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Google's "Knol" Reinvents Wikipedia
teslatug writes "Google appears to be reinventing Wikipedia with their new product that they call knol (not yet publicly available). In an attempt to gather human knowledge, Google will accept articles from users who will be credited with the article by name. If they want, they can allow ads to appear alongside the content and they will be getting a share of the profits if that's the case. Other users will be allowed to rate, edit or comment on the articles. The content does not have to be exclusive to Google but no mention is made on any license for it. Is this a better model for free information gathering?"
Google'a Knol
Klingon?
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Google is trying to promote knol as a new buzzword meaning "a unit of knowledge."
I wonder how many knol's Slashdot is worth?
My blog
The headline, blurb and link create a perfect storm of incomprehensibility -- that I had to go to Wikipedia to figure out what the hell this is about isn't an auspicious beginning, and I still have no idea what "Google'a" is.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
You see that thing on the right of the screenshot? That's an "Ads by Google" box. When I view a page and that guy is there, it isn't free anymore. Do you think the TV you watch with an antenna is free? Do you think those 'news' papers that you can pick up without paying anything are free? No, they're all laden with advertisements. Somebody somewhere down the line paid money to get that data in front of my eyes.
I noticed the VP of Engineering liked to use that word a lot to. I do not think it means what he thinks it means.
This is not free. This is ad based & ad driven information gathering. I don't know if it will be more effective but once that enters into it, you suddenly have the entire world looking to profit off this. That spells for some very bad possibilities--from violating copywrite and just inserting an encyclopedia in for cash to making stuff up and faking credentials to earn money.
My work here is dung.
All they're basically proposing is that you write an article as best as you can and they host it, giving you a tiny share of the revenue it generates. So instead of watching edit wars and being able to check out multiple opinions you now have to take the whole article as it is. There might even be small errors in there that would otherwise have been fixed by peers.
I understand that knowing the author could give more weight to the information of an article...I just don't understand how this is anything worth talking about or worth comparing to wikipedia.
Wikipedia is getting something of a reputation for being elitist and at times discriminatory without justification. Whatever the truth, when such labels are applied people are usually ripe for alternatives.
Google did this once before, in spite of what they say to the contrary, against Sourceforge. In that case, good though they are, Sourceforge was becoming quite unreliable for non paying users, and their service, while including many wonderful options, was unweildy to use.
Along came google with google code. It's a simpler service, nowhere near the features of sourceforge, but for sheer simplicity it's a joy. I wasn't alone in moving there.
Will I use knol? Well it might be just the place to place some articles derived from papers I've published, we shall see.
Quick, someone register knol.org, knol.net, knol.info.. bwaaah why am I posting this message.. off to domain name services!
Just let me rate any webpage, and choose friends. Then use the last.fm algorithm to find what I'm looking for.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Wikipedia is having enough trouble trying to stop people from editing content to cast the groups they represent in a better light; Giving them the opportunity to create their own misleading articles that can make them money through ads as well doesn't sound promising. Add to that the fact that people without agendas who share information on wikis now surely must be doing it for the love of sharing information or the love of the topic its self; ad money will only end up encouraging less passionate people to post whatever pops into their heads just to get a page running for the ad support.
This is a feature I've long since looked for in a website that has factual content, like Wikipedia (minus chip-on-shoulder admins). Krol should prevent astro-turfing well, as long as Google protects against dupes and has other beneficial restrictions.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
At first look the model seems to be about.com, which offered information on subjects as presented by named experts, which is pretty much the reverse of how Wikipedia works. As ideas go, it's not a bad one and I can see the potential for the use of trust or reputation to maintain the veracity of information, as I'm sure Google have done. It brings up several other questions of course, such as Google finally becoming a content provider, and how it's going to be managed - even if it is all user maintained the potential for another cabal is always on the horizon.
Who gets to write the blurb for famous people and companies? Surely if its them then it may be a bit biased. But then if its someone else, someone else will be making money off them.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
I wonder where they got 'knol' from. Perhaps it is a tongue-in-cheek reference to gnolls, which are are not well known for their knowledge. Or perhaps an abbreviation of 'knoll', because they are known as popular places for meditation by knowledgeable men. The only other thing I can think of is a corruption of 'null', in which case I assume they are not particularly optimistic about this knowledge project.
