Mark Borkowski (founder and head of Borkowski PR) has penned a piece for The Guardian looking at the undersung hero of Google’s portfolio: SideWiki.

Launched just under two months ago, SideWiki allows anyone who wants to*, to comment on anything on the web and have that comment displayed in a pop-out window alongside for all to see. All they have to do is download the Google toolbar and they’re ready to go.

[*providing they use either Firefox or IE as a browser]

This ‘invisible tagging’ could well be a brand guardian’s nightmare. Like most of social media monitoring – unless you’re listening/watching… you wouldn’t even know it was there (until it was too late).

Borkowski, like me, sees SideWiki as a tool which should already be on PR professionals’ radars:

“Few people in PR, it seems, have considered the way that SideWiki will change the lives of beleaguered PR folk. In time, this tool will significantly change the way brands strategise, think and exist. SideWiki is going to challenge PR by providing the masses with the tool for the ultimate expression of people power, something uncontainable that will need constant monitoring.”

In one recent case, a pharmaceutical manufacturer witnessed the proclamation that its product made a man’s arm fall off. In other examples, brands have watched competitors attempt to siphon off traffic through covert messaging and mentions of alternatives to such poor products. Many savvy Internet marketing professionals have taken to the Web to show how SideWiki can be gamed by using Google profiles to move comments up and down.

I believe that SideWiki has brought Google one step closer to accomplishing what it hoped it would do in its wider game. It creates a social conversation around a brand. But it does so directly at the brand site, not on Google’s site.

Chris Copeland, CEO of GroupM Search comments on Google’s historical failings in getting the social play right (SearchInsider, October 23, 2009):

“Historically, Google has struggled to get the social play right. From YouTube to Orkut to Knol, Google has swung for the fences or come late to the game and failed to deliver to outside expectations, either as a true social platform or financially to market expectations. Rarely has Google deviated from the mantra of working for the most relevant answer for the user, but in the case of SideWiki, the engineering wisdom of Google has led the company down a road that is alienating more and more of its advertising base.”

There are even claims by SideWiki competitor Reframe It which emerged today that Google may even have been crossing the line between competitive innovation and IP infringement when it launched the annotation service.

Whatever the current buzz surrounding SideWiki, I think that Google has the size, toolbar distribution and impetus to turn it into a leader in the emerging web-annotations market.

I’d apppreciate your thoughts – via Twitter, comments below, SideWiki or by any other means. I’ve also set up a TwtPoll below…