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The long-awaited Wikipedia killer from Google, entitled Knol, launched today to little fanfare.
Announced in mid-December last year, Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects, as described by
Knols users (through their Google Account) will write reference pages on the topics of their choice, which ultimately will start appearing in (and probably dominating) the Google search results. The authors will choose whether they want Google AdSense to appear on the pages they create and if they want a cut.
Some reviews are already in, including by Mashable's Adam Ostrow, who likens Knol to Squidoo rather than Wikipedia:
In giving a single author control over each Knol and its edits, it’s hard to imagine the service will be as authoritative as Wikipedia (which, many would argue has its own biases). It seems more like Squidoo, where knowledgeable people can create good content and be rewarded for it, with the community at-large determining how valuable it is and recognizing that there may be some bias in the article.
I agree with Ostrow, Knol is much more Squidoo than Wikipedia, with a little bit of Mahalo sprinkled in for good measure.
On a side note, I tried publishing a quick Knol this afternoon to no avail, a feat I learned was shared by others in a quick Twitter survey this afternoon. The only real example I could find was from Todd Mintz and his Knol on Google Street View and such.
I guess that means that the countdown until spammers ruin Knol has yet to begin.
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2 Comments so far2 Responses to “Google Knol Launches. Sort of.”
I actually dumped a large number of my articles / posts on there yesterday. It might end up to be a good central place for marketing oneself and one's ideas.
There could be many positive to come from Knol and I really do not think that Google will allow spammers to ruin it for everyone.