Side Wiki Graffiti
Google enabled graffiti is coming to the web. What does this mean for your web based business? Photo by Clav
What is sidewiki?
Sidewiki is a service offered by Google that is included in their Google Toolbar product. It’s positioned as a service that enables users to “contribute helpful information on any web page. How side wiki works is insert a layer on top of the website where users can drop in comments.
It’s not graffiti though is it?
Graffiti is typically defined as any images, lettering that is scratched, painted, or marked in any manner on property; with the implication that it is property that is owned by another party.
What Google is doing is enabling all of its users to create digital graffiti that changes the way everyone with this service enabled experience on the website. This really isn’t that much different than spray painting the side of a building except that users have to opt-in to see it.
photo provided by lorelei
Business Implications
I would expect most any site that doesn’t derive its revenue/traffic from user based activities to be a little nervous. This includes anyone who has an eCommerce portal, any corporate websites, and bloggers.
While there are a lot of positives to enabling your audience to play a bigger role in advocating your product, unfortunately we’ve all seen internet flame wars. The scary thing here is its Google not the site owner that determines the relevance of comments, as well as if a comment should be taken down.
Steps businesses can take
First off shore up your branding, make sure you’re speaking to your core audience and building trust, and a bond that will put them on your side. By doing this you can eliminate a majority of the exposure to negative public commentary.
Enable your own controlled feedback loop, be innovative. It could be adding a comments section, or creating a direct pipeline between the audience and a site admin/public relations person. Having a brand presence in the form of an evangelist or community activist goes a long way towards taking charge of the discussion and keeping it on point.
In addition to these steps you can also join the side wiki fray. You can find steps to do this here.
Conclusion
As a site owner myself, I find what Google is doing to be very intrusive, it’s not unexpected though as we’ve seen things like YouTube and or Google News aggregator which directly attacked the value a content owner held. Google pushes the envelope on ownership of content because their business model makes money off of free information.
I really wonder how far side wiki will go. Can Google insert advertising into it? If so we may see a time where bloggers and other advertising based websites may run into significant pain with their current business model as it bumps up against Google’s.
I am interested in your comment that “Google not the site owner that determines the relevance of comments”.
One review by Terrance O’Brien summarized the service:
“Available through the Google Toolbar, Sidewiki allows users to post and read comments about any Web site, or even attach the comments to specific content on a Web page. The comments will appear in a sidebar in the browser alongside the Web page (check out the video after the break). The hope is that visitors will use their expertise and knowledge to add valuable information to existing content on Web sites.
Google wants to differentiate the feature from existing commenting platforms by using its expertise to rank comments based on usefulness and quality. You’ll be able to read comments in order of rank (based on user feedback, the user’s reliability on other entries and “other signals”). Additionally, all comments will be connected to a Google profile to dissuade people from posting questionable or offensive content because of anonymity”
To that, I would add Doc Searles’ comments:
“All of which I agree with—provided there are conventions on the creators’ side that give them means for clarifying their original authorship, and maintaining control over that which is undeniably theirs, whether or not it be called a “domain”
“Nobody’s forcing anybody to use Google, Mozilla, any of their products or services, or any of the stuff anybody adds to either”
First, nobody is forcing you to use Google. While they are the dominant search engine out there, there are plenty of alternatives. If you are personally offended by the notion of Side Wiki, then simply do not use the Google toolbar. I happen to hate the toolbar and would never have this problem.
Secondly, they are not able to deface the original content. Your web site is displayed right next to the user-supplied comments. If they were changing the original content, then perhaps your argument would hold have merit. As it has been described on the site, it is about as annoying as any other spam pop-up box.
Third, you would have to have an attractive target. Microsoft and Apple would have a much bigger concern then the mom-and-pops microbrewery or even your site. If someone were interested in defacing your site, they would simply leave an offensive message in a posting. If you censored it, then you would be just as guilty as your suggestions on Google. People would simply stop posting and go elsewhere for their dialog.
