Google launches Knol, Wikipedia competition
Google opened its website Knol to the public on Wednesday, allowing people to write about their areas of expertise under their bylines in a twist on encyclopedia Wikipedia, which allows anonymity. “We are deeply convinced that authorship — knowing who wrote what — helps readers trust the content,” said Cedric DuPont, product manager for Knol. The name of the service is a play on an individual unit of knowledge, DuPont said, and entries on the public website, knol.google.com, are called “knols.” Google conducted a limited test of the site beginning in December. Knol has publishing tools similar to single blog pages. But unlike blogs, Knol encourages writers to reduce what they know about a topic to a single page that is not chronologically updated.
“What we want to get away from is ‘this last voice wins’ model which is very difficult if you are a busy professional,” DuPont said. Google wants to rank entries by popularity to encourage competition. For example, the first knol on “Type 1 Diabetes” is by Anne Peters, director of the University of Southern California’s Clinical Diabetes Programs. As other writers publish on diabetes, Google plans to rank related pages according to user ratings, reviews and how often people refer to specific pages, DuPont said. Knol focuses on individual authors or groups of authors in contrast to Wikipedia’s subject entries, which are updated by users and edited behind the scenes. DuPont said that rather than competing with Wikipedia, Knol may end up serving as a primary source of authoritative information for use with Wikipedia articles.
Source: Reuters
Comments(34)
Knol wai
I can’t handle your full page ads anymore
Goodbye RLSlog
The hotlinking is getting really pathetic, guys. :/
Really unprofessional.
Just get Ad-Block Plus guys.
I’ve never seen an ad on rlslog with this thing.
Mat
Anyone seeing adverts is a f*cking spastic. Learn to adblock+noscript.
Yup I second (or third that) if you still see stupid adverts your too dumb to be using a computer!!
Firefox + Adblock + Noscript = NO ADVERTS
firefox + adblock plus and adblock filterset g add-ons
no ads, no worries
ya if you see adverts you kinda deserve too, theres plenty of ways to block them, was one of the first things i googled when first got my internet “how to block adverts” like everyone has said, Adblock and no java script add-on’s for Firefox work wonders
Will, Nothing 4 free google, Am i right Martin ?
Sites make money from visitors/members, And members should do the same.
0
i lol’d. pathetic wikipedia clone.. google is teh satan, the interweb is leviathan. praise jesus!
I have all of the adblock and extensions working, see no ads at all, but there is some sh!tty rap song that keeps playing automatically, and nothing to block it.
I can’t handle the fullpage ads anymore either, goodbye as well rlslog. Even with ad block plus running, its unbearable to read now.
Have some respect for your readers
Google seems to try to copy everything… What now? Google-Bay? GoogleAmazon? F**k Google…
knol?! wtf is that
it is teh suck!!
Knol is hella confusing.. I couldn’t get my first Knol published until I filled out a bio. (Would have been nice if that was mentioned somewhere!!)
And if you don’t click on Save before clicking on Publish, you lose all your work!
off-topic
Battlestar.Galactica.Razor.2007.720p.HDTV.x264-ESiR
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4313106
http://www.mininova.org/tor/1628802
Nothing competes with Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Rulz!
H0rr1ble design!
so you have to rate and review pages containing information that you know nothing about? or do they expect other experts in (in the example above) diabetes, to rate and review that doctor’s page? wont they just say her page is rubbish and upload their own? i dont get it. i want one moderated page on each subject not 12 (non-updated?!) pages to choose from each time i do a search.
Wtf..why do guys from google wanna do everything…they are already minting money..It sickens me to see google trying to ape everything and just coz they have more funds they ultimately end up with better products…wikipedia still rules..this is monopoly to its f*cking extreme…down with google.
lol @22 why shouldn’t they want to do everything. it’s obvious that you don’t know how that company works. they let their employees come up with new things (all those beta products) and if people seem to like it, they continue working on it. even though this seems like a niche product right now, it’s still better than having to buy 50-100$ textbooks to get both sometimes current and “valid” info (’valid’ according to many universities). I’ll always like wiki (and not just Wikipedia for that matter) sites though, they’re fast and simple.
so now google is acting like microsoft?! branching out its ugly tentacles to different sides of the internet in hope for the gains of popularity at the expense of users’ confusion.
fail.
epic fail.
wikpedia wins this one. i know this cuz im a reporter.
I have nothing against Google. In fact, I like their stuff very much. But this Knol site isn’t a good idea. I surfed it for like 2 hours, and truth is, WIKIPEDIA RULES.
You guys, wtf are you talking about, knol is an amazing idea. Finally we’re gonna have a resource that we can use as a source in school/professional work. Wikipedia will still be there for quick look-up of information, but knol will be something a lot more authoritative.
I got the diabeetus
Why is every blog saying Knot is a rival/competition for Wikipedia? The original press release specifically states that its not designed to compete with Wikipedia. And the quote here even states they’re not competing against one another.
They’re not even designed on the same information model.
WTF?
@25 ross kemp
Just because you’re a reporter doesn’t mean you are right.
“knol”!!!? wtf! One of the worst names I’ve seen. Fail.
Thrilled to see this. Too often is the case on wiki that certain articles’ presentation of data simply gets down to a shouting match where the most persistent (and not necessarily correct) win edit wars and not those who have presented sound sources… This has been long over due. Thank you, Google.
To all who complain about the ads on rslog: ffs let them get some money for their work.