Google Sidewiki: Contribute Helpful Information To Any Website - Or Is It Helpful?

I didn't quite understand what Google's SideWiki was about. According to Google, you can

• easily contribute to any web page and help others
• Learn from others that have visited a page before you by getting expert insights on important issues and get helpful tips as you browse
• get background information and more history and
• get added perspective on new technology.

So how do you use it? First you need to be using the Google Toolbar and download Sidewiki. Interesting, or is it? Not necessarily according to Jeff Jarvis, author of What would Google Do? and a big fan of Google. He sees danger in this and calls it ungoogley (is that a new word?) because it goes against Google's philosophy or supporting the web.

That is the thing I love about the internet. This guy can question (or perhaps challenge) Google and we become aware of it and Google even answers him through Twitter. When I first saw Sidewiki, I thought  it was a good thing. Consumers can comment on websites, file complains, experts can comment, etc. And consumers can have a bigger voice as social media is allowing us to have. Now after reading his article, perhaps not. He says this is Google's way of being the center of the universe. Who is going to comment on your blog, when they can just use Google and you have no choice on publishing or unpublishing the comments I suppose even if they are spam. You can report abuse so I wonder how effective this is.

Matt Cutts tweeted back that it may be good because people can comment on spammy sights. True. But how about if a consumer wants to unjustifiably rant? Or a competitor is just trying to write disparaging comments? Or someone wants to just post spam? How is that handled by Google? Or is it that this is what social media is affording us? We thought as consumers we had a voice, but it is actually even louder and even the spammers get a voice at least temporarily.  

So, if you thought you weren't allowing comments on your blog, you are now. Seth Godin hasn't allowed comments on his blog for years. Wonder how this is sitting with him. Might have to read his blog and find out. And all us other bloggers, will people comment more on our blogs? We'll see. 

If you want to claim your your website, you can. Mine came up automatically because I have a Gmail account and use a lot of Google tools and have a Google profile. So after you have installed Sidewiki, go to our website and then click on Sidewiki. You'll get this window that says: As the page owner, you can write a special entry that will remain the top entry for this page. If you don't have a Google account and you've never claimed your site or added analytics, you will have to add and verify your site. After you've verified it, then you can write an entry that stays on the top. It doesn't look like Seth has claimed his site yet.

So, what do you think of Sidewiki?