Google Sidewiki

Remember the old days when we will refer to Wikipedia for any information? Or how many of us will actually go to a forum to get more trusted views and opinions? Now, you can get information contributed by others from your browser.

Google announced Google’s New Sidewiki’s Service, from their blog on Wednesday, 23 September 2009. While some of the Web folks are surprised to hear about this service, most of us still do not know.

Sidewiki is a universal commenting service that allows user to contribute additional information or comments about any webpage. The impact – now every webpage on the internet is “social” and consumer can have opinion on it – both positive and negative. When someone else running Sidewiki views that website, they will see your comment. Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, which you can read and write entries along the side of the page. By using Sidewiki, users are able to contribute helpful information to any web page right in your browser, read insights in context and share Sidewiki entries through Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and Google profiles. It is just like having many people researching on the same thing writing relevant notes on your notebook margin! It seems like webpage is going “social” too, where the power is shifted from marketers to consumers. Since anyone can comment on SideWiki of any webpage, companies now have to be concerned of their online reputation and monitor online conversations.

According to Google:

So instead of displaying the most recent entries first, we rank Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from you and other users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals we developed.

And Google provides much more detail here.

To learn more about Google Sidewiki, please watch the following screencast video:

In order to contribute your say on any webpage, you have to install Google Toolbar, since Google Sidewiki as a feature of Google Toolbar (for Firefox and Internet Explorer). That means if you are on Google Chrome, Safari or Opera, you will miss the Sidewiki experience. Besides, you will also need a Google account and Google profile.

Filed under Current affairs, Tech News Update | Comment (1)