Standing in the way of control!

Google has been launching new services at a cracking rate this year. Their new service is Knol. A Wikipedia type of service with a twist. This time you can make money if you are registered with Google. Since the service is quite new, you can easily be the first one to write an article for them.

From Mashable!:

Google has just launched Knol to the public, dubbed by many as the search giant’s Wikipedia killer. My first reaction: not so fast. While Knol offers a way for anyone to create content about any subject, there are a few big differences.

First and foremost, each “Knol” is created by a single author, who can then choose to either accept or reject edits made by others in what Google is calling “moderated collaboration.” Beyond that, Knol authors can insert AdSense on their Knols and earn revenue based on clicks. In reality, this sound less a lot less like the community collaborating on authoritative articles (Wikipedia) and a lot more like a potential land grab to create content for lucrative keywords.

However, Google does offer some options that should keep would-be opportunists at bay. Each Knol offers the ability for anyone to review or comment on it, which in turn raises or lowers the authority of the article. Google says that they “expect that there will be multiple knolls on the same subject, and we think that is good.”

In giving a single author control over each Knol and its edits, it’s hard to imagine the service will be as authoritative as Wikipedia (which, many would argue has its own biases). It seems more like Squidoo, where knowledgeable people can create good content and be rewarded for it, with the community at-large determining how valuable it is and recognizing that there may be some bias in the article.

Meanwhile, Knol could still be a huge traffic generator for Google and steal visitors from Wikipedia if it’s integrated in search results – something Google has not been shy about doing with other properties like YouTube.

I have searched for many of my interests and found very few if any entries as yet. So, be the first to submit a Knol…

See also: Google Launches Knol, The Monetizeable Wikipedia

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