Google tries its own Wikipedia
Posted
Jul 23 2008, 04:29 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
A couple of years ago, a Google employee joked to me that the company should just get it over with and buy Wikipedia. I thought that made perfect sense. Wikipedia fits nicely with Google's goal of organizing and offering the world's information for users. Just slap a few ads on those entries, and Wikipedia becomes Google's dream come true.
But instead of buying Wikipedia, Google's going to replicate it with a service called Knol. There are differences between the two, but the premise is the same: users collaborating on in-depth articles about a variety of topics. Google shares rose more than 2% today to close at $489.22.
Here's how it works: Anyone can write an article, called a "knol," about any subject. Readers can suggest changes or additions to the article, but only the original author can implement those changes. That differs from Wikipedia's policy of allowing anyone to change any entry -- true collaboration in my book. But Wikipedia has run into problems with article vandalism and user abuse.
Authors can make money by allowing AdSense ads on their pages. A knol about insomnia, for example, has lots of blank space on the right -- perfect real estate for all those ads that appear when you type "insomnia" into Google's search page.
Here's what others are saying about Knol:
Search Engine Land: "I still lean toward not wanting Google to do this. I remain concerned that by hosting this content, it plays too much in the content owner space when its core business is supposed to be driving traffic outbound to others. Hosting content sets up inherent conflicts that over time start to erode the trust people have in Google, I feel."
TechCrunch: "Wikipedia works well because it’s almost like a charitable organization. Everyone contributes what they can in the hopes of furthering the world’s knowledge. Knol’s community will likely be far more concerned with earning money than the general welfare, which may hurt both its credibility and the amount of participation it sees from the community."
VentureBeat: "It will be interesting to see if Knol results show up higher in Google search results than Wikipedia pages. It sounded like this could happen when Google first talked about Knol back in December. This could definitely undercut Wikipedia."
Bits: "For now, Knol has only a few hundred articles, compared to the nearly 2.5 million in Wikipedia’s English language version. And for now, the best place to follow the debate on whether or not Knol is a Wikipedia killer is on the Knol entry on, where else, Wikipedia."
Related reading:
Wired's long article about Knol
Google can't control its wild child
Who has the best reputation?
