Google’s Knol: Like Wikipedia But With Content Ownership?
Friday, July 25th, 2008
Knol is Google’s version of Wikipedia, where every hosted article is written by an author who actually knows something about the article’s topic.
What makes it different from Wikipedia? Well Google say the difference with Knol is that it places emphasis on central, named authorship on each article rather than anonymous collaboration as found on Wikipedia. In addition Knol also has opportunities for authors to advertise on their articles, so offering the added bonus of being able to make a few quid off the back of their wise words!
Fancy being an Author?
Similar to Wikipedia, Google’s Knol is attempting to combine the vast amounts of knowledge inside people’s heads and to then make it more widely available via the Web, the main difference between the 2 resources is that Google’s Knol is wanting to pull out that knowledge primarily from one specific authoritative head.
“The key principle behind Knol is authorship,” said Google employees Cedric Dupont and Michael McNally.
“Every Knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It’s their Knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good,” they said.
What about Collaboration?
Although Google wants to push the author as expert, they aren’t going to ignore the wisdom of the masses and so with “moderated collaboration,” anyone reading an article can make suggested edits to a Knol, the author can then either choose to accept, reject or modify the suggestions and but always remain in control of the content.
Also Knols are will work like a Blog post where readers can submit comments, rate or write a review of any knol.
“Knol will be a conversation open to everyone, not just the experts,” Paul Saffo, an independent technology forecaster, told TechNewsWorld.
“It’ll be entertaining, I’m sure — there’ll be UFO (unidentified flying object) nuts writing very authoritatively on their chosen subject,” he added.
So what’s in it for Google?
Google have set Knol up so that any author can if they wish sign up to their AdSense programme from which Google can then serve up advertisements specified by the author next to their Knol. This means the author can earn some cash for sharing their knowledge and Google cake some money of the back of Google Adwords.
It would seem authors have begun to take advantage of the financial potential of Knol already, someone has put an article together for for laying laminate flooring complete with photos and in depth descriptions of best practice.
As of press time, the Knol had 0 comments and a 5 star rating on a scale to 5 and 2 ads for shops selling laminate flooring!
To check out the public Google Knol beta, click here and start reading or writing your articles!
