Late Thursday, Google mentioned yet another web service (although, this one could be a big one): Google Knol (which stands for a unit of knowledge).
Basically, this is a knowledge base – where experts write up articles and users have a chance to benefit from the wisdom. The system is currently under an invitation-only status.
With huge amounts of content across the web, it's often hard to find the quality stuff. Even if you go to places like Wikipedia, it's not easy to get a sense of the accuracy. Often, I use these sources as a starting point – not something that's definitive.
As expected, Google wants knols for all topics, which is certainly ambitious and will likely encounter problems along the way. But, it's certainly a worthy goal – and, in the end, could result in a valuable property.
More importantly, Google will share revenues with the experts (through advertising). This will certainly be a big differentiator, as other wikis, such as Wikinvest and Wikipedia, rely on authors who do it for fun.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-15-2007 @ 2:40AM
lmason2926 said...
you know what would be cool. if i dreamed up something and made it great. then felt more oppression so i made it better. then felt like there is no way they wouldn't want this stuff. so i am just starting to see it is better by design. you have no idea. means no way to know what i'm talking about but now i just want a zero unknown thing but it will be impossible. all i ever wanted was someone to belong to is not a motto.
12-15-2007 @ 1:36PM
Greg said...
Sounds like a great idea. I wonder about the extent of contributions: the use of "experts" for content seems to be a positive, reassuring of accuracy, factor, but how many experts are there to make up for the huge contributor base of Wikipedia? Seems to be analogical with the Uncertainty Principle--you can have a larger subject content with lesser credibility, or greater credibility with lesser content. The result may simply be: look it up in Wikipedia; vet it through gnol where possible; vet it otherwise where not.
12-16-2007 @ 1:50PM
Stuart said...
Sounds like Google are finally accepting that their search engine doesn't return good results any more. Do a search on anything, and you'll get thousands of pages of unrelated links. These days you have to be an expert search at using Googles search logic, or very patient when clicking on page after page after page of results. If you're lucky, you might get something loosely related to what you are looking for within the first 5 pages.
And so with Knol, Google are trying cash in on someone elses proven model, Wikipedia. But Wikipedia doesn't improve search results, it just organises it...very well. Well done Wiki!
So instead of muscling in on someone else area of expertise, why don't the people at Google try and focus on what "used" to be their area of expertise....search. The Google home page for searching hasn't changed for 10 years, even though the content on the web has grown thousands (if not more) of times bigger than when Google first started.
So Google, how about getting back to your roots and fix your deteriorating search engine before a new kid of the block comes along to deal with the changing face of the web.
12-17-2007 @ 5:42PM
Jose said...
I tihnk it will be a wikipedia killer. Google has the power to make sure there content is at the top. With them moving everyone over to knol, wikipedia won't stand a chance :(
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