Google Side Wiki - PR Advice

Google Side Wiki – What Brand Managers & PR Companies should be aware of

I have been requested to pull together a quick overview on the new Google Side Wiki functionality by a number of our PR partners this week as it is obviously of serious importance to most brands.

This is in effect "a game changer" for brands and communications professionals, so important in fact that if you are working within the corporate communications, PR or brand management sectors you should really read and then re-read this post. So firstly let’s structure this blog post so it makes sense. As a techie i understand my blogposts leave a lot to be desired.

•    Understanding Google
•    What is Google Wiki in a nutshell?
•    What is the impact to communications professionals?
•    What are the best practices to reduce your risks and protect your brand?
•    Legal Implications
•    Our two cents

Understanding Google.

Google of course needs no introduction, especially on a blog like this one. In terms of Google Wiki what you need to understand is that Google is a noted supporter of network neutrality – no big deal, H2O is also a supporter of Network Neutrality but of course we don’t own the worlds search market, these guys do.

"Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days... Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online”

That’s interesting stuff; the key take home is that Google believe that the internet should be a democratic platform, from a brand perspective that means that Google fundamentally believe that if people want to comment on your brand then they should be free to do so.

Google Side WIKI

Google Wiki is an update to the Google Toolbar, this is a software product that provides tools from your browser as you use the web. It looks like this – you can download the toolbar from this link. http://www.google.com/toolbar/ff/index.html What Google Wiki allows you to do is to comment on any website you visit using your Google Account – that means that you can make public comments on any company’s website, positive or negative on ANY website. The corporate website you are browsing does not need to support Google Side Wiki, Google Side Wiki works from any browser with Google Toolbar activated.

This means that you can now leave “Annotations” on any website for others using the technology to view.
Basically, Google Sidewiki is a way of commenting on any site, any page on a site, or about any content on a site. When you use side-wiki, you have the ability to leave your comments and associate them with a website whether or not the website owner has enabled commenting. Since the comments are maintained by Google, there is no direct relationship with the website – the application is owned by Google. This means that anyone can provide negative or positive feedback on your website at any time, for everyone to see, if you want it there, agree with it or not!

Impact to Communications Professionals

It is pretty serious to be say the least, if not simply because the GMAIL account that is used to comment on the website is open to cloaked account creation, with Google taking some time to moderate each comment a particularly damaging accusation could remain on a corporate website for a number of days.

This means that I could create a Google Account and scurrilously defame your company or brand, create false or un-researched accusations about your company and its policies, your products or your services and in effect cause other Google Wiki users to potentially form negative opinions about your company that may not be valid.
Of course such activity may already exist on social community platforms, word of mouth or through various other communications channels, but in this specific circumstance you have the comment pinned directly to your website for all to see.

The net effect is that feedback on your company, performance; products and policy are now available for all Side Wiki users to see right next to your corporate website.
Google Side WIKI Best Practices

In terms of suggested use certainly be the first to comment on your site, and set a professional standard by requesting comments from other users, rules for blog comments apply – so basically if someone is being unreasonable or unfair, thank them, point out they are being unreasonable or why they are uninformed and and then thank them again for their feedback.

There is some discussion about the legality of this tool, with presidency being set based on if it’s the user owning the website available through Google, or Google owning the portal that users view websites through.

My suggestion is to ensure feedback facilities, comments and social media tools are quickly and easily navigable from your companies or client’s normal web pages where comments can be moderated. This would result in the majority of users not bothering to use the Google tool but instead providing direct feedback on your corporate website. If you need assistance in this regards you can email our team at H2O New Media This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to help you define your communications policy.

Certainly never get into an argument, always keep a level head and most importantly listen to your feedback, the person making the comments obviously bothers enough about your organization to make such comments, as ever the golden rule is to listen and engage in dialogue with your users to either change their opinion or at least ensure that you have listened to theirs.

Legal Implications

As with many social media tools legal presidence cases are currently being defined and heard in court many of which will have a direct impact to the use of such tools in the future. The main terms of use for Google Side Wiki are as follows (From the Google Terms of use pages) These are available in full at http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/answer.py?answer=157295&hl=en but these are the main ones I wanted to point out -

"Speak your mind without being hateful or threatening to others. Lively discussions can happen without posting hateful, threatening, harassing, or bullying content. We encourage you to work out disputes or disagreements on your own. However, in serious or egregious cases, we will take action.

Keep it legal. Don't engage in unlawful activities on this product. If we are notified of unlawful activities, we will take appropriate action, which may include removing access to Sidewiki, your Google account, or reporting you to the appropriate authorities.

Respect copyright laws. We will respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement. Repeated infringement of intellectual property rights, including copyright, will result in account termination. For more information on Google's copyright policies, please see here

Don't pretend to be someone else. We don't allow impersonation of others or other behavior that is misleading or intended to be misleading"

Of course the main issues relate to what is considered a serious or egregious case, if a user creates a false Google account and then trashes your brand identity online how long will it take Google to remove such posts. One would hope 24 hours would be sufficient, but then who is a company’s point of recourse to? Is it to the user that has impacted your brand equity or is it to Google as the facilitator of such information? Time will no doubt tell, one thing is for sure is that your company and brand is now held accountable and is also extremely susceptible to “Hijacking” by any one that has a potential issue with your brand.

How Google will use this new data could also prove incredibly interesting, including elements of sentiment based search, what tracking and privacy issues relate to the tools use also warrant further investigation.

Our Two Cents

This little tool that hasn’t been given much in the way of press has the potential to open up a massive can of worms – simply because it allows users that may or may not be who they are claiming to be to place “Post it notes” all over your brand.

Certainly if you haven’t got a Web 2.0 enabled website at the moment you should get one – by making your own feedback and forums much more open and communicative you lessen the potential threat of your brand being blasted on Sidewiki.

In my personal view I welcome to the tool – I would welcome it more if after a certain number of red-flags from other users for non relevant, spam or potentially damaging content would also result in the removal of such posts.
However – if someone is slamming you on Side Wiki it’s always important to keep in mind they will be doing this anyway, if it’s on other platforms, word of mouth or in another shape or form. Look at this as yet another engagement mechanism to protect and enhance your public reputation and you should be ok. Also please see our blog article dealing with negative feedback on www.socialmediame.com for further information.

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written by Asma Chang, April 16, 2010

Very insightful, Steve. I had no idea this little gadget holds so much power smilies/grin.gif

Thanks!

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written by Ryan Reaction, December 01, 2009

Any thought as to the algorithm used to calculate the first post that side wiki shows? It seems that quality posts with a high useful to not useful ratio seem to appear, but I think there is more to it then that. Also, I wonder how long before these side wiki posts end up in the Google search results.

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Google Side Wiki – What Brand Managers & PR Companies should be aware of

Google Side WIKI

Impact to Communications Professionals

Legal Implications

Our Two Cents

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