Google Knol

“Knol”, just announced a the official Google blog, is a currently private, invitation-only knowledge sharing service. Google says that a Knol is a “unit of knowledge,"* and in the style of the old-school About.com website, experts are invited to the service to write an introductory article on a subject of their expertise. Google wants to provide all the tools to write this, and host the content and so on, so that experts can focus just on the content. Then, ad revenues those pages generate can be shared.

Knol pages will be made available for indexing by search engines, Google announced, including appearing in Google search itself. Google’s Udi Manber says, “Our job in Search Quality will be to rank the knols appropriately when they appear in Google search results.” (It’s not 100% clear from that statement if Google will treat Knol pages as just another organic web source, or give them some kind of special onebox, or special organic result formatting.)

Also, Knols can be released under a Creative Commons license, if the screenshot** is right. It’s good to see Google finally starting to utilize this type of licensing (as many of their services still lack it).

Group efforts vs single authors

One key aspect of Knol, according to Google’s Udi Manber, is that the authors of articles will be prominently displayed:

Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors – but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content.

That’s partly a strawman argument – author names are included in many blog posts and news articles already today. However, if Udi is talking about Wikipedia, he may have a point.

On systems like Wikipedia, which already serves great introductory articles for a multitude of subjects, the page is a true group effort with no single author being credited as lead. Knols (one knol, two knols...?) seem to take a different route. This could become a problem with Knol, too: if a single author takes the lead, and all edits must go through that person, the article may not end up as fact-checked and up-to-date as a Wikipedia counterpart may. Even with peer reviews and potential edit suggestions that may be submitted to the author – the screenshot provided by Google, as pictured above, Wikipedia-style “Edit” links, and Google says people will be able “to submit comments, questions, edits, additional content” – the incentive to edit someone else’s article may be much lower than to help edit an article that is disclosed to be a real group project.

Then again, Knol seems to want to offer incentive for experts in terms of recognition, and money as well, two aspects lacking in Wikipedia. Also, if projects like Wikipedia get some good large-scale competition, it might help Wikipedia too. At this time, Wikipedia’s editing tools for instance are somewhat cluttered and don’t have the best usability. If Google takes away experts from Wikipedia because they provide easier tools, then maybe it helps improve Wikipedia in return.

(Not that experts of a subject would really need a new service badly – they can already create a website on their domain using a variety of tools, and throw in some ads. What may make Knol better for this, depending on how well it’s implemented, is the kind of tool set offered for editing... and potentially, the way Knol results are highlighted in search results. For those who care about search results neutrality, that part may become an area to watch in the future.)

Google claims they won’t be playing moderator

In terms of what content is appropriate for the Knol project, Google claims “Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content.” Past projects of this nature at Google have shown however that is not completely the case; there’s usually a policy disallowing certain content, sometimes leading to banned pages... think Google Page Creator, Blogger, or Google Groups***.

One of the last times Google tried to unite experts around the world for a project of theirs was for Google Answers, a paid Q&A service that has been canceled in the meantime. Let’s see how “Knol” fares.

[Thanks Beussery and Mathias Schindler! Screenshot by Google.]

*Sounds more like the name of planet from a sci-fi novel. Not that that’s bad.

**If the screenshot’s fonts are indicative of the final layout, I think the main text is too small.

***Quote from the Google Groups terms of service: “If Google discovers Content that does not appear to conform to the Terms of Service, Google may investigate and determine in good faith and in its sole discretion whether to remove the Content.”

