Thu 24 Jul 2008
How Does Google Knol Compares to Wikipedia?
Posted by Bashar under Google, Technology
Google Knol has just launched, as the Google version of Wikipedia, and online information sharing and editing site. Knol however is not 100% non-profit, writers could allow ads to be run on their site, and editors will be able to earn revenue from their knols (topics). This is a bit encouraging, and I could already see some detailed articles with lost of useful pictures and information.
User also has the option to select the licensing terms of the topic. Is it All Rights Reserved, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License, or Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. So by default, not everything on Knol is open for resue, and that’s something that will give Wikipedia an upper hand for consumers and share lovers. On the other hand, it will attract more the people who like to pertain ownership of the content.
And speaking of wonership, this is where my question comes. Every knol has it’s collaboration model setting, and once you give people the option, it will no longer be as wonderful or as updated as Wikipedia.
So this will:
- Make things locked, and much less updated.
- Make knols Biased: Which is the biggest issue as I see it. Unless there is something I am not aware of, right now I searched for Microsoft, there was no such Knol. I got the option to write it. I went ahead to the edit page. So imagine if I could be the owner, and only editor of the Microsoft Knol. And trust me the knol won’t be on Microsoft’s side. So how does Google plan to deal with such things? Anyone can be the exclusive editor of anything if he just goes there first, and this is so much against the reasons why Wikipedia is so much credible.
What are your thoughts on it? Any idea how Google will deal with such infringements?
Popularity: 23% [?]
July 24th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Hope someone writes a non-biased entry about Islam since its a very debatable topic. But I agree with you how could google control the biased locked topics?
July 24th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
dhari: That’s one big basic example. The list is infinite.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I too think Wikipedia will have the upper hand because one as you noted and two because wikipedia has expanded so large it will be hard, but not impossible, fro Knol to catch up with the heap load of articles.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:38 am
MacaholiQ8: You’re probably right here in both points.
August 10th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
well I am just a user, never actually thought of enhancing or updating any entries in Wikipedia but since what Google launched is a Beta version, you never know what it’ll change in the future, it’s all about catching up with what’s in the market and out leading them
Glad I ran into this, I’ll check it out
August 11th, 2008 at 1:03 am
I don’t know what to think of it still :/
August 11th, 2008 at 10:39 am
3baid: I feel it will be killed in 3 years time.