Googles online encyclopedia: Knol, goes public, at least in beta form

Knol, Google's answer to Wikipedia has gone public. Google define a "knol" as a unit of knowledge. Largely the the brainchild of Google vice president of engineering Udi Manber, Knol was announced on December 13, 2007 and was opened in beta to the public on July 23, 2008.

While Knol may be browsed without logging on, entries may only be submitted by owners of a – free – Knol account. This is because, unlike Wikipedia, Google say they place value on authorship and authors names are displayed for each entry. Like Wikipedia, Google do not intend to exercise any editorial control over Knol content which resides entirely in the hands of the various authors. Only the author can edit a Knol, although other users can provide feedback, comments and related information. Authors are allowed to collaborate on a Knol.

Google say that they want to encourage competing entries on the same subjects, which might seem to run counter to the idea of an encyclopaedia as a definitive source of knowledge.

A number of news stories on Knol have mentioned the idea that authors might be paid. While there is no mention of payment on the Knol introductory pages, Udi Manber says in his official blog that authors may choose to include – Google controlled – advertising in their entries and that revenues from advertising will be shared. By default, all entries are licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0 license, although authors can choose to publish under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license or as “All Rights Reserved”.

Knol does not yet have an entry count and so far the number of useful entries is very small compared to Wikipedia. The opening page of Knol gives the impression that the current content is almost entirely medical.

Wikipedia first went online in 2001 and currently carries approximately 2.5 million English entries as well as entries in a number of other languages. Its entries are created by volunteers, anyone may submit an entry, or edit any entry.

Critics have said that the lack of overall editorial control in the Wikipedia model is too open to abuse and leads to poor quality, inaccurate and biased content. Empirical evidence suggest that the impartiality, accuracy and currency of the Wikipedia entries is actually surprisingly good.

Amusingly, while Wikipedia has an entry on Knol, Knol does not yet have an entry for Wikipedia.

(Terry Relph-Knight)

See also:

• Knol Wikipedia's entry on Knol
• the official Google blog Udi Manber's Google blog
• Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not a page documenting official English Wikipedia policy

(trk)