Google Sidewiki

Google just introduced a new enhanced feature for the Google Toolbar called Sidewiki.  The tool allows users to add comments and links to any webpage.  So, if the page you’re looking at mentions a topic, but doesn’t have a hyperlink to more information you can add a link that other Sidewiki users will see.  Sidewiki also automatically posts entries from related webpages in the Sidewiki panel to provide readers more information.  This could be a very useful feature for extending information and content.

From Google’s perspective it’s likely a strategy to harness human collaboration to identify relevant sources of additional information and potential related webpages, which will help improve their pagerank and search algorithms.   Also, it could be used as an in-browser advertising panel and a haven for spammers, which will be very annoying for users.  It would be nice if you could install Sidewiki without the full Google toolbar plug-in, and I find it interesting that Sidewiki only works with Firefox and IE through the Google toolbar and can’t yet be installed in Google’s own Chrome web browser.

From the Google.com/sidewiki page if you access it with Chrome – “Sidewiki is currently a feature in Google Toolbar (in Internet Explorer and Firefox), but when Google Chrome supports extensions, we will work on building it for Google Chrome, too.”

Google Wave

Google just announced a new communications tool they have in development called Wave.   From the description, Wave will integrate email, social networking, multimedia sharing (photos, maps, vids, etc.), online collaborative work, document creation/management, and instant messaging into one fluid interface and work environment.  The features look pretty slick and this may be an interesting way to change how people stay productive using the social web.  There are still a lot of details to be revealed and the demo looks like a proof of concept video, but the idea is very interesting.

I also like the name Wave, I think they are playing on wave-particle duality of photons and other quantum particles.  Maybe a subtle way to say communication and collaboration on the web has traditionally been like particles, fairly static and asynchronous, but Wave will change things to make it more fluid and wave-like.

Is User Generated Content a Financial Albatross?

Connor Kyle pointed me to an interesting article on Slate.com about the very high costs of running a user generated content site.  Not surprisingly, YouTube is blowing through cash and not able to make enough ad-revenue to turn a profit.  In fact the article points out that YouTube’s anticipated $470M 2009 loss is more than 5 times than that of the struggling Boston Globe with an $85M loss.

User generated content sites that depend on ad sales as their primary revenue stream are classic two-sided platform networks.  Typically there is a start-up problem for revenue generation on these sites; the site must have enough users in order to attract big-spending advertisers.  However, once the magical user threshold is reached and advertisers come knocking, so much money has been invested in developing the technological infrastructure and operating costs are so high to maintain the large amounts of content and traffic that the site will need massive amounts of ad revenue to ever turn a profit.  Even the king of on-line advertising, Google, can’t figure out how to turn a profit on the most popular user generated content site on the Web.  What hope does this give to companies like Twitter who are still trying to figure out their revenue model?

MBA 734 Discussion Question – Google’s Prediction Markets

Is it a good idea to encourage ALL employees to trade in these markets?  Should insiders and/or highly uninformed people be allowed to trade?  Do they help or hurt the market?

Google Developing Consumer PowerMeter Software

Image from Google.

Google announced on their blog a couple of days ago that they are working on new software, called PowerMeter, to help people monitor their home power consumption.  The idea is that by increasing awareness of our actual power use, we can proactively find ways to save energy and reduce energy spending.  Google has become an advocate of energy policy reform and is pushing for more widespread adoption of “smart” power meters for residences, public,  and commercial buildings.  I wonder if this announcement is related to the recent research reported by the The Times that 2 Google searches produce as much CO2 as boiling a kettle of water.  I guess Google is trying to stick to their corporate philosophy of “Do no evil” by offsetting their environmental impacts.  Thanks to my soon to be brother-in-law, Tim, for the pointer to the Treehugger post and accompanying video.

Google Reader for MBA 734 Blogs

Since we’ll all be blogging this semester, I recommend using a feed reader to review each others blog posts.  As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve created a blogroll of all the class blogs in the right hand column of my site.  You can always come here to access  each others blogs (which will be good for my hit count!), but to save time you might consider setting up an account with Google and using Google Reader to manage all the blogs.  You just subscribe  to all the blogs you want to track and Google Reader will present the posts to you like an email inbox.

Giggle, Diggle, or Doogle? Google close to buying Digg

Two sites that co-enable my Internet addiction are potentially joining forces this week as Google looks to make a bid for Digg.com (via TechCrunch) .  From a user’s standpoint, this may be a great marriage of two complementary Internet services.  I manage my productivity almost exclusively with Google tools ( igoogle, gmail, gcal, google notebook, google scholar, etc.) and I use Digg as one of my primary portals to “news”, interesting websites, and the general atmosphere of the web.

So what does Digg get out of the deal (besides money for Kevin Rose)?  Google could certainly take Digg’s functionality, algorithm design, and their new (and highly criticized) recommendation system to the next level.  And with Google’s name and power on the Web, Digg’s user base will likely rise.