Google Unknowingly Creates Secret Society
- by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, October 13, 2009
The Internet has a secret society. Anyone can join. It supports hidden messages. Those who want to belong need only download and install a special toolbar from Google that works in either Firefox or Microsoft Explorer (IE).
The toolbar, called Sidewiki, which launched in September, provides a venue for venting and posting derogatory comments on virtually any Web site that only those who install the toolbar can read. And although many realize that Google never intended that the toolbar be used for evil, some believe the Mountain View, Calif. company's innovation could create a nightmare for marketers and Web site owners if they choose not to download and install the tool.
iCyte CEO Stephen Foley says it's like painting on someone's front door. The homeowner cannot do anything to prevent the damage, but uses their marketing dollars and time to clean up the mess. "Some might ask, well, can't we just have transparency?" he says. "In this case, transparency has a deeper meaning. It means you have to declare your position. There are so many ways people can misuse this tool."
There are plenty of examples posted on Web sites across the Internet. Take the post on goisrael.com that Foley took a snapshot in iCyte and saved. It reads "Yes, you too can join a country that has the highest abduction rate of female sex slaves in the world. Mossad doesn't care so why should you! Regular Jews lived in peace with their Muslim friends until the Ashkenazi Zionist arrived."
Or the entry about Sarah Palin that reads: "Here is a moose shooting woman who knows nothing about the world stage and her own videos prove it! We do not need any SNL script to dig Palin a new grave as she makes her own grave deeper and deeper and the only people who follow her are soap opera basement girls and gay men and people who are members of some weird cults."
Google stands by the claim that employees have worked hard from the start to make sure users only see high-quality relevant entries in Google Sidewiki, according to a Google spokesperson. "Rather than ordering entries chronologically, we use a unique algorithm that incorporates various signals about the entries to rank them in terms of usefulness," the spokesperson says. "The signals include language modeling for the text, and information we know about the author, such as the quality of past Sidewiki entries he or she has written."
The community using the tool monitors Sidewiki entries by voting up content that is useful and informative, and voting down irrelevant or unhelpful posts. Similarly, the community can flag any illegal, pornographic or copyrighted content by using the "Report Abuse" button.
Google also gives site owners who have claimed their site in Google Webmaster Tools the ability to post a special entry that appears above all other entries in the Sidewiki sidebar. It's intended to introduce people to their page or to respond to posted entries.
Foley doesn't believe that's enough. He wrote a post in Google Sidewiki on Microsoft's Web site titled "Has Google Started a War?" that discusses the ramifications of competitors taking swipes at each other's Web sites, fundamentalists damning each other, and jilted lovers making their notes on the senior partners profile. "Oh, and do you think voting this down will help?" he writes. "We will just all head to the last Sidewiki to see where the dirt is. I am sorry Google but you are on a course of self destruct on this one."
Today, Foley's post ranks No. 24 with the highest positive score, but yesterday it ranked No. 1.
Foley's post on Microsoft was just the beginning. Now he wants Google to change its policy and provide opt-in/opt-out features. It would allow owners to block anyone from posting comments on their Web site. So, he's building a Web site set to launch at the end of the month. It will contain a petition asking the search engine to reorganize Sidewiki and make it an opt-in process.
Nothing is new.
Why dont you search for "Third Voice", this isn't the first time something like this has been done.
Or are you under 30 and think this is ground breaking?
Cheers,
Dean Collins
www.Cognation.net
Foley seems upset, but I wonder if it's because his business model in unraveling because Google is giving something away for free. Again.
It seems as if Foley's sidewiki entries have been either deleted on the pages referenced or Microsoft and IBM have found a way around the issue. While I found them on his google profile (http://www.google.com/profiles/foley.sj?hl=en#sidewiki), I cannot see the sidewiki entries in the sidewiki panel.
What part of Sidewiki leads you to argue this is Google "unkowningly" doing anything?
As Dean Collins mentioned,
"Third Voice Trails Off....
Aparna Kumar 04.04.01
Eng-Sion Tan had an idea he believed would promote freer speech on the Internet.
In 1999, he and two colleagues launched Third Voice, a free browser plug-in that allowed Web surfers to annotate any site with their comments. The idea was to spark "inline discussions" among Web users, promoting a new civic mindedness that would keep corporations, government and the media honest.
But the seemingly innocuous "sticky notes" gained enemies quicker than users. Launching a grassroots campaign called Say No to TV, some 400 independent Web hosts banded together to gag Third Voice, which they likened to "Web graffiti."
Nearly two years later, it would appear that the group got what it wanted. On Monday, Third Voice posted a short message on its site, notifying users that the service had been discontinued." - From Wired - http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2001/04/42803
Also, let's not forget the Firefox pugin Add-A-Tweet, http://www.addatweet.com that allows annotation to anywebsite and uses twitter to communicate it.
The lessoned learned, if you are a company, you need to stay focused on the latest technology and be prepared for the worst while at the same time stay focused on your strategic plan.
@dmgerbino
http://idme.to/killwiki
I think these simple scripts etc work to defeat Google Sidewiki comments on your site.
I think critics of Sidewiki just don't get social media. Wikipedia has had its share of problems and bad press, but it is one of the top five websites online. Why? Because the community finds value in its content, and the community polices itself. Of course, you are going to get abuses, but overall the system works.
It seems a bit disingenuous to point to two or three examples of abuse and criticize the entire concept behind Sidewiki. What about examples where people have posted thoughtful comments? Over time, the best content will be most prominent, and users will get value from the observations and comments of others.
I agree that Sidewiki is a challenge for marketers, but if a site is crap, why not call it out. I see this as a tremendous step forward in improving the whole Web. The cream will rise to the top and the dross will slide off the edge into the pit where they belong. Google needs to be applauded and encouraged.
Also, if Google really WERE trying to exert their nefarious velvetine hammerlike selves they probably would have created a Sidewiki plugin for Chrome. Alas, I was evilly suckered into using only their browser and so cannot use their shite site callout tool... oh well.
The one thing disturbing about Sidewiki is that it takes away from the site the ability to host a discussion (like the one taking place here for example), if this discussion had moved over to a sidewiki panel then you as a site would lose the historical data that would benefit other users of the participant's opinions.
If there's a case of a site that would not enable visitors to comment on it, then SIdewiki is a great way to put pressure on publishers to add participation options to its visitors, but if there's a site open to comments and participation then it is unfortunate to bifurcate the discussion into two different forums an official and an unofficial one.
There have been efforts like this before but the fact that this is a Google product (service?) gives this larger wings.
It's hard to make sense of Google's thinking on Sidewiki. It seems extraordinarily naive to assume that people will only use the tool for good, and already there are shocking examples of abuse that seem to have survived Google's algorithm. Equally is seems an act of appalling arrogance to create a web-wide system of messaging where web owners no longer even have the power to moderate what is posted against their sites, and unfair in the extreme to set up the system in such a way that people have to use the system to even see what is being posted.
It's not about not getting social media, it's about understanding the need for social responsibility.
Why must it either be all good or all bad? Isn't that what this great big conversation is all about? People who will be using this technology are not naive...