How useful is Google's Sidewiki?
The new feature letting users comment on any website could be big—if people figure out how to use it.
A screenshot of Google's Sidewiki
"The Internet is about to get a whole lot more collaborative," said Brian Heater in PC Magazine, "at least if Google has anything to say about it." The search and software giant is introducing a new feature, Sidewiki, that lets users post information or highlight text on any Web page. And it's releasing Sidewicki as a feature on the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox.
"It's unclear if the service will really deliver a lot of value," said Ryan Paul in Ars Technica. "After surfing around the Internet with it for a short while and looking at the annotations that have already been posted on popular websites, I have yet to see any that are really useful or substantive." Maybe most users just don't know what to post yet, so the quality of the Sidewiki content could get better.
Back in 2001, said Michael Arrington in TechCrunch via The Washington Post, a Web startup called Third Voice tried something similar, but website owners just didn't "like the idea of people 'defacing' their websites with comments they couldn't control." But that was another time—it's doubtful sites will have the same "visceral reaction" now. The real questions are "whether they can control spam, which has plagued SearchWiki," and how long it will be before Google puts ads in it.
Show: Oldest | Newest
2 Comments
Posted by James, Thursday, September 24, 2009, 4:33 pm I'm sorry, but I suspect that the Third Voice comparison is more valid than suggested above, despite the passage of time. For example, the comments on YouTube resemble some kind of Tourette's Olympics. Even the trolls on this site often stray into offensiveness. And our anonymous friends at 4chan are no doubt planning offensives into new forms of offensiveness as we read this. Lastly, imagine the law suits that will fly at Google when corporates see what people really think about their products and services... on their own sites!
Posted by Drew, Thursday, October 1, 2009, 2:14 pm It's graffiti!
Post a Comment