Brands under fire, beware Google Sidewiki

Google quietly released a new social tool this week called Sidewiki . Sidewiki is an addition to the Google toolbar, so far, so innocuous. However this could possibly enable the most visible feedback online brands have yet to face.

The Google Sidewiki toolbar allows any user with a Google account to comment, on any page, on any site (and of course I though I'd have a crack with Natwest). It effectively means users have the ability to graffiti corporate sites. Google say they are monitoring comments and have provided a reporting tool if posts are deemed malicious, however if the criticism is constructive, instructive and therefore destructive then the implications are massive.



Over the course of this year there has been a greater and greater demand for brands to listen from consumers, technology companies, agencies, in fact too many voices to list. In a way it's been convenient for companies to ignore it. If it's all going off on Twitter, or Facebook or “some blog” then it's out of sight and therefore out of mind (of course this an absurdity). What Sidewiki does though is bring it to the doorstep and now anyone can graffiti all over your front door. Now it's already been declared dangerous and doomed to fail and simply a way of Google monetising the whole web, but this is a Google beta product and it'll inevitably change and over time integrate Google's other features. And in the meantime the comments are going to start cluttering up the doormat and they're going to be difficult to ignore.

This kind of interwoven peer to peer feedback is the future of the web. It's going to force companies to change the way they operate so once again with gusto. Start listening and start taking heed.

So Natwest can you get back to me on this one.

Could Apple survive without Jobs?

Steve Jobs crash landed back in San Fransisco on Wednesday with a new liver, some new products and instantly breathed new life into Apple. His speech immediately sparked a rally in the company's share price and earned him a standing ovation from his employees. However it begged the question could Apple survive without Steve Jobs?

It's a question that has raised its head many times since his well documented health problems came to light. Commentators have suggested they simply can't see Apple fans flocking to the Apple keynotes without the charismatic frontman. However it looks like Jobs may be planning for succession, he's clearly still not fully fit and although he's back it's almost certainly not full time. So however long he remains he now has the opportunity to transform the company from a one man show to a vibrant employee led organisation (a bit like Google maybe).

There is an obvious need for Jobs to develop a second in command however the way the company embraces social media is becoming a key issue for customer engagement. Apple hasn't run with the pack when it comes to social, they have been notably absent from conversations that they should have been contributing to and unless Apple employees are empowered to start involving themselves and emerge from Jobs' shadow the brand can only sustain it's reputation for so long. Social media needs engagement from brands and Apple ignore it at their peril.

Twitter under pressure

Since its launch in 2006 Twitter has been bombarded by negativity (yes there’s also been a huge amount of positivity as well) from the tech community and on the whole they’ve carried on with business as normal, but is it now time to listen?

Twitter has come under constant fire since its inception. It's been accused of being unstable, being irrelevant, having no reliable long term business model, that it appeals to oldies and teens just don't tweet. However, each time the criticism is levelled the management team remain steadfastly silent in the main, they don't react but instead point to the numbers - and the numbers can't be ignored - at the most recent count there are over 30 million online users globally and that's just those that are accessing Twitter via the web. It doesn't include those accessing the myriad of applications that utilise Twitter's open API. This week however E-Consultancy published a blog relating to what Twitter needs to do in order not to fail. There are some fundamental criticisms of the view, however how long Twitter can remain on it's single minded mission is questionable.The social networking category is beginning to consolidate and develop additional functionality with which Twitter simply cannot compete. There are other models developing out there that are increasingly challenging Twitter so it may well be time to get off the pot.

Friendfeed accepts Facebook's friend request

I loved the title of Louis Gray's blog title so much I thought I'd nick it it's a tribute really.

On the face of it, it looks like a match made in heaven. The additional search functionality that Friendfeed has (no surprise - it's run by ex-Googlers) - if integrated into Facebook - will make it a very powerful player in the search market and with the Microhoo deal last week it looks like the search market really has hotted up with Facebook definitely now a potential threat to Google search.

There is some disagreement over it's ultimate impact on Twitter, with some suggesting it's a Twitter killer, while others point out that Twitter turned a deal with Friendfeed down some time ago and that it can't compete as single-mindedly as the microblogging service and is therefore simply a vanity purchase on the part of Facebook.

