Google’s answer to Wikipedia - Introducing Knol
Google has announced a potential be competitor to Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia.
Dubbed Google Knol, the service is designed to help people share their knowledge in the form of an expert article on a given subject.
The term ‘Knol’ has been coined by Google to represent a unit of knowledge, and will also be the name for each article on the site, which in addition to information will also contain the opinions and points of view of the author.
Although the service is still in Beta, Google has released early images of what the service might look like on their offical blog. Google VP of Engineering, Udi Manber says there will be a greater focus on the writer of the articles,
“Knol is all about the authors,” said Manber. “We believe that knowing who wrote a Knol will significantly help users make better use of web content.”
Different from Wikipedia
The aims to share information might be similar, but there are some fundamental differences between the Wikipedia project and the proposed Google Knol service.
For starters, the authors of each Knol will control the content. Anyone can create a Knol, but there will be none of the faceless editing of Wikipedia; people can contribute to a Knol only if the owner allows them to.
Knol will also have a social media element to it, with people being able to rate content and comment on it - more Yahoo! Answers than Wikipedia. There might even be the chance to link out to other sites without the need for a ‘nofollow‘ attribute on the link…
There’s no word yet on whether it will cost users to create a Knol or not, but unlike Wikipedia pages Knols will feature adverts on the pages.
A cautious reception
Initial response to the announcement of Google Knol has been lukewarm to say the least. While Google talk in terms of selflessly helping us all share the world’s knowledge, there are concerns at how the Internet giant is moving from providing access to content to being the content provider itself.
Internet consultant Michael Gray said “… plain and simple Google is competing with content producers, knocking more and more non-Google listings down to page #2.”
Others have raised the question of how accurate Knol articles will be; Google insist they will not be editing the articles and that they will be fully under the control of their respectives authors. With only one viewpoint represented in the articles there may be more room for innaccuracy and bias.
For the moment though, Google Knol is in the first phase of testing and it is likely to be a while before it becomes available to the public at large.
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