Google releases Knol

Google.com has finally released the long awaited ‘Wikipedia competitor – Knol. Just when you thought ‘Wiki was the de facto source for all your information – in comes Google and threatens to Knolminate Wiki! *excuse the puns*

So right about now I can hear most you asking…

“What on eath is Knol?”

You could be excused for thinking its a cool trendy new way of shortening / saying the word “Knowledge”… but.. oh hold on – I think that actually is the idea behind it! SO yeah you’re on the right track there.

http://knol.google.com <- check it out (after you finish reading this article)

According to Google (and this is the slog an as well) – “Knol is the unit of Knowledge”.

Google states the key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an identified author (or group of authors). “It’s their knol, their voice, their opinion. Google expects multiple knols on the same subject.”

“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.”

Good ol’ Wiki

Finding information online (without a sales pitch attached) can be a time consuming and frustrating process. For many years we have relied on Wikipedia.org to provide unbiased content – maintained by knowledgeable people according to the subject.

You can find information / facts on pretty much anything on Wiki. In fact I’ve used Wiki at least 10-15 times in the last two days when researching for my articles here at Demonised.com.

You can’t beat the good ol’ Wiki!

Many sites and services have tried to do a “wiki” but so far none have come even close to really being a competitor to the free online resource site. Instead many sites have focused on more specific niches and done a similar thing – but none have been able to beat Wiki.

Or can you?

Now that Google has stepped in with “knol” all that could suddenly change. That’s my personal view anyway. I mean think about it… to find information you have to search for it. Most people use a ‘search engine. The biggest and most popular search engine EVER just happens to be Google!

So… how fair do you think Google will play it? Now that they have their own product, how long will it be before a KNOL ‘page ranks higher than a wiki page when you search for something. How long before KNOL pages come above Wiki pages despite Wiki being around long and having more information?

In fact, would it be a bad thing for Wiki to have a competitor? Will Knol even be a competitor? Maybe Knol will go a different route – target different people etc?

We can’t be sure how it will turn out, still too many unanswered question… we’ll just have to wait and see.

What do you think of KNOL?

Are you a member? Will you become a member? – I want to hear your views.

Leave me a comment below and don’t forget to check out the related contents as I’ll be no doubt writing a lot more about KNOL!!

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