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.”

Social Media is Not Anonymous

Here’s a great example of how easy it is to get fired for making comments about your employer online (word of caution, there are a few obscenities in this video).

Three important lessons can be learned from this incident by employees and employers.

1. Employers that use social media know how to find out when people talk about them online.  Blog buzz sites, social media search engines, tags, hash tags, and Google make it very easy to find out what is being said about a business online.  Don’t assume that no one will read your Tweets or look at the photos you post on Facebook.  The whole reason you put these things out there online is for people to see them.

2.  Social media reveals more personal information than users think. It was pretty easy for CPK to find out who this employee was and where he worked.  People have multiple online identities, and they are often linked.  Bits of information from each account can be aggregated to reveal identifying information.  All it took for CPK to find this employee was to link his Twitter account to his YouTube account which pointed them to Long Beach, CA.  Don’t assume anything you do online is anonymous.

3. Employers and businesses need to be aware of the consequences of disgruntled employees or ex-employees that use social media. The protagonist end his video by encouraging his friends and followers to badmouth CPK online [UPDATE - The original video went on to ask his viewers to tweet about CPK.  He quickly updated his video to remove that part - possible from CPK legal threats??].  If the employee that is fired has enough social media clout or by chance their video goes viral, as this one did, the employer may have a PR nightmare on their hands.  Its no wonder many organizations are starting to consider social media policies very carefully.

Social Networking Your Way to a New Job

Paul Baumann pointed out this video from ABC on using social media to support job searches.

Social Media, the Tipping Point

James Surokiecki, the author or The Wisdom of Crowds, gives a great discussion at Ted on how social media and the blogosphere emerged to be an important aspect of modern media and news.  He discusses how Internet technology allows people to organize and act in scales that were previously impossible.

MBA 734 – Blogging at DrKW Discussion Question & EconTalk

What are the advantages and disadvantages of implementing internal versus external employee blogs in a corporate setting?  Are there certain industries where one of these strategies makes more sense?

A side note.  Since we’re starting our module on the social web and will be talking about Wikipedia in a couple of weeks I highly recommend listening to a couple of interesting and relevant podcasts from EconTalk, a great and well-recognized podcast about important issues and ideas in economics hosted by GMU economics professor Russ Roberts.  You don’t need an iPod or iTunes to listen to these podcasts; you can stream them directly from the EconTalk website.

The first podcast is with Clay Shirky who is the author of Here Comes Everybody and an expert on the economics of social media.

The second podcast is with Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, who discusses how Wikipedia started, how some of the social aspects of Wikipedia work, and where Wikipedia is heading.