Knol claims to be open to all knowledge of entertainment so it's possible it could be seen as a safe haven for these fans & anyone who's been struck by the notability hammer. I could see them hopping on the wayback machine and just putting their words back into digital print
I never did see anything mentioned about the horror case of me writing my own autobiography as a knol. That wasn't addressed but I guess they'll flesh that stuff out. It'll be interesting to see where they draw the line and, like you said, who moves to the other model.
My work here is dung.
Knol, *Krol* (ugh too much WoW)
Oh and here is a strange piece of irony.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Editing oversight on /.? Great google'a moogle'a!
What is the purpose of your diatribe? It's free for the user. If I need information, I can gather it for free: Whether or not there's ads on the page does not limit the amount of data I can gather, nor does it decrease the amount of money in my wallet.
This makes me wonder if highschool teachers will allow the use of this as a resource for school papers. Since most of the time schools forbid students from using wikipedia as a source for any information. Since this has the google name on it which is probably the number one thing they use for finding information for research, I wonder if this will be acceptable. Something makes me doubt it will but it would be nice if they were open to the idea of it.
but I've always preferred something like everything2. I've always felt it's system was one of the best. It gives writers such freedom, and the community is just right as to not be plagued by spamming and vandalism.
Wikipedia fails for one simple reason; most of the data is without citation and most of the data with citation relies on web links that do not work anymore. The documentation that IS correct has absolutely no attribution and to find out who wrote an article or various portions of it you need to delve into histories or use something like they use to prove that the government is using it for propaganda or companies are removing swathes of information that are disparaging by the IP blocks they're posted from.
Being able to sort information by far better categories (not just an encyclopaedia) and enforcing attribution means the scrupulous among us will be able to publish data on the knowledge base and get the credit for it, and be able to be *congratulated or better yet, corrected* on it.
With Wikipedia, if you don't like what someone wrote, you delete it. You change it. You add insults. Then you can't use any of the data from Wikipedia anywhere else because it's GFDL. The information is *so* free the only place you can read it is ON Wikipedia, or has spidered Wikipedia and presented the data verbatim on another site.. if Google allows authors to select their license themselves (be it a CC variant, GFDL or a true copyright with a restrictive clause) then this will only draw people in.
There is something wrong about trying to free information by putting it under a restrictive, blanket license. Not all content can be licensed the same way. Wikipedia is high maintenance - looking for citations, constant review by editors, vandalism watches, locking, even selecting for the front page..
As for the advertising, even Wikipedia needs to earn it's keep. To be honest I really really object to trying to read an encyclopedia entry and being told that the WikiMedia conference is going to be on a certain date, taking up 1/4 of my screen at the top of the page, or that I need to donate to the cause. Fuck that. I want to turn that damn advert off. I don't care about it. But, it's essential to keep the site going. You can't complain about it, because without impressing it onto people that they need to pay for the upkeep of the service, they won't.
So, how is this any different to advertising using Google down the side? Well, it isn't. Google needs to make money by selling advertising and authors should be given the opportunity to earn money for all the effort they put in, because after all, spending a couple of days writing a 10 page article on something is an action most people would like to be paid for even just a little.
It's a nice idea in theory. It's all in terms of 'human knowledge.' If I could get a best-of-breed encyclopedia/"Geeky Guide to (insert favorite show/TV/franchise/mythology here" then I'm down. I'll wiki things that I know are relevant to a topic of interest (Movies, a new programming language, what have you). But if I want to find something a little more niche' like if I want to find some new information or recall something of importance on a less then global scale (I.E. following the Lost Experience ARG or iLoveBees a while back), I'll either google it and look for a fan-site wiki (ala LostPedia). I think it could work. If on the GLAT, one of their answers includes death by grue, I'd like to think they can include topics that aren't furthering the development of the human race. I, for one, welcome our information gathering Google-Lords... if they get the right policy down.
But I don't want them searching there.
Jenny's got a new number! 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I can see it now: people will just insert stubs (or copy articles from other sources) for subjects that are likely to be popular search terms, for the sole purpose of reaping the ad revenues.
Also, will we see a new form of "typo squatting", where people create articles with titles like "Slahsdot", linking to the correct article but again generating ad revenue? Meh. (Or worse, the typo page comes up like the real, incorrect slahsdot url with the words I loathe most on any web page "sponsored links", or "popular searches", and a bunch of link spam).
