According to the official Google Blog, Google is alpha testing its response to Wikipedia -- a collection of bylined articles on various knols (units of knowledge). Sort of the antithesis of Wikipedia, which gains its strength (and notoriety) because it allows editing by crowds. Google's knols will be "owned" by individual authors, presumably who care enough about the topic and and well enough respected that someone else would care what they say. Google says it's not vetting or editing any content. In fact:
We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line. Anyone will be free to write. For many topics, there will likely be competing knols on the same subject. Competition of ideas is a good thing. [...] participation in knols will be completely open, and we cannot expect that all of them will be of high quality.
OK, that's the part where I get queasy... Yes, there are comment tools so others can rate the quality of the article, challenge it, etc. But why require that each expert create their own knol? The richness of Wikipedia is that it comprises the best from various experts. One person builds an initial article, and others contribute to it as they can. But there's still one article there, not 5 or 6 or 10 or 20. The Wikipedia editors are what make it so valuable - they keep things organized into some semblance of a reference work. That's why so many search engines intentionally separate out Wikipedia search results - it's usually valuable content.
Unlike Wikipedia, Knols definitely not built in the spirit of sharing, giving back, contributing to the corpus of knowledge or just getting known as a key Wikipedia contributor. Call me jaded or cynical, but my hunch is that most knol authors will be people who see the value of getting their names listed as the authors of knols, and in generating revenue from embedded ads in their knols.
Of course, with Google, one never knows. But I'm a lot more optimistic about Wikipedia's prospects, having heard Jimmy Wales speak at the Online Information show a couple of weeks ago. I'll post my thoughts on his talk when I get around to digging up my notes. Shoulda lugged my laptop to the presentation...
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