It was announced last week on the official google blog that Google are currently testing out their latest project Google Knol which is a wiki based information source populated by knowledgeable contributed and edited by the users. This is obviously a direct competition to Wikipedia and is based on the same principles and ideas.
Apparently the challenge posed by Larry, Sergey and Eric was to find a way to help people share their knowledge, and this was their solution. At the moment the tool is only open to a select group of invited individuals and the tool is in its first stage of development and testing but with the speed at which Google tend to do things I cant see it being long before its launched to the public. According to the article goal is for Knols to cover all topics and to highlight and credit authors, something which is rarely done online.
Much like on Wikipedia users will be able to submit edits, questions, comments, additional content etc etc but they can also include Adsense ads in relation to their article and earn a percentage of the revenue earned through these ads. This is where Knol might steel a march on Wikipedia as Wiki users participate for free and have no option to earn money. It is a nice touch from Google as they are appearing to be giving back to the contributors when in reality they are obviously taking the Lion’s share of the profits for themselves.
One question that does need to be asked is what does this mean for Wikipedia, and in particular their search rankings? They do very well in the natural results and Google have often been criticised for ranking the site so well. Could it be that we will start to see the demise of Wiki’s search rankings once Knol is introduced, now that would be convenient! However Google might not even need to do this as they say in their article “A Knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read.” Which suggests to me that the Knol’s may become a part of the Universal Search page and appear above all the natural results anyway. Could the end be nigh for Wikipedia?
Tags: wikipedia, Google, universal search, google knol, knol
It is difficult to imagine wikipedia out of the game. Knol is targeting other users than wikipedia. Users that are author orientated not content orientated. The question is which information is better? The one provided by a single user or the one provided by a collective? Which knowledge is better checked and better aggregated?