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Google's Knol Launches: Like Wikipedia, With Moderation

Went Hot: July 25, 2008 - 11:35 am
Posted By: justin 79 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: Google Other

After six months of testing, Google has formally rolled out Knol, a service designed to let people create pages of knowledge on any topic they choose.

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from davidrosenberg 79 days ago #

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One simple feature they forgot to add is spell checker when you create a knol.

from aside 79 days ago #

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Couple of issues with this strategy and product

It was created with the goal of solving a search problem, rather then trying to solve the problem of helping people share their expertise. In fact when asked about Blogger Udi's response was something to the effect, well -- that was not developed to solve a search problem...exactly. It was developed to help people communicate which is the primary purpose of the tool --- if the objective is to ensure that it helps search at the end of the day, then it won't solve the first problem which is getting users engaged with the tool.
Google has a poor track-record when it comes to solving these types of problem that invole human/social interactions e.g. Google Answers.
Knols will be focused on International markets where content is sparse --- while that is a significant issue for search in some markets/languages especially markets like Vietnam, Indonesia, and many of the Arab markets I can't see how a product that requires name verification via credit card or phone will help these users create quality content in these markets as most of these users don't have credit cards and most will be unwilling to place an expensive call to verify their names.

from Drupal 78 days ago #

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What happens when spammy people are the first movers for a topic, and set the control that they have the right to moderate any entries?

Can there be duplicate entries for one topic?

PS Canadians and non-US residents can't verify identity. Lame.

from scottcleland 77 days ago #

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May I respectfully point out Google's misdirection in encouraging comparisons to Wikpedia -- Knol is an online publishing platform and business model that increasingly will compete with newspapers, magazines, journals and websites... Google is setting itself up to be the OMNI free online publisher like it is the Omni video streamer...
See my post where I explain why traditional media should be very troubled and concerned about being disintermediated by knol before they realize it...
http://www.precursorblog.com/content/google-knol-the-worlds-editor-chief-omni-publisher-can-you-say-dis-intermediation
Scott Cleland, Chairman Netcompetition.org which represents bradband interests

from justin 77 days ago #

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@scottcleland - From really just looking at the surface of this site, It seems much more like an About.com or even wikipedia than anything else. Sure this gives the everday person an avenue to write about topics which interest them, but it's a very indirect way of competing with newspapers.

For the most part, newspapers write on current topics and local news while knol is more of an about.com where the information isn't necessarily as time sensitive. I do agree with the fact that magazines and journals especially how-to sites, can be affected, especially if they don't have a solid online offering.

With that being said, Google certainly has been making advancements in their news offering which traditional media should take notice of.

from ppedersen 77 days ago #

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@scottcleland

What? This is threat to publishers of timely articles and not to static informational sites like Wikipedia & about.com?? Static competes with static, dynamic competes with dynamic, and timely competes with timely. IMHO, you couldn't be more wrong.

Do you seriously think knol.google.com will be full of updated Knols reporting on todays plane crash or stock crash? I don't think so. It will be full of static content like "How to backpack" or "Best Scenic Overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway"

...Nice job on the shameless linkingbaiting using rediculous claims, however.

from iBrian 76 days ago #

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Lol!
http://knol.google.com/k/knol/system/knol/pages/Search?q=seo&restrict=general#

from g1smd 76 days ago #

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Interesting that the articles by Paul Green and Dosou Jiang are word-for-word identical.

from ppedersen 73 days ago #

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@g1smd - Just searched Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22As+a+marketing+strategy+for+increasing+a+site%27s+relevance%22

815 results. Sad, yet funny.

from g1smd 73 days ago #

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Interesting to see that after about 50 to 60 results you get the:

"In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 56 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included." message:

See: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=%22As+a+marketing+strategy+for+increasing+a+site%27s+relevance%22