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POPSAll about Knol Knol is a Google project which aims to include user-written articles on topics ranging from "scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions," After its first alpha phase in December last year is now available to everyone.
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POPSThe battle for Wikipedia's soul "To create a new article on Wikipedia and be sure that it will survive, you need to be able to write a “deletionist-proof” entry and ensure that you have enough online backing (such as Google matches) to convince the increasingly picky Wikipedia people of its importance. This raises the threshold for writing articles so high that very few people actually do it. Many who are excited about contributing to the site end up on the “Missing Wikipedians” page: a constantly updated list of those who have decided to stop contributing. It serves as a reminder that frustration at having work removed prompts many people to abandon the project. Google has recently announced its own entry into the field, in the form of an encyclopedia-like project called “Knol” that will allow anybody to create entries on topics of their choice.But even if it does not turn out to be the Wikipedia-killer that some people imagine, it may push Wikipedia to rethink its editorial stance."
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POPSGoogle to compete with Wikipedia? Very interesting. By highlighting the author of an article, or "knol", there's a clear and compelling reason to contribute articles of value. Google's internal Knol likely creates a meritocracy, where it's important and valuable to be the person who wrote the authoritative knol on a specific technical topic. Compared with Wikipedia, where most contributions are fueled by a altruistic need to create or improve articles, I can see the motives for this, but it also seems as though this would create lots of stale pages, jockeying for 'authoritative' position, and generally stifle collaboration. Interesting - but I don't think it's a wikipedia killer.
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POPSGoogle Testing "Knol" Knowledge Base Sadly, you can't have an alternative to WikiPedia or it becomes WikiPedia ~ which would be the thing you were trying to avoid in the first place. Quite a Conundrum.
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