Last few days there’s been so happening, and so little time to write it down, that it’s easier for me to do one post that covers it.  First, Google SideWiki.

I had  fun playing with Google SideWiki today (see Jeremiah Owyang’s review, Alex Chitu’s review, Michael Arrington’s or one of mine about the New York Times, posted to Facebook.

So far, it doesn’t look like every comment is seen – mostly those whose Google  profiles I have connected with.   Several have bought up that Google isn’t doing anything new and other companies have done it before.  To me, Google SideWiki is different because of the scale of it and it’s potential use by much larger numbers.   I’ll go out on a limb and say that I like Google SideWiki – because the results of this new facility will be unpredictable – and that’s exciting.

Second, Seth Godin released his  Brands in Public – and a lot of people were upset.  For $400 dollars a month, any brand can own it’s own page – and Seth Godin created a few dozen – some call it extortion, others, think it’ll force Brands that are on the fence about Social Media, to get involved.  Tried Crimson Hexagon Buzz Monitor to see if it would show me just what the sentiment was about Brands in Public, but didn’t pick up any negative sentiment (hard to believe – given “brandjacking” was being used by several to describe it).

My feeling is Seth Godin had a brilliant idea that forces some brands to get involved with Social Media more quickly than they might, otherwise, have.  I don’t mind it for big brands, but would quickly come to dislike it if someone put up a Squidoo Brand page for me, for example, and then asked me to pay $400 bucks per month so I could control it.

Clearly, Seth crossed the line with some people, yesterday – I’ll have to ask him about Brands in Public when I see him at the MIMA Summit in Minneapolis, late next week.

Meanwhile, PostRank launches a blog metrics package to track engagement (see Read/WriteWeb) which looks like a great idea, except it’s only for blogs – not sure why it can’t be for regular sites, as well, but it’s not.

While it’s a great idea, at this point, I’m unlikely to use PostRank Analytics for my own blogs – I feel like I haven’t fully tapped the Google Analytics capabilities for tracking – is a composite from Postrank going to help all that much?  But, then again, I may change my opinion tomorrow.