Well we are yet not 24 hours into the launch of the product and we are looking for vulnerabilities, how could it be gamed to turn it to the advantage of the spammers. Well in all honesty it took Michael Gray not very long at all.

There are plenty of conversations to be had exploding up all over the web already and i am not alone in the thought of G having too much power Gab Goldenberg writes: “Google SideWiki Extorts Google Network Participation” and conveys a similar fear to my own;

Worst of all, you can’t block Google’s SideWiki from appearing alongside your website so as to opt-out. It’s also unclear whether webmasters will even know when their site is being displayed with SideWiki

One simple tag within the html of mine and my clients sites would make me go away, it`s as easy as that.

Why a simple tag? well the reputation management issues alone are a worry for brands, brands which have no control over the comments being posted via sidewiki relying on the voting up or down feature and functionality within. We are quite happily installing features such as Get Satisfaction that we have a modicum of control over, at least we can answer our customers and critics directly. Beyond that we already have our WordPress, Blogger, Echo commenting systems in place which we are free to moderate.

So what is the impact from an serp point of view? again i will refer back to Michael Gray who is among the first to track down one of his own comments to see if it has been indexed and sure enough there it is.

Again since Google has a good idea of what clothes i am wearing right now, i am kind of uncomfortable about letting Google predict what i might wear tomorrow with all their newly found data, all of which i am submitting every time i comment using Sidewiki, for that i am not comfortable with at all. So once again a simple meta tag to opt out of allowing those with Google profiles and the toolbar installed would suit me, then those with a fetish for commenting on others sites can continue on their merry way while i remain happy in the knowledge that mine and my clients sites are free from brand management issues.

EDIT: More discussions about SideWiki worth watching and participating in and give your feedback about Sidewiki to Google Toolbar Help