Orange you glad you decided to be social?

Google's Sidewiki - How will this affect Businesses?

This is a screen shot of Socially Orange with Google's Sidewiki enabled. Have you seen Google's Sidewiki in action? If you can read the image above, you will see that I have attached a Sidewiki to Socially Orange and commented on it. If I wanted to, I could say something damaging or even lie about OSU and Socially Orange. This remains hooked to the Web site forever.

With Sidewiki, anyone can write "on" your Web page like I did in this photo. I actually deleted this Sidewiki note so it's not there anymore; but, if I wanted to, I could publish it and Socially Orange could not remove it. It doesn't matter what I say - it could be a lie or the truth. I can write anything I want to on anyone's Web page using Sidewiki.

You can also share your Sidewiki comments on Twitter, Facebook, Blogger and Google profiles.

You can "Claim" your Web site by adding a Page Owner statement that will remain at the top of the Sidewiki. You can see this on my own Web site here:

Granted, at this point, Sidewiki only shows up if you have Sidewiki installed on Firefox using a Google browser. But, if they can do that now using a special browser, what can they do in the future?

What do you think of Sidewiki? How do you think this will affect businesses? How do you think it can be used for good and bad as PR?

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Comment by Cindy Downes on October 7, 2009 at 12:59pm: I agree that disabling it is not a great idea and it defeats the whole purpose of social media; however, some people do obnoxious things for dumb reasons. That's just the facts of life. So, I was glad to find that there is a way to report malicious comments and have them removed. It is up to Google to determine whether the content is actually malicious, though. We might not always agree.

I guess it's a bit like Amazon. You publish a book and hope everyone writes good things about it, but it doesn't always happen that way.

I still think that Web sites should be a bit different in that you pay for your domain and expect it to say what you want it to say. It's like my own private property. I should not have to worry about someone posting a sign on my brick and mortal business saying I'm a cheapskate. (Of course, they could form a picket on the sidewalk . . . sounds like Sidewiki!

Comment by Emma Adair on October 7, 2009 at 12:08pm: I think the sidewiki could be pretty dangerous. If anyone can say anything, I would be so nervous every time I signed on to check my site. On the other hand, the sidewiki doesn't seem to have a lot of credibility... I mean, if I read something that someone wrote, I most likely wouldn't pay too much attention to it.

Comment by Bill Handy on October 7, 2009 at 11:30am: Great post. I like sidewiki for a lot of reasons but agree there are risks. No different than any other social media platform though.

There are ways to disable sidewiki http://code.google.com/p/sidewiki-defeat and you can even redirect traffic of those using sidewiki away from your site - although that seems to be tossing out the baby with the bathwater.

Best way to reduce your chances of someone posting mean things about you on your site - don't do anything which would promote them to do so.