I'm not sure any service is about to kill any other service, however Google and Twitter's total pre-eminence in their respective categories may well be over.

Twitter's down. What do I do now?

So Twitter went down about an hour ago and I felt like someone'd chopped my hands off. So how do I find out what's wrong. I go to trending topics on Twitter of course. Oh no can't do that. So I guess Friendfeed's the answer and lo and behold there they all are - the power users - wittering away and that's when I realised why I don't yet use Friendfeed.

Friendfeed's still just rammed with early adopters and they're steering every conversation that has any sort of momentum. Yes i now know what's going on with Twitter, but in my opinion Twitter has become more democratic. Yes it's getting full of bots and spammers, but if you manage your stream carefully you don't need to worry about that. The power users, say there is more scope for conversation on Friendfeed than Twitter and of course they're correct but two things here a) the conversation seems to be quite limited to the San Fran set and b) Twitter isn't about conversations so much for me, it's for research and educative purposes.

I've no doubt that I'll use Friendfeed more and more in the coming months and years, but at the moment it just isn't ready for me to be too active on there. The other thing I was wondering is with the imminent release of Google Wave will Friendfeed simply get washed away by the Google Tsunami, not only will you be able to have conversations there but you can work outside real time as well. Time will tell I guess.

Do you use LinkedIn and/or Facebook

It's a question I asked on LinkedIn itself the other day and unsurprisingly unanimously the answer was Linked In for business, Facebook for personal. I expanded and asked if others were using Twitter or Friendfeed or any other social network and again the majority response was I don't have time (Now that's a whole different post).

The reason I asked in the first place was I just can't get along with Linked In. I'm a big fan of social networking and in terms of it's educative qualities it's been an enormous addition to my professional development. Twitter has almost completely surplanted my RSS feedreader as a research tool. Friendfeed helps me to understand who influences those that I choose to follow. Facebook keeps me in touch with friends who due to family pressure I don't get to see much and cousins I don't see regularly, you know the score. Delicious and Digg help me to share my bookmarks and content I like.

All of these platforms help me be social and hopefully helpful. They allow me to be myself but also keep on top of business and that's where I part the way with LinkedIn. It's not a social networking site, nothing about it is social. It's about networking, but not the ecademy way, it's more the bad glass of sweet white wine and guard up kind of way. It's not intuitive, it doesn't aid in the sharing of information, in essence it's far too closed.

I concede that it is great at finding professionals and if you are looking for a job, but Twitter and Friendfeed do that as well as everything else and as an added bonus you're likely to understand whether you'll get on with them on personal level as well which for me is just as important.

In my opinion it really needs to step up it's game if it's going to continue to grow, there are rumblings that there is a major overhaul in the planning stage, I just hope it's a significant improvement.

Search just got interesting again

All the talk yesterday was about the long awaited Yahoo/Microsoft search deal, but that was only half of the story when it came to how competition in the search market has ramped up.

The launch of Bing in May finally paved the way for the 10 year Yahoo search deal and the search engine will now be integrated into Yahoo as it's search platform. There is no doubt that the deal furthers Steve Ballmer's insatiable need to take on Google and with just under a third of the search market Microsoft finally look like they could gain some traction.

However, what Google and Microsoft have yet to crack is the newly emergent real-time search model. Two developments occurred on Wednesday that took this into new territory. Twitter relaunched their homepage and switched the emphasis away from followers and into search and arguably turned itself into a destination portal. Some argue that this won't actually benefit users, however as websites become less important to users and the importance of web presence becomes more and more essential the body shift from Twitter makes sense. At the same time the newly launched Collecta.com improved it's already impressive offering by adding an additional layer of search capability with video and images.

Microsoft has got bingtweets in beta and Google launched search options back in May but the improvements in realtime search is going to keep the big boys on their toes. Ultimately the smaller players look like acquisition fodder, but the longer they stay ahead of the curve and hold out against a takeover the more expensive the battle's going to be to win. Certainly Wednesday will go down as a pivotal moment in the field of search and certainly from the marketing community's perspective Wednesday's announcement was music to the ears.