Mambo	21 hours ago #
Hmmm... Knol sounds a bit too Orkut-like to me. Probably never take off because they'll never push it, so what's the point of it existing?
jilm	21 hours ago #
Knol.com is already taken... Mambo: Orkut is a absolutely different case. Knol is going to gain so much visitors as much content it will have. So if they pay money for creating articles, people will come through the search. There is no effective model how to convert search users into social network users. Thats the reason why Google is so weak in "social" space.
Mambo	21 hours ago #
jilm: I guess you're right. Writers don't have a common place for publishing their work, without either launching their own service or using non-free services. It does look fairly interesting.
Roger Browne	20 hours ago #
Apart from one key detail, this is not much different from what helium.com already does. The articles are by named writers, and are peer-ranked and also algorithm-ranked, and are supported by advertising. But here's the key difference: > People will be able to submit comments, questions, edits, > additional content, and so on. I hope this means that anyone would be able to "edit" the article – but then the edits would then be sent to the page-owner to be accepted, rejected or modified. That aspect would be quite exciting, and truly different from what is offered by Helium, Wikipedia, About, etc. A hint of that functionality is the "revisions" tab near the top of the screenshot. Also note the four-line summary section at the top. Just right to be included in the search results, isn't it? My only negative comment: the sample article on insomnia is too long and too detailed for a "knol"; a single unit of knowledge.
Philipp Lenssen	20 hours ago #
> Knol.com is already taken... Maybe Google already acquired the permission to get hold of this domain in the future? Doesn't seem like a super huge site, maybe the right amount of money would make the domain owner willing to give it up... If the Knol domain owner does't know about Google's project Knol though, I bet he'll be seeing a huge surprising spike in his traffic today :)
Philipp Lenssen	20 hours ago #
> I hope this means that anyone would be able to "edit" the article > – but then the edits would then be sent to the page-owner > to be accepted, rejected or modified. Wonder if those who submit edits will then get micro-percentages from that page's ad revenue, too. I also wonder if this set-up will cause big disputes for popular articles, e.g. when an editor is not approving good edits, abusing power.
Philipp Lenssen	20 hours ago #
Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan talked to Udi Manber and says that Google may release a Knol API; that they may not necessarily nofollow outgoing Knol links; and that Google may use internal database factors, like Knol ratings, when ranking a Knol (hinting it's not completely organic). From the article at searchengineland.com/071213-21 ... : < Manber offered a number of reassurances that this is not the case: * The content will be owned by the authors, who can reprint it as they like * Authors can link out at will (and links might NOT have nofollow attributes on them, allowing reputation to flow from Knol pages to others) * APIs will allow Knol information to be used by others * Allowing ads other than Google's might be a possibility (though this was something I raised, rather than Google suggesting itself. Personally, I highly doubt this would ever happen) * Google will give no special weight to these pages; if they rank, they rank because they compete with other pages and win the algorithm race Of course, Manber did say that Google could better tell which of the Knol pages were of high quality by looking at signals such as ratings. Because the content database is hosted at Google, it could easily pull the rating info in without having to "guess" or "scrape" it off pages. My concern in hearing this was that other pages with ratings might not have their information taking in as a quality signal, since Google couldn't as easily harvest it. Thus, Knol pages might get an unfair advantage. To that, Manber stressed that he didn't see such signals being used at first, and if they were down the line, Google might seek a way for others to provide similar signals to its search engine.>>
Roger Browne	19 hours ago #
> Google might seek a way for others to provide similar > signals to its search engine. Well duh, Google already offers the possibility for others to use sitemaps to indicate the relative usefulness/importance of each individual page within their sites. We don't know whether Google pays any attention to that data, but hey the mechanism is there already.
Veky	17 hours ago #
OMG. How many people will, first thing they do when they get a Knol invitation, start copying Wikipedia articles as knols, with their names as authors? The only question is who will be the fastest in this – probably someone who automatizes the process. ;-)
Hashim Warren	17 hours ago #
Why does it have to look so ugly? Is that on purpose?
Keith Chan	17 hours ago #