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
How in the hell does Google make so much money off them then?
Ah, you see someone's wallet is definitely losing money when the only thing they were looking for in the first place was information.
Actually, recently Wikipedia announced that it's going to change its license to be compatible with Creative Commons.
From : http://www.theage.com.au/news/biztech/google-can-extort-and-dominate-the-world-study/2007/12/05/1196812806297.html
"Most material written today was in some way based on Google and Wikipedia - and if those did not reflect reality, a distortion was possible, the researchers said, recalling biased contributions frequently placed on Wikipedia.
Furthermore there is some indication of cooperation between Google and Wikipedia. Sample statistics showed that randomly selected Wiki entries consistently ranked higher on Google than on other search engines, the Graz team said."
Weird isn'it?
The positive aspects are authors getting paid for their work and an alternative to wikipedia, which as I learn more about the managers I am increasingly loathe to use. Perhaps competition, or the thread of competition, will get wikipedia in line.
The bad news is that some management system will still be required, and that authors getting paid will have great potential for people participating for monetary means - trying to get the "first post" for an artical and therefore the income, or copying from elsewhere, or doing all kinds of other nefarious things that don't happen with wikipedia.
Whatever happens, this sounds good, and I hope it does get released.
cheers,
Andrew
My oh my the stupidity that sometimes lies here. Don't feed the trolls, but sometimes they need it ramming down their throat.
"someone's wallet is definitely losing money when the only thing they were looking for in the first place was information."
YES. THE ADVERTISER IS SPENDING THIS MONEY... except they're generally not 'LOSING MONEY', as the purpose of advertising is to promote your product for less money than you will get back from the increased consumer base and sales as a result of the advertising.
The viewers don't pay. That's the point. I can go to this site once or 10000 times and it will not cost me a penny aside from my usual internet access fees. I DON'T PAY. It is a FREE SERVICE to the end user.
Advertising in -pedias is a contentious issue and I'm not sure I agree wholeheartedly with it, but for gods sake, stop spreading such bullshit which is entirely false.
Looking forward to seeing this.
I'd just like to add - in no way is anyone OBLIGED to buy a product from the adverts. There is such thing as free will. If you spend money on an advertised product you see on a billboard on the way to work on the train, it does not mean that train journey cost you more money.
*head explodes with frustration at stupid comments*
Lisa: There must be a website that can help you with a clingy baby.
Marge: Oh, I don't want to bother the internet with my problem.
Bart: Aw, come on, Mom; we'll help you surf.
[Marge sits down at their computer and begins clicking with the mouse.]
Bart: Click that one, Mom. [she continues clicking]
Lisa: No, go up! [she continues clicking]
Bart: Keep going -- up, up, up! [she continues clicking]
Lisa: The blue ones are ads. [she continues clicking]
Bart: That's the toolbar. [she continues clicking]
Lisa: Now you've opened Word! Close it! [she continues clicking]
Bart: Close it! Don't save it! [she continues clicking]
Lisa: Stop clicking! [she continues clicking]
Bart: Don't go there! [she continues clicking]
Lisa: Why are you buying a freezer?! [she continues clicking]
Bart: Don't click the cart or you've bought it! [she continues clicking]
Lisa: Aw, you clicked the cart! [Marge stops clicking]
Marge: If you're so smart, you do it. [Bart hits one button and the right website appears on the screen. Marge groans.]
Sometimes I think that Wikipedia and now Knol are just reinventing the World Wide Web. They're hosting pages that anybody can post and edit. Each page has some information and links to other pages. But they are providing at least one useful service, limiting which pages and changes are visible.
Wikipedia controls changes at the word level. Any nontrivial article is a compilation from many writers, some of which may be feuding over the content. This is like an open source software project where anybody can edit the source and you must rely on some benevolent wizards to keep the whole cohesive.
Knol controls changes at the article level and seems to be more like typical open source projects. Anybody can send changes to the maintainer who decides which make it into the mainstream release. Of course somebody could fork the project, but unless the fork is a real improvement over the original it won't attract attention.
Overall Wikipedia's model is probably faster and Knol's is more stable if Google can keep it organized. Knol would also have the big advantage of actually being citable.
