RSSKnol: (n.) Google's version of Wikipedia
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published July 23, 2008, 5:21 PM
With initial topics ranging from "How to Backpack" to "Toilet Clogs," Knol -- Google's answer, of sorts, to Wikipedia - has now left testing and is ready for perusal and contribution by one and all.
"Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article," said Udi Manber, Google's VP of engineering, in a blog posting back in December, when Knol was first unveiled.
Based on that description alone, Knol doesn't sound any different from the Wikipedia, really. But unlike Wikipedia, where postings are anonymous, Knol gives bylines to authors, and allows them to make money by opting to include AdSense ads in their Web pages.
"The key idea behind the know project is to highlight authors. Books have authors' names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors -- but somehow the Web eolved without a strong stardard to keep authors' names highlighting. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of Web content," according to Manber.
Maybe the simultaneous creation of Google Health has something to do with it, but the first crop of Knol articles -- written by the initial testers -- runs heavily to medicine, including subjects such as multiple myeloma, sore threat and strep throat, and cartilage injury and repair.
But the field of topics is wide open, and Google even says that it will allow multiple writers to produce articles on the same subject.
Authors can also modify their content, while still retaining control, said Cedric Dupont, product manager at Google, and Michael McNally, software engineer, in a blog posting today.
With Knol, we are introducing a new method for authors to work together that we call "moderated collaboration." With this feature, any reader can make suggested edits to a knol which the author may then choose to accept, reject, or modify before these contributions become visible to the public," according to the two Google officials. "This allows authors to accept suggestions from everyone in the world while remaining in control of their content. After all, their name is associated with it!"
Through a deal announced today, Knol authors can also add one cartoon to each article, chosen by the writer from the New Yorker's cartoon repository.
The ads might be more credible than some of the junk posted and picked over by the nitwits who run the other site.
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|Remember when everyone was going crazy about google doing all this innovating and never copying anything?
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|So the only real reason to go for Knol is the ability to use ads? Sounds like this will be a magnet to copy/paste already popular articles from Wikipedia and other sites.
Im not impressed. Support for ads is not going to be the feature that would "replace" something like Wikipedia or other more popular sites.
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|Ill still with wikipedia, but thanks!
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|Since it is the authors choice to include ads and they receive a portion of the money for those ads, I see no problem with it. Will lead to better articles in my opinion.
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|"Lead to better articles"??
I doubt that. Now every little monkey out there is gonna copy and paste crap together, slam a bunch of pages with adsense and attempt to profit.
Aside from the fact of... Yet another thing google is trying to re-invent as thier own and not really doing anything substantially different than the original(but I bet the fanbois will fall over themselves to do something with it cause it's google and they can do no wrong).
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|What's wrong with reinventing stuff. I am so glad someone took the idea of pong and made something better. Could you imagine not having any video games to play. As a Hardcore gamer I can not. I would actually not even have a job, or a reason to get my degree to program games. Damn where would I be. I am all for reinventing and making things better.
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|"What's wrong with reinventing stuff."
Copyright/trademark infringement. I can already see the lawsuits.
Plus those who just cut and paste are unoriginal and in such cases always post pages etc. that have missing parts etc. just plain junk.
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|" "What's wrong with reinventing stuff."
Copyright/trademark infringement. I can already see the lawsuits."
Wikipedia didn't invent the online encyclopedia you know. So I'm with auiotour, competition is good.
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|I fail to see how "competition" in this case would make things any better. Just another site i need to register to contribute something. Fact is that now we have yet another site that people copy the same **** all over again and get "paid" for doing it.
Im all for "reinventing" of pong and so forth but i wasnt aware that Wikipedia, or any already existing "online encyclopedias", needed "reinventing". Using games as a comparison, i would say that this is like "reinventing" Tetris. How many Tetris "reinventions" does the world need? Knol is Tetris with ads. :)
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|There are a lot of interesting and potentially troublesome issues with Wikipedia. Having another similar source of information can't possibly be a bad thing. If you don't like it, don't use it. Given the complexities of how Wikipedia works and its being subject to politics and other forces (including contributors with different agendas), competition in this area is not only not just "reinventing Tetris" but adding a needed alternative view. The worst Knol can do is not reform the "publicly-contributed knowledge store", and if so, we are no worse off than we are now. If, however, it forces a little more objectivity into those areas of Wikipedia where it is lacking, then something good comes out of it.
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|If it didn't have advertising I'd maybe give a toss, as it does, they can bugger off.
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|Because it's unfair to get compensation for effort spent?
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|No, because he doesn't want to see ads. Advertising is a business model, and often a very flawed one, not some kind of sacred right.
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