PIXEL MAVERICK

Google is releasing a new tool called SideWiki which will allow people to read/ post/ share comments about any page on the Internet.  The tool comes as an install for the Google toolbar and would show up as a right-side alley on your browser.  Given how popular and helpful sites like Yelp are this sounds like a brilliant tool (and so simple too — dammit why did I not think of this).

I have not yet installed it, but off the top of my head the following questions and comments came to mind:

• Great!  More clutter vying for my attention.
• What about my del.icio.us sidebar that is already in that spot?
• Wonder what Googleriffic algorithm will rank these comments
• Good idea to incorporate sharing (twitter, facebook, etc) to this.  That will speed up the adoption rate of this tool.
• Great idea to let users rank comments & potentially kill the spam/snark comments.
• How long until we are forced to look at the clutter, er ..I mean comments AND the paid advertising in this space now too?
• This changes the typical eye-movement sequence on a page drastically.  Look for big changes in UI best practices soon.
• What sort of cool sites and apps will be launched based on info/data aggregated from this tool?
• Thousands of people in India just got new jobs.  Professional SideWiki commenters.
• Hear that sound?  That was the last nail in the coffin for already useless banner ads.

Either way, a smart move by Google (shocker) and something new and interesting to follow progress on to see how this evolves.