- Sidewiki Screenshot
Help and learn from others a you browse is the mantra Google is propagating with its latest creation – a universal commenting system called Sidewiki. My initial thoughts were that it has introduced something like Intense Debate but that isn’t the case. Sidewiki instead is a feature on Google Toolbar that appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page.
Sidewiki lets users comment about the content of any web page they visit; the comments are then visible to other toolbar owners when they visit that site . Group product manager Caesar Sengupta tells us the company wants to “help foster and create communities around different web pages” and provide a functionality that is currently missing from most websites. (Source: Paid Content)
It was interesting to note that both Om Malik and John Battelle thought this is product that would have ideally come from Yahoo, considering its community angle which is Yahoo’s lone remaining bastion so to say.
However, I think there are some factors which make this an interesting project for Google. On one hand the only place where these sidenotes/annotations will be made available on the Google profiles of those users. So it straightaway adds value on that front and the goals Google has with the profiles project. On the other hand, it can perhaps give Google a lot of human behaviour and contextual data. It can help build sentiment analysis for searches, it can also build data for better search results.
For instance, as Google mentions in its announcement – What if everyone, from a local expert to a renowned doctor, had an easy way of sharing their insights with you about any page on the web? Consider this as an authority better than page rank on relevance of a page with the data that is sought. The authority rank can perhaps be linked from the Google profile and its pull as well.
What do you think of it? Does it fit better with Yahoo or has Google brought another great feature to the world of information.
Maneesh Madambath
Maneesh runs a digital advertising agency and dabbles in writing and designing otherwise. He has authored over
300 posts at WATBlog and shares his opinion on online advertising, social media, branding, industry analysis and occasional bits on entrepreneurship. You can follow him on Twitter at
@maneeshm or mail him at m[at]smursh.com
Google Introduces Universal Commenting System: Sidewiki
Help and learn from others a you browse is the mantra Google is propagating with its latest creation – a universal commenting system called Sidewiki. My initial thoughts were that it has introduced something like Intense Debate but that isn’t the case. Sidewiki instead is a feature on Google Toolbar that appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page.
Sidewiki lets users comment about the content of any web page they visit; the comments are then visible to other toolbar owners when they visit that site . Group product manager Caesar Sengupta tells us the company wants to “help foster and create communities around different web pages” and provide a functionality that is currently missing from most websites. (Source: Paid Content)
It was interesting to note that both Om Malik and John Battelle thought this is product that would have ideally come from Yahoo, considering its community angle which is Yahoo’s lone remaining bastion so to say.
However, I think there are some factors which make this an interesting project for Google. On one hand the only place where these sidenotes/annotations will be made available on the Google profiles of those users. So it straightaway adds value on that front and the goals Google has with the profiles project. On the other hand, it can perhaps give Google a lot of human behaviour and contextual data. It can help build sentiment analysis for searches, it can also build data for better search results.
For instance, as Google mentions in its announcement – What if everyone, from a local expert to a renowned doctor, had an easy way of sharing their insights with you about any page on the web? Consider this as an authority better than page rank on relevance of a page with the data that is sought. The authority rank can perhaps be linked from the Google profile and its pull as well.
What do you think of it? Does it fit better with Yahoo or has Google brought another great feature to the world of information.
Maneesh Madambath
Maneesh runs a digital advertising agency and dabbles in writing and designing otherwise. He has authored over 300 posts at WATBlog and shares his opinion on online advertising, social media, branding, industry analysis and occasional bits on entrepreneurship. You can follow him on Twitter at @maneeshm or mail him at m[at]smursh.comRelated Posts