I won't say it looks ugly .. at least I like this layout more than the Wikipedia one where all the [edit] links are so annoying ... I'm pretty excited about this feature and I'm sure it reinforces the saying "Knowledge is Power" ... if you know what I mean ;)
AussieWebmaster	16 hours ago #
The fact that that suggest there may not be a no follow is the big thing. This one will be getting some serious viral marketing in the coming year. I see it as hot as the initial GMail invites... who wouldn't want to be a listed "authority" at Google. If you are in business it would be better than any other type of award or recognition given the cache of Google at all levels of society right now.
Eugene Villar	16 hours ago #
I'm surprised no one mentioned Mahalo. Jason Calacanis' "human-powered search engine" he says will compete with Google, but some insightful person (I forgot which) says that Mahalo actually competes with Wikipedia. Now with Knol, Google competes with both Mahalo and Wikipedia. Additionally, Knol completely and utterly destroys any notion of Google not hosting any content and being just a simple traffic source.
James Xuan	15 hours ago #
I think if it was pronounced kin-all and not nall it would be a great name. Sorry I can't do the proper pronounciation thing but I mean if you pronounced the k it would be cool...
Oren Goldschmidt	13 hours ago #
Now _this_ is a Google Alpha/Beta I want in on. I Haven't felt this way in ages, kudos to Google for piquing my interest again (Although I see many, many potential pitfalls for this venture).
Charlie Perry	12 hours ago #
Did this news catch everyone by surprise? I hadn't heard any rumours. Also, there's no reason why a group of people couldn't come together to write a knol from what I've seen.
Rich	12 hours ago #
This is silly and thoughtless. The two things that distinguish it from a wiki will also bring it to failure: ad revenue and once-and-for-all creator/moderators. It will result in a huge "title grab", for control of all the popular article titles, and then include edits from knowledgeable people. Those of low moral character will get all the ad revenue. A similar situation will develop with the contentious articles; Islam, Christianity, Iraq, George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Saddam Hussein, etc. Who gets the revenue? The person who started the article? Not to mention all the vanity articles that will result!
JeffJonez	11 hours ago #
Still sounds like Googlepedia to me, with an elitist spin.
orhan	10 hours ago #
what I understand it is that knol will basically be an all-round easy tool for writers who want to get published. it will be author-oriented service rather than being reader-oriented one. knol is a very good name by the way.
SQ89	9 hours ago #
Heh, knol.com/ now reads (in Dutch): -- Knol Steam cleaning systems wants to thank, among others, the following sites: - Google - 040 Hosting - nu.nl - Webwereld - TechCrunch The attention really is overwhelming!
Joey F	7 hours ago #
Where can I get an invite? Anyone?
drtimofey	4 hours ago #
i think that all blogoscopedoholics shoud receive an invite!!
Reto Meier	1 hour ago #
The service it sounds most like to me is Everything2. Similar concept where authorship is key, with the community able to comment and rate writeups for a given subject. 'Authors' gain reputation which in turn gives them more power to rate other people's articles. If Knol follows the E2 philosophy I'll be more than happy with it. I always preferred it in concept to wikipedia which had a very elitest air. The problem with wikipedia is that it assumes that people who have been around a long time and made lots of edits are somehow a better authority on a subject than someone with actual knowledge in the area. Which by itself is fine, except those people can actually change the text! It always bothered me in Wikipedia that I didn't know who (in real terms, not a login name) authored or edited an article. I'd rather have three well written, conflicting writeups with details on the authors than one constantly changing 'authoratative' article edited constantly by anonymous users.
stefan2904	1 hour ago #
if someone gets an invite,please send me one too. Thanks! ;-)
ladybroadoak, virginia simson	3 minutes ago #
Ditto, if someone gets an invite, please send me one, three. My items get posted on google blog searches constantly, but will google consider my content as "expert" .. on many topics I am the only blogspot author posting on such things and analyzing them in terms of a "bigger" picture. Are they taking into account the changing nature of journalism with its intense focus on bloggers as REAL journalists as opposed to government operatives posing as journalists ..? I am sorry to inform everyone but Operation Mockingbird is alive and well and very very busy today. So some of us "non experts" are actually MORE expert, if you see what I mean. 'When the San Jose Mercury and the NY Daily News got sold this year, investigative journalism went basically down the drain in the mainstream press. Kaput. So this is all highly interesting indeed.