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.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Shevonne — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:42:26 -0000

Exactly! It makes no sense that it doesn't work on Google Chrome. FireFox is slow, and IE is not even an option.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

AA — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:27:28 -0000

Why would you allow anyone to litter around your website?

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Scott Mckeagan — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:09:20 -0000

Won't Google Wave make this redundant?

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Marcial Cambronero — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:57:57 -0000

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"

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

Geoff Peterson — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:39:41 -0000

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.

Re: Sidewiki: Google’s Newest Attempt to Make the Browser Social

EricVP — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:38:52 -0000

Why?