Prepare Your Hotel for Google Sidewiki Comments!
Tips
on What your Hotel Should Do, and How to Monitor Reviews with RSS
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Prepare Your Hotel for Google Sidewiki Comments!
Tips
on What your Hotel Should Do, and How to Monitor Reviews with RSS
Feed
 November 2009 - It’s been two months since
Google introduced Sidewiki
on September 23, but it hasn’t really caught fire . . . yet. When it
was first
announced, there was a lot of buzz on blogs and news sites, and it felt
that
the internet would be taken over by user-generated comments and
opinions, but so
far it hasn’t gained that much traction. We believe it will catch on
soon, and
that your hotel should be prepared for when it does.
What is Google Sidewiki and will it go mainstream? Sidewiki is part of a Google Toolbar browser plug-in that allows users to open a sidebar on any website they are visiting and comment freely on anything they like; the website, the content, how they feel about the topic or the brand, or what they had for breakfast. These comments can then be seen by other visitors to the site (provided they have downloaded the Sidewiki toolbar) and they can leave comments as well. Users can also add links and videos, and share their comments through E-mail, Twitter or Facebook. Will Google Sidewiki go mainstream? We cannot predict the future, but given the success of other user-generated sites such as Trip Advisor, Yelp, You Tube and Wikipedia, we have reason to believe that it may. As it is now, users have to sign up for a Google account and install the Google Toolbar to be able to see and write comments, and many people simply don’t know it exists. However, Google has made an API available, which means that third party developers can access Sidewiki data and integrate it into their own applications or on their websites. Surely some tool will be developed soon that will catch the public eye and bring Sidewiki into the limelight. People aren’t quite sure how to use Google Sidewiki yet, or what kind of comments they should be leaving. Really it all depends on the purpose and content of the website. Google recently wrote a blog post reviewing the first 50 days of Sidewiki, and shared 10 examples of ways users have written comments that will benefit others who visit the same site. For example Jason Young gave his own tips on how to tune a bass guitar on a guitar website, Matt Cutts from Google warned visitors about a deceptive website that claimed that Google is hiring people to work at home, and Jesse Poe added his personal reviews to a review of an iPhone application. In a perfect world, the idea is great! If users can supply informative, relevant, quality comments that add knowledge and insight to the website content then that’s fantastic. We believe there will be some quality commentaries with useful information. People like to share their knowledge, or experience, on a topic they feel passionate about. We can just look at Wikipedia to see that. However we don’t live in a perfect world and many companies see Google Sidewiki as a reputation management nightmare that will open up a new channel for malicious comments and reviews, or just create nonsense clutter. It could also be used by spammers. The companies and website owners have no control whatsoever over the comments. They do not have the right to approve or delete comments, as they can with blog comments, so they are really defenseless in a sense. We also feel the temptation is too high and it’s too easy to write. Anyone could write anything just to be heard or to vent. What’s to stop people from airing dirty laundry, or bringing up personal information? I read one comment from a woman who owned a company and was concerned that as soon as her ex-boyfriend learns about Sidewiki he will surely try to bring her company down with his comments. What about jaded employees, competitors? Sure they can write negative things about you on external sites but these will not likely be seen by the masses. To me, it is similar to a heckler during a speech. Who is to stop the Joe Wilsons of the world yelling ‘You Lie!’ everywhere. Google is trying to control this, and has set up a voting system that allows users to vote if a comment is useful or not. There is also an option to report abuse where users can report a policy violation such as spam, illegal content, or any post that advocates hate or violence. Google Sidewiki also has an algorithm in place that will put the highest quality, most relevant entries first, taking into account the votes, previous entries by author, and relevance to page. Can I block Google Sidewiki? There is currently no opt-out option for Google Sidewiki, but given all the controversy it has caused I would not be surprised if Google considers adding the option in the future. Many companies have found ways to block Sidewiki, and they are selling their script. Google has actually found a way around some of these sidewiki blockers. Some companies have even modified their server settings to block any user who even has the Google toolbar installed. This is probably not the best idea if you have a commercial website. Other companies have elected to redirect visitors to a secure page. So when visitors type in http://www.yourhotel.com they would get redirected to an https site with the same name. Sidewiki cannot run on the secure site. Less extreme, some third party developers have created tools that can block spam from the sidewiki. How will Google Sidewiki affect my Hotel? In regards to hotel websites, we believe users will begin to leave reviews of the hotel right on Google Sidewiki. This should not scare hotels, as they have been dealing with user-generated reviews for years on popular sites such as TripAdvisor and Expedia. The main difference is that these reviews will be closer to home, and visitors will be able to see reviews without navigating away from your site. As is the case with other review sites, Google sidewiki could be an asset to your hotel or detrimental, depending on the types of reviews your hotel receives. And as we discussed in a previous post about TripAdvisor, negative reviews can actually be helpful at times. Let’s look at the positives, the negatives, and how your hotel should manage these reviews. The Positives
 
 
In conclusion, what will happen with Google Sidewiki is a bit of a mystery at the moment. There have been other attempts from other companies to let people annotate websites which never caught on. However, those other companies were not Google. There are many positives and negatives to Google Sidewiki, and a lot of controversy. Most companies do not like the idea of giving up control of what is seen on their website. However, the public likes to read ‘real’ comments and reviews of products and services, and that isn’t going to change. Perhaps Google Sidewiki will catch on, perhaps it won’t. Either way, Google Sidewiki is here right now, with no opt-out, and it is up to your hotel to start monitoring your comments. If you would like more information about Google Sidewiki please feel free to call us at 978-465-5955 or write to us at [email protected]. We would like to hear your opinion on Google Sidewiki. Have you tried it? Do you think it’s a good idea or a bad idea? Do have any suggestions on what hotels should do? Please feel free to leave a comment on our blog. |
| Contact: O’Rourke Hospitality Marketing Newburyport http://www.orourkehospitality.com |