Google Sidewiki, just introduced in beta and accessible through an updated Google toolbar, enables anyone to publish and share comments about almost any web page.
Viewable in a window that opens alongside Web pages, you can also read and rate others’ comments about those web pages.
TechCrunch points out that such comment tools have been introduced without success before, but Google’s timing may be right on the mark with social media being hot, hot, hot and everybody seeming to have a ready comment about something.
In the travel sector, Google Sidewiki or similar tools, if they take off, could become competition for travel community websites, including hotel review sites, and could become a thorny challenge for any brand.
For example, some consumers might be less apt to review hotels on TripAdvisor, Raveable or Shermans Travel if they can merely use Google Sidewiki to publish a comment without going through more cumbersome steps that review sites require.
And, it is probably not too helpful to the SEO aspirations of those websites and their advertisers if consumers can get a quick read and rating of all those side comments through the Google tool without wading heavily into the websites themselves.
And, think of the dilemma for websites like Priceline, which, for authenticity purposes, only allows customers to write reviews of hotels once they complete their Priceline-booked stays.
With Google Sidewiki, anyone can write a hotel review – or comment about anything else on a Web page — regardless of whether or not they ever set eyes on the property.
And, think about Google Sidewiki in terms of brand protection. Anyone can write anything about your brand using Google Sidewiki. It immediately gets published on the Sidewiki and there are tools within it to get the comment on Facebook and Twitter almost instantaneously.
TechCrunch notes, however, that Google Sidewiki users can rate comments, with spammers hopefully seeing their blather falling to the bottom of Sidewiki displays.
So, it’s great to give such publishing tools to the masses, even if it may be disruptive. Alas, democracy has its price.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsjJOsx84MA&feature=player_embedded
Yep, it’s going to a world of fun and games.
The correct URL for the YouTube video is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsjJOsx84MA&feature=player_embedded
Google Universal Search already accept people to post reviews. Seems another strong disruptive step and new big challenge for travel brand.
Claude: About brand protection, at least with TripAdvisor, a hotelier has a special way/functionality to respond to a critical comment. Not sure if there is any brand response option for Google Sidewiki. I don’t think so.
Mark: As we say around “here,” it’s gonna be a Wild West show:)
Hoo boy. And marketers were going crazy about ceding their brand BEFORE Sidewiki enabled travelers to comment alongside their much deliberated on, carefully crafted websites. Can you imagine a photo of a guest room on a website, alongside a real-time shot of the same room? Or a statement about the hotel’s pool, alongside a much different guest perspective? Now here’s something else to keep marketers up at night!
Susan: I totally agree. The next thing you know, however, is that we’ll hear stories of how the hotel, airline and car rental industries are manipulating Google Sidewiki:) Sound familiar?
I dunno. Personally I’d prefer it if Google spent more money making their basic search algorithm better at delivering what I’m searching for when I type in a search term. Will this help? I’m not sure.
I’ve been using similar tools like Sidewiki for a while – Diigo being one – but with Google’s market position this will blow the whole commenting on websites game wide open. Talk about total brand vulnerability. Don’t like your service or product – OK, let me just post it for all to see on your site. Has more potential impact than writing some graffiti on a hotel’s front gate!
Great post Dennis.
Joe, I agree with your point on Google’s market position. Google has the potential to streamline a lot of the negatives that exist in the consumers mind around posting comments…multiple sites, logins, etc.
Google has a tendency to make complex online tasks quite easy. Last time I checked, most consumers liked ‘easy.’
From a marketer perspective, this is just another sign that transparency is here to stay. Instead of worrying about guests posting negative pictures on Sidewiki, how about working on the overall appearance of your hotel, training staff in customer service and being honest with your consumers?
We talk a lot about this subject at the DMO level. What should we do if we integrate TripAdvisor into our site and a hotel has a negative review?
When we should be asking, why are we promoting such a bad hotel?
Bad hotels are bad hotels (or restaurants, airlines, cruise ships) and consumers now have the power to access this knowledge…with or without Sidewiki.
Troy, Spot on. I re-tweeted a post yesterday on 6 Reasons Why Companies Don’t Use Social Media. One mentions exactly the point of some being afraid of negative comments. Beats me, why it doesn’t sink in with any hotelier or supplier in general that if you have a bad product or offer bad service the news about it gets out anyhow. Fix the problem, don’t moan about the commenters. When will they get this simple truth?
Exactly Joe. Loved that article from yesterday.
I really believe some of us spend more time and money trying to figure out ways to cover up bad service, errors, mistakes, etc., than we do just fixing those mistakes.
- Troy
Danny Sullivan wrote an excellent piece about Sidewiki on Search Engine Land.
Jeremy: I don’t think it’s a question of Google either fixing its algorithms for search or developing additional solutions like Sidewiki. Certainly Google has the resources to do both and more, as it is doing. About search, what do you think Google can do better and how does Bing fit into the mix for you?
Hi Dennis, I’ve been following you and the launch of Tnooz via my Twitter handle @connectme. Congratulations!
For much of 2009, we’ve been using Twitter to create an experience that looks a lot like SideWiki. For example, here’s a link to a version of Danny Meyer’s excellent restaurant Eleven Madison:
http://go.twavl.com/ElevenMadison
This has been part of a project to create a white label short link system. Instead of a hard-to-remember link like j.mp/13z6fa, a hotel might have a link like jwmarriottvegas.com/bestbets – a bit longer, but still trackable. We did this using 301 redirects, so all of the search engine mojo that would otherwise go to bit.ly goes back to the hotel.
We’ve seen that a lack of tweets generally indicates the lack of buzz around a venue. The velocity of information on Twitter tends to sweep away the majority of negative comments and in fact generally reveals useful information that is often neglected by the site owner.
Given our experience, I wouldn’t be surprised if Google sticks with a similar approach, screening out obvious profanities and the occasional misfits, trying to focus on informative reviews as opposed to emotionally-charged rants.
Clearly, Google will be the de facto front page for most web searchers. But with the bevy of Google-related announcements today — not just SideWiki, but also Google Place Pages and the improvements to the Local Business Center — there’s clearly an effort by Google to make the overall experience more useful and less time-intensive for the local business owner.
Jeremy, Dennis…. you can’t create a better search by improving an algorithm. The Netflix challenge in the US demonstrated that better data (unique to you, not available to competitors) ends up making better results – assuming all algorithms are equal. In NetFlix case early results showed that merging transactional data with the Internet Movie Database ended up creating the best results (vs analysis based purely on transactional data)
This is just a means to get more data about sites although of course it isn’t being presented as that
I am more concerned about brand hijacking. How easy would it be to advertise your own site with cheaper prices on another OTAs platform? So their marketing brings in the visitors and someone on sidewiki can usher them off somewhere else. Really don’t see this as a good thing, in fact it seems a bit unnecessary and unethical.
Graham
Well, good riddance to Sidewiki! It was an outrageous attempt by Google to intrude upon private website ownership. Thier excuse for eliminating it, is that its value is now redundant because of the explosion of social media websites and tools. Really? They forget to mention that this social explosion doesn’t include the blatant intrusion on private web properties, without first consulting webmasters and bloggers.
So long Sidewiki…. yeah!
YEAH!