Google Unveils Knol, Tries to Act Like it Isn’t Wikipedia
With the release of its Wikipedia-killing user-generated infocenter site Knol, Google hopes to at long last officially own the entire Internet, rather than merely by unspoken agreement as it stands today.
Knol, named after a “unit of knowledge,” and NOT a bastardization of the hyena men from Dungeons and Dragons as I’d originally assumed, is looking to be pretty fantastic, and Google is sparing no hyperbole in the lead-up to its launch:
There are millions of people who possess useful knowledge that they would love to share, and there are billions of people who can benefit from it. We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that.
Yes, clearly it’s far too difficult for the average person to share their knowledge on the Internet. That totally explains this Wikipedia entry. And this one. And THIS one. And these comments.
But inane PR posturing aside, Knol does have some key differences from Wiki that might make it worth your while, or doom it to crash and burn. For example, they’re going to incorporate Google AdWords and allow authors to get paid for their Knol pages based on how many hits they get.
On one hand, this could mean a lot of incentive for knowledgeable people to post valuable information. On the other, far more likely hand, this will mean that the phrase “Nude Pics of Scarlett Johansson” will have 1,300 entries, all promising you the absolute nudest pics if you just click this external link right here.
Naturally, that link will take you to the author’s other Knol entry page about pirates, ninjas, zombies, their fights with Chuck Norris, and anything else they think will bring in the hits.
The second difference? Unlike Wikipedia, Knol will not be community-edited. Each author writes exactly what they want, meaning there can be multiple entries on the same topic with totally conflicting information that’s not overseen in any way. The hope is that through a Digg-style rating system, the accurate entries will float to the top. As Google says, “Competition of ideas is a good thing.”
And hey, that’s a noble impulse. In theory, it could cut out a good amount of the whining and worthless debate that plagues Wikipedia (although knowing the Internet, people will find a way). It’ll also screw thousands of students who base their final U.S. History paper on a Knol entry that claims George Washington ate King George III and had a wooden cock, which is kind of hilarious.
But despite the upsides—free market and all that—I see one major problem here: People research stuff because they don’t know about it, not because they’re looking for something to rate against their own, complete knowledge. So it seems far more likely that Knol pages that SOUND accurate, rather than those that ARE accurate, are going to be the ones doing the best traffic.
I mean, I can easily say that a Varkel is a 19th-century term for a sandwich comprised of a pickled herring between two slices of rhubarb pie, traditionally eaten with a bowl of warm brine by Irish longshoremen on the Sabbath, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t just make it up, which I did.
And of course there’s the ever-looming concern that with sites like Gbase (AKA “Google Craigslist”) and Google Checkout (AKA “Google Amazon”), we’re inching ever closer to a world where we’ll have to activate our Google-passkeys in order to enter our Ghouse and have Gdinner with our Google Family, who have been specially selected for us by profiling our buying and clicking habits.
Of course, maybe I’m just being paranoid. The real question is: are you feeling lucky?
December 19th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Post enough entries and you could make a living.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Wikipedia posted an article about the knol today too. It is listed on their homepage, right under the article about a guy who makes crystal skulls out of toilet deodoriser. No shit!!!
December 19th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
You’re a bad person… Second time I’ve been RickRoll’d today!
December 19th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Wow. Knol makes me sad at it’s retardation.
But thanks to you, Michael Swaim, I now know more about jackets. And being RickRoll’d, though I saw it coming a mile away. I just like Rick Astley.
December 19th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
I wonder what Rick Astley himself thinks about Rickrolling. Maybe Knol has an entry I can check out. It’ll probably tell me that he celebrates by battling pirates and ninjas alongside Mr. Norris. I don’t know any different, so I’d have to go along with it.
December 19th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
What the fuck is a “google?”
December 19th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Short for googleplex; 1 followed by 100 zeroes
December 19th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Actually, the word is “googol.” A googolplex is a 1 followed by a googol zeroes. (More here.)
December 19th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Yes, I believe you are correct( I should have “googled” the answer instead of trusting my brain) and yes you got me.
December 20th, 2007 at 12:17 am
I have stopped clicking on any links on this website after getting rickroll’d a consecutive four times.
December 21st, 2007 at 6:09 pm
My first thought when I saw that picture of Mrs. Anderson: “Her shirt is cut in such a way that you can no longer see the ‘oo’ of ‘google’.” This was followed immediatley by my second thought: “…Oh. Got it. Heh, boobs.”
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
wxjkcyn jfqamdtu pfrawk kdhp futgznsv qgudw qgkimbtcw
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
zyeck mnfhqauc ukhlvc wcin dnoq xyuj whvoamqty http://www.qtrso.vfubojgcn.com