What's to stop a few people from plagiarising (directly or indirectly) a bunch of articles on the most popular subjects as soon as this service opens?
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
At risk of stating the obvious, this won't get anywhere near as popular as Wikipedia because everyone can't edit any article (thereby keeping the articles up-to-date and reaching decisions by consensus so ensuring accuracy)--although I do suspect that Google will be able to develop a better interface--Wikimedia is in desperate need of developers to work on RFEs.
An on-line encyclopedia model where articles are owned has been tried many times before by the likes of ODP/DMoz spin-off, the Open Encyclopedia Project, and Slashdot spin-off, Everything2. In fact, nearly all the online encyclopedias except Wikipedia have some kind of article ownership even if in some cases it isn't absolute (including Wikipedia predecessor, Nupedia, of course, which was abandoned when it was realised how successful the anyone-can-edit model they were trialing was).
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
From the linked article, knol is about highlighting authors, and while (from the article) there may be competing knol pages on the same subject, there is no mention of someone being able to edit someone else's work - only to review or comment on it.
This certainly sounds like a solution to the edit wars that plague WikiPedia (which is useful, but entirely unattractive to write for given how it is run. The visibility of competing knol articles will be determined by their usefulness as reflected by PageRank and would be saboteurs or self-promoters can only try to write a better (PageRank-ed) article - they can't corrupt someone elses work.
There's two ideas here:
1. No charge; you don't have to pay any hard cash.
2. No cost; you bear no burden at all -- money, labor, or attention to ads.
Knol will have no charge, but it won't come at no cost.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Streamline micropayments for the entire humanity and you've won. You've won against Amazon. Wikipedia. PayPal. Pearson Education. And Citygroup.
Honestly, all we need is a "Google Bank" sort of thing, managing microtransactions for everyone on the planet with zero-fuss international transactions. Google actually has the power to handle this.
If they pull through with this add-powered thing it is likely they can move up against Wikipedia in terms of content amount. Add in comments, ratings and suggestions to knol and you have a semi-wikipedia sort of thing that even pays of for the effort of the authors. Not the worst idea if you think of it. It could very well work.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
about.com took my page on a pet project, then played it off as part of their content...
:-)
somehow this behavior stopped when i changed the top-leading content on the page into an anti-about.com rant...
JMHO...
Hmmm. A globally distributed entity that lets you create pages full of information where you control your own content and can link to other people's stuff... There's an idea. But gee, it sounds so familiar. Where have I heard that idea before?
On the one hand, it looks like a simple land grab of the Internet. People are already doing precisely this thing--we call them web sites. But they aren't enough in Google's control, so one might argue this is a simple move to give them greater access and control and ownership of all the world's content.
On the other hand, there are some evolutionary inevitabilities of the net which go unresolved and this could be a bid at solving that--I'd say a step toward, but I'd like to see robust competition for the space, not a lemming-like dive for this as if it's all we're getting.
When the web originally came out, there was the hint of micropayments going to authors. That never happened. Portals figured out they could just charge for access and never let the money go to who it was accessing. This turned the economics of the web on its head because people invested money and time and energy in creating master works of all kinds, without being reimbursed in many cases. Some have figured out how to make businesses, but those are rarely content creators. The special skill of knowing something is not the same as the special skill of knowing how to build an enterprise web business. There are many, many writers and artists who make things that are useful yet don't know how to make enough money on it. So maybe this could help.
And there's the other thing: We're all aging. That means that the content producers will start to die, and their works, the things people depend on, will go away. Archive.org will rescue some of that, but in its present form, that's not a robust solution. This would at least address the survivability issue.
I would consider this at least something of a success not if Google gets a lot of content, but if good authors felt they could just sit down and create content and expect to be reimbursed for it in a way that fed their family, let them go on vacations, paid their medical bills, and allowed them to retire. If it's just dribs and drabs of pennies, it's doing nothing for society and everything for Google and it still doesn't solve anything.
Then again, there's a big risk that it will bias all writing toward an advertising model, making our world even more driven by "fashion" and less by "substance" than it already is. I'm not sure that's good.
And it's endowing a single entity with a lot of power over the world. I'd like to see other serious entrants in this space to keep the competition (if there can even be any) honest.
