Sidewiki strife

On Friday my digital copy of PR Week ran an interesting article on Google’s latest offering – the Sidewiki. This new feature allows anyone who has the Google toolbar to write comments that will be viewed next to a companies website when it is googled.

It is hoped that this facility will contribute useful information to the internet, however it is sure to provide PROs with a few headaches. My greatest concern is that it is so open to abuse – whilst, I would never condone astroturfing, a robust system of moderation and complaints procedure is needed. There are so many emotive, grey areas out there that I see this being troublesome as opposed to useful.

The best piece of advice for organisations seems to be claim your site in the Google Webmaster Tools ASAP - this allows you to get ahead of the game and post a special entry above all others on the Sidewiki.

Whilst some PROs may be predicting a doomsday scenario for reputation management, we should take heart from Wikipedia – even though there are some instances of vandalism and articles that are not up to scratch, on the whole I’m impressed with the speed, quality and accuracy of the content.

Hopefully Sidewiki can be more like Wikipedia than a messageboard.