Google Knol - FFS, Google…
News started to spread this week of Google Knol, Google’s latest doodling in their mission to organize the world’s information. When I first heard about it, I thought it basically sounded a lot like Wikipedia, but with ads. Then I started to hear even more about it, and comparisons to About.com came to mind. Then I read the official news about it, took a look at the preliminary screenshot, and drew my own conclusion: This is much more like Helium with some wiki tools and visual cues from About.com
Basically, it takes the idea from Wikipedia that anybody can write an article about whatever they know about. But, where Wikipedia utilizes mostly-anonymous users making edits with official editors going around deciding what’s good enough to keep, Google isn’t going to be policing Knol; it will be left to the users to decide what is good and what isn’t (still similar to Wikipedia, since you can nominate stubs for removal, etc). If you look at the full-size screenshot, it’s pretty easy to understand how comparisons to About.com came up. Visually, it feels very similar. Users who write articles are out in the open, including credentials, and put their reputations on the line when they write. I like this because it means Knol will be less prone to idiot-edits and vandalism that runs rampant on Wikipedia and makes it generally untrustworthy.
So up until this point, I felt largely apathetic about Knol. We already have these tools, why combine About.com and Wikpedia? It seemed like Knol would just be a repository of junk information or reprints from the web. And while I supposed organizing the world’s information includes organizing all the junk as well, I just couldn’t see the point. Then I looked a little closer, and saw that the footsteps Knol was following the closest was one of my favorite sites, Helium.com
Helium is basically an editorial-focused Epinions. Users can write articles on topics, and the site lets users compare them to other articles on the same topic and ‘vote’ on which is more informative. This creates a kind of competition, and if you look at a topic you know a lot about in and there’s a mostly-useless article, you feel compelled to one-up them and become the #1 rated article in that topic. Helium also runs contests that rotate between topics and you earn a little bit of ad revenue from it, as well. Knol seems to do all this as well, while being a little more visually appealing, and throws in some wiki-ish tools so you can suggest minor edits to other people’s articles.
Since Google’s secret mission seems to be organizing the worlds information and then selling ads around it, naturally there are Google’s friendly contextual text ads on each article. Google gives the writers of the articles a piece of the revenue, however, and the ability of having multiple Knols on each topic along with a rating system creates competition to write the best, most informative article. And competition to be the most helpful is the best kind there is. Getting a little payola and being semi-famous are nice perks, as well. The more you write, the more you make. Of course, that’s assuming Google doesn’t stiff its users with a low cut like Epinions does (I used to make $20 an article on Epinions, and that was when I was 16!)
It seems that Knol takes the best of Wikipedia, About.com, and Helium and cuts out all the bad bits. Time will tell if it catches on, becomes relevant, and stays useful; it’s possible it will fade into obscurity like many of Google’s other pet projects. There will definitely be a beginning period where most of the new content will just be stuff lifted from the previously mentioned sites- but over time, it’s appealing visual style and perks could make it the go-to site for disseminating and collecting information. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m not placing any bets on its success yet.
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