Google Sidewiki - Making all websites social

Sidewiki Turning the web into a kindergarten  playground

Sidewiki  - Commenting on webs sites:
This week Google released an addition to their tool bar called Sidewiki. This allows people with a Google account to write comments about any site. Anyone with Google's tool bar and the Sidewiki plugin, can view  comments left by others. People with this add-on can post and read comments about any web page on a web site. Turning the websites into mini blogs for those who want to talk about what has been posted.

I took a quick jaunt around some sites: Glenbeck, RushLimbaugh, Obama.com, algore.com, fool.com,  perezhilton, huffingtonpost, politco, nytimes, foxnews, latimes, washintonpost, wsj and drudgereport (I picked popular, political or controversial sites figuring they are more likely to make people want to comment.) Drudge had the most comments, but they had devolved into a kindergarten shouting match of "You Stink", "Do Not", "Do To".

This is not a Surprise:
A few days before YouTube (Google) announced that their star rating system does not work. To be accurate, they said that most people rate a video when they like it (giving it 5 stars) compared to any other rating. This seems likely to carry over into Sidewiki. Those people who want to take the time to write a comment about a site (or web page on a site) are going to be those with strong opinions about the topic.

Do I think Sidewiki is going to be popular? Maybe for a few people, on a few sites, but I don't think it will take off like twitter or facebook.

Most web sites do not inspire much emotion, and therefore many people will not be motivated to post (or even read) comments. Those sites which do inspire that emotion, I fear, will have comments similar to that of the Drudge report.

For Webmasters:
Google has also given webmasters the ability to create their own comments for on a web page. These comments will be displayed above all other comments and highlighted in green.

What other issues are there:
There is the "Report Abuse" link with each post, but I wonder what happens when that link is clicked. Google says they will review the post to see if it meets the Terms of Use. What if someone claims it is slanderous? What then will Google take it down? Is there a more defined review policy? Can someone, or Google,  be sued over a sidewiki post?

Some of the sites had comments that were no more than commercials for other products. Not quite the ideal expressed by Google, were people can express their insights. (I'm cynical, soon I expect half the comments to be links to adult friend finders. But that is just my thoughts.)


If you want to spend some time and walk on the bleeding edge, then download Sidewiki and take it for a spin. Visit some of your favorite sites and see what others have to say. You could even check out my comment on this blog.

As a side note, as of today Sidewiki can not distinguish between related URLs. Visit www.drudgereport.com and there will be several comments, but if you go to drudgereport.com there are none.

Social Media - Small Business Successes

Small Business are Successfully Using Social Media.
 
Last time I posted a blog, it was about companies I thought do a good job using media to promote their business. I also promised a look at some smaller business successes, so here they are.

LocalGetaways.com -  a travel web site for the San Fransisco Bay. Part of what they did was simple in concept - but implementing it took a bit of courage. They created content about events and deals in their area, even for those not on their web site. Their Facebook page has 400+ fans, where people are discussing local travel destinations and events. Not to mention their newsletter, it tells people about hotel deals, events, and activities and suggests getaways for their base area of Northern California. The result was to generate more traffic (20K clicks in 2 months) on their web site and garnered national publicity. More information is available from this case study on inkfoundry.com.

Too Much success - zoomdweebies Tea Bar in Wichita was having business problems but because of Twitter their business grew and they needed to move into a larger place. Starting in May of 2009, they have changed their business model. They deal mostly with online customers, through their commercial web site (52teas.com), but they are open to the public Tuesdays. They regularly tweet about the entertainment each night. Their 52teas site has a facebook page with 600+fans. On their web site they discuss the previous weeks blend and post a few user's comments on their web site.

Hubspot: They are an online inbound marketing company. They promote themselves many ways using social media. They use blogs, twitter, online webinars  (I attend one Sept 10th, the slides are available here.)  They also have a WebsiteGrader.com tool, which has brought them over 450k leads.

That is all well and good for them, but what can you do to get started... Stay tuned.