Launches Sidewiki for the Google Toolbar

Google Sidewiki is a new feature of Google Toolbar that allows anyone to leave comments about pages as they surf the web. These comments can only be viewed by others who have the toolbar/sidewiki installed.

Google recommends commenter’s contribute expert insight, helpful tips, background information, and added perspective.

In the past various tools appeared which are similar in working but alas no one became popular and eventually they got disappeared. What are the chances of Google Sidewiki being used is still unknown; we can at least give it a try.

How to use Google Sidewiki

To use Google Sidewiki, you have to install the latest version of the Google Toolbar for either Internet Explorer or Firefox. And enable the enhanced version of toolbar, this means allowing the toolbar to report back to Google about all the pages you view. If Google doesn’t know the page you’re visiting, it can’t send back any Sidewiki information that’s available. It’s not new for the toolbar to send information back to Google, as to view the page rank you have to accept their advance privacy policy in which they gather the information about you.

Google Sidewiki

You’ve Got Sidewiki!

If you are Comfortable with tracking, then here’s what you see with Sidewiki enabled, when you come to a page that has Sidewiki information associated with it. In this example, view the comments on the Google home page itself:

sidewiki comments on Google

All Comments Are Not Created Equal

What comments are shown on pages, and in what order? This is Google Secret.  Read Google Official Line:-

“Using multiple signals based on the quality of the entry, what we know about the author, and user-contributed signals such as voting and flagging, we work hard to ensure that only the highest quality, most relevant entries appear in the sidebar.” Most of the engineering work for Sidewiki was dedicated to this ranking algorithm which is based on some of these factors:-

1. Use of sophisticated language: “This page sucks” isn’t sophisticated; think complex sentences and ideas. Apparently, Google has a language sophistication detector now, and one that works in the 14 different languages that Sidewiki supports.
2. User’s reputation: Are your comments being voted up or flagged down?
3. User’s history: How long have you had a Google Profile? How long have you been commenting?

ProfileRank

To comment on any page you need Google Account and your Google Profile is going to play a major role in this. Just like web pages in which Google gives PageRank, so in the same way your Google Profile page will also have its own form of rank or ProfileRank, when it comes to the Sidewiki system. Those with more ProfileRank have better chances that their comments will be appearing in top. ProfileRank alone isn’t enough, however. The content of the web page, the quality of the comment and many other factors are also taken into account.

Unfortunately, till now you have no way of knowing your ProfileRank. For example, look at Matt Cutts profile and there’s no indication about rank or reputations that I carry within the Sidewiki system. That’s something Google said they’d consider changing.

Profiles will show all the sidewiki comments a particular person has made so far.

So enjoy commenting!! and give a thought is Google Turning the Web Into an Exclusive Social Network? What are your thoughts please do share.

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