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Google Knol

Currently internet users are experiencing the second coming of the internet - not since before the the bubble burst has so much investment and development transpired. Its a fantastic time for internet users as the ecosystem fills with more brightly coloured rich applications for internet photo albums and social networks.

However the open and fair nature many internet evangelists promote is threatened by the largest and most successful dot com, Google. During mid December 2007 Google announced there latest project to develop and run 'an authoritative store of information' - which is simply an encyclopaedia. An example of a Knol page can be found here - http://www.google.com/help/knol_screenshot.html.

The Googlepaedia is referred to as 'Knol' - a term coined to describe a single unit of knowledge. This announcement literally set the blogisphere a light with a flurry of activity. Will Knol threatening the existence of Wikipedia?

The Wikipedia Foundation is a not for profit charity organisation which forms the legal umbrella for the Wikipedia site. Wikipedia is a very successful open service which allows users to contribute information to the community at large. To date the sites content is generated by the 75,000 registered contributors in 250 languages serving in excess of 9,000,000 articles. Over 2,000,000 of the published articles are written in English. Though attacked by librarians and educators for inaccuracies Wikipedia continues to be an extremely successful source of information.

Of late there are two major encyclopaedias, Wikipedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica is revered as the gold standard of factual information publication.

The benefit of the Wikipedia format is the ability to quickly add and edit incorrect information rapidly across a myriad of subjects which is in stark contrast to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica first printed in 1768, currently in it's 15th edition with 32 volumes.

Some view Google's move to create a new encyclopaedia a bold and monopolistic direction regardless of the company's mission 'To organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful'. I believe this is mainly because people think of Google the search engine; not Google the company cataloguing facts and knowledge.

The Knol model will allow users to add information using an journal format. Google will providing the users the tools and facilities to distribute their Knol to potentially billions of internet users. Authors will retain the maintain the Knol and opt into the share in advertisement revenue unlike the not for profit model of Wikipedia. The only advert on Wikipedia site is for donations to continue development and maintenance.

I really hope that Google creates a fantastic service. This is a massive opportunity for consumers. Google, an organisation with cataloguing information for mass distribution present at the heart of the business deciding to build a super encyclopaedia which would be freely available to all. This view was not shared by all.

The most amusing and poignant comment was made by Natali Del Conte of the Textra video podcast said - 'The general idea is that "experts" will contribute content and also share in the ad revenue of each site'. She went on to say that it would be an odd model allowing multiple users to contribute multiple items in the same topic with Google making no kind of editorial contributions.

I agree with the comment regarding editorials and duplication of information though my biggest concern for the service is from the Google search engine. Currently the Google search engine indexes the internet based on search phrases - but what would stop Google from weighting Knol results so they appear in front of Wikipedia results. How will the Google search effect the development of both digital encyclopaedias.

Kirsh at krishworld.com believes the Wikipedia format will prevail by using human intuition to organise all the information on one page will be more beneficial by preventing the replication of inaccurate facts and information across the internet. The Knol format would in fact have the risk of diluting Google search results through the replication of very similar information. It will also create a situation which makes the management of facts difficult. Read the blog in full at 'Wikipedia is safe from Google'.

The main benefit of the Wikipedia format is the series of inter-linked pages arranged by humans for humans. Rather than Google search which lacks the filtering ability through 'crowd wisdom' (group decisions) used by the Wikipedians to link the information together and remove incorrect and duplication. It is not uncommon to see notices to information users that pages are to be merged in order to combine similar entries.

I think really in summary the Google Knol will not dislodge Wikipedia as the first point of call for facts and figures. The Knol project more likely to develop into a well indexed store for essays and journals rather that a encyclopaedia thus preventing a Betamax vs VHS situation and ensuing format war which is likely to be lost by Wikipedia due large sums of money available at Google.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence