Welcome to Knol
A knol is an authoritative article about a specific topic.
Google has entered the competition for your information needs. Of course, Google has always been serving your information needs via search, but now it wants to organize and serve information more in the format of Wikipedia.
Acording to Wikipedia:
For some reason, being able to learn about Knol from a competitor strikes me as amusing. Maybe that is just me. Maybe that is Wikipedia confidence.
Knol is a different type of venture for Google. This is not about software engineering in the way I normally think about complex programs, unlimited storage, and large server farms. Wiki software is pretty much wiki software (or at least it seems so to me). My students do a project using MediaWiki which is pretty much how they would author an article on Wikipedia and the software runs on very low end equipment. Anyone with a server can attempt to attract authors and offer information. The advantage in this “market” goes to concept and visibility. There might be an advantage in doing something a better way (sometimes it is better to go second). Authoring a Knol can be a solo venture and the author can keep it that way. OR, others can be invited to modify a post.The default places the original author in the role of moderator (edits must be approved).
There is also the opportunity for revenue. Google includes Google ads in Knol posts and authors will receive some revenue when a reader clicks through a Google ad.
Now the challenge will be to ramp up to critical mass. All things being equal, the Google concept has some advantages – IF, Knol can attract readers.
It is interesting to consider where this might be going. The idea of securing a publisher for some writers may be solved by Google. I am guessing most writers receive very limited financial benefit for their products. Here you have a distribution channel and the potential for some compensation. If readers shift their attention to online distribution, authoring “nonfiction” material for Google may be attractive.
