Google Sidewiki: Google powered wiki for the web pages on the web

Google Sidewiki: Google powered wiki for the web pages on the web

Google has been on a roll today. We have already seen a couple of product launches in the last couple of hours/days and they are not done yet.

The search engine giant has launched yet another web service named Google Sidewiki.

As the name suggests, it is a wiki which runs in the browser sidebar.

Web users can use this feature to comment on web pages they visit. They also get to see the comments posted by earlier visitors.

Google said that this service is different from other services available in the market. They have developed an algorithm that decides which user submitted content should be visible at the top.

The company added in a blog post:

In developing Sidewiki, we wanted to make sure that you’ll see the most relevant entries first. We worked hard from the beginning to figure out which ones should appear on top and how to best order them. So instead of displaying the most recent entries first, we rank Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from you and other users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals we developed.

Another interesting feature:

Under the hood, we have even more technology that will take your entry about the current page and show it next to web pages that contain the same snippet of text. For example, an entry on a speech by President Obama will appear on all web pages that include the same quote. We also bring in relevant posts from blogs and other sources that talk about the current page so that you can discover their insights more easily, right next to the page they refer to.

Reminds me a lot of DotSpots.

Google Sidewiki is now accessible through Google Toolbar. Updated edition is now available for Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. They are working on bringing it to other browsers. Google Chrome is not yet supported.

Google has thankfully made sure that the author of the page has the right to put his own comments at the top. If your site is validated through Google Webmasters Central, you get the ability to write a message to the visitors which is always displayed.

This is helpful in cases where rival services might launch a campaign to show rivals in poor light. Google would have to work hard to make sure that this service is not used as a vandalism tool.

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