Fourth, Google has built its reputation on being the trendy search engine that everybody uses. While it can be debated on whether or not they edit the results of the search, the fact remains that all of the search companies edit their results including the rarely used new kid on the block, Microsoft Bing. If Google started censoring these user comment boxes, the college students of the world who would potentially use this thing (their target audience) would cry foul and it would fade into obscurity (joining a number of other failed Google products). It would be like someone censoring YouTube or FaceBook comments. Once someone caught you doing it, the users would go elsewhere for their services.
Finally, when making a decision, how much do you weigh user comments? If you are thinking about a travel site (as suggested in these articles) then you may have a serious problem, but on a marketing blog such at this? Not as much.
So to recap:
• You have to have the Google toolbar installed (minority of users)
• Your site must be of interest to someone who is bent on defacing it or bad-mouthing your product
• Littler targets are more of a nuisance then an interest. Business and scholarly sites, such as this one, would probably not fall on the radar of someone interested in causing mischief
• Travel or hotel sites may have a valid concern. That is a minority of the entire web content out there
• Every one of these organizations filter results, so you have to point the finger at the whole industry, not just this one organization
Nick, I think we can put away the duct tape and plastic wrap. This product is simply too irrelevant for you, or just about any other blog site, to waste your time on. Instead, embrace the technology as you have with twitter. This is simply another way that you can use to promote your site. Even if someone would post negative things out on this service, it would drive traffic to your site. This may result in more legitimate posters. Furthermore, Google cannot change the original content, so your thoughts will still be preserved in their original state.
Given your blog focus, you simply cannot lose on the deal.
References
Google
http://www.google.com/sidewiki/intl/en/learnmore.html
Searles
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2009/09/30/whose-sidewiki-are-you-on/
Looking at a product that has a potential to significantly dilute a brand to me is definitely worth considering. Now maybe there isn’t any impact on a site like mine with very little traffic or revenues to date, but that’s not the entire scope of my concern.
Earlier today I was looking for a McDonalds “I’m loving it Commercial” in a side conversation about the ethnicity statistics in McDonalds ads, the recommended first hit was Andy Dick protesting for PETA outside a McDonalds with a butcher knife and bloodied up as Ronald McDonald. That is a very scary proposition when Google decides what is relevant in such a manner, and this is apparantly their best hit.
Just because side wiki is small now doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be a concern for internet marketers, and branding people.
There is an internet hate site for just about any company or brand that is out there. I looked on facebook and typed in I Hate (insert top 10 fortune 500 companies) and 9 had groups dedicated to hating them.
Additionally there is something to be said for the nature of what they’re doing vs. copyright. Google has always stretched the line of what is allowed with copyrights, reprinting entire newspaper articles on their site, hiding behind DMCA, and now things like this where they actually can literally create a way to deface a public work on your site. Sure maybe only some people see it, but the fact they control the content and what is done there is definitely a problem in my eyes.
What if I don’t want my site to enable this kind of commentary? What if it disrupts my artistic integrity? Looks like it’s time for a blog post on the securities afforded us by copyright law.
BTW here is the Andy Dick video that popped up when I asked for McDonalds Commercials
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqEyt9REGDI
Yeah I’m sure McDonalds was happy about this being so damn relevant.
But back to my point. The average web browser experience is loaded with such pop-ups, and we have come to ignore them. For example, I hit CNN.com, and a bunch of advertisements for Netflix comes up. Then I hit your site, and those same advertisements are hovering to the right side of your content. Does that mean I equate the Netflix ad with your site? There is another academic wiki site that I use that opens new windows in a frame. As a result, I could send a screenshot of your content sitting next to an academic paper about Hitler. Does that mean you are a Nazi? Of course not.
The key point is does Google (or Microsoft, or Yahoo, or any other site of similar nature) change the original content? The answer is no they do not. Having Andy Dick hanging out to the left of my screen is just about as relevant as having Vince from Slap Chop rapping to the right of the content. When (not if) they start changing the content of the original material, then I am all in with you. As the tool stands now, it is simply another internet pop-up. We all have software to take care of that menace.
Finally, please address my other main point. Not everyone uses that Google toolbar, myself included. If they wanted to track your activities, that is an excellent way to to do it. I would find a discussion on the ethics of THAT part much more important then this trivial little pop-up tool that probably nobody of interest is actually using.