Right now it just sounds like the Internet all over again, but with Google's Terms of Service.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
I think it will be better than the "Google Answers" service, since knol gives more people a chance to make money and become famous. It will be more community driven than Google Answers and more popular, I'm guessing. It has a smaller entry point than Google Answers.. i.e. I don't even know how I'd sign up for Google Answers to become an expert.. but then I've never looked. In other words, not too many people know about google answers, but I think people will know about knol, for some reason. Probably the reason being that it will be like a wikipedia but more incentive is there.. money for writing.
Much more importantly, this is going to be owned by Google. They're highly unlikely to let everyone download their article database in the way that wikipedia does. Publically created information on the scale of wikipedia should not be owned by
private organisations.
Attaching money to information is always bad. Press for profit obviously has its drawbacks (see 24 cable news in america), and this is essentially what I think this will turn into, like you seem to as well. I could see articles made artificially controversial just to bring in revenues. When compiling information, independence and objectivity are paramount and introducing profit into the mix only ever leads to problems.
I got a catholic block.
Is it just me or is Google slowly taking over the entire internet. I mean seriously - its getting to the point that anything you want to do you can do with Google. You can write documents, spreadsheets, calculate stuff. Soon they'll have their social networking site that will compete against facebook and myspace. They have video services, etc. Now they are going to go up against Wikipedia? Oh yeah, and I'm told they have searching capability as well.
In all honesty, you have to give them credit for not resting on their success which seems to be the case all to often. Not to mention, they are doing most things better then their predecessors, I just think its interesting.
One problem with Wikipedia is the editing and reediting of articles -- often amounting to the ridiculous like when two parties fight for different perspectives.
Another problem with Wikipedia is the lack of authority -- well, maybe not always lack of authority as such but lack of ability to confirm the authority. You do not need authority to change an article.
I do not see how Google's system changes any of that.
Where are the peer reviews? Where are the bona fide subject matter expert moderators?
Until those problems are solved, any publicly edited information will be of dubious value. (Before you start flaming me: I am aware that experts are not necessarily right but at least they could (and should) be selected for their credibility in the societies of their field.)
Any author who chooses to allow ads on their page will be looking for some profits (otherwise I can see no reason allowing ads)
And for the ad links to be profitable they have to be clicked. So those authors will probably write an article that promotes the adverts. Not obviously promotional, of course, because then their page will become unpopular. So they will try to take a more subtle line. This will spawn many articles which are not quite objective, but are close enough to the middle ground that they will be believed or are difficult to argue against.
Imagine an article about SUVs. Thanks to related ads it will probably show adverts for SUVs and related things. So the author will try to present SUVS in a subtly positive light. The net effect of this will be a shift in general opinions in favour of SUVs.
So if you use this site, take the advert hosting pages with a healthy dose of skepticism.
YES. THE ADVERTISER IS SPENDING THIS MONEY... except they're generally not 'LOSING MONEY', as the purpose of advertising is to promote your product for less money than you will get back from the increased consumer base and sales as a result of the advertising.
Bingo. Don't forget that Google is pretty much king of directed advertising. Look up an article on motorcycle engine repair and you'd likely get a ad for a motorcycle engine parts store.
They, at least right now, are also very good at having unannoying ads. Not ones that insist on popping up in the middle of the screen, for just one example out of many.
Remember - having a defined revenue stream can help ensure that the service/business is available in the future.
I don't read AC A human right
Time is money.
If the presence of too many adverts results in me spending more time trying to obtain some information than i would if the adverts were not there, then I'm paying for the adverts with my time.
Granted, with Google this should not be a problem. When it comes to time wasted due to adverts, I'm mostly thinking of the kind of websites that, for a higher page hit count, will spread over 10 pages an article that fits in 2.
Sure 24-hour cable news in America sucks. But there are some really fantastic newspapers - which are also "press for profit".
I suspect you'll see a similarly full spectrum of things in the Google system. I don't see a big problem with that, given that Google's system does seem to be placing a strong emphasis on authorship, which should allow you to view stuff from sources you find worthwhile and ignore the ones you know are sensationalist nonsense. Much like how I don't bother watching the various opinionated blowhards on the cable networks - I know what they're peddling and don't care to waste my time on it. But a whole lot of other people seem to find it entertaining. Different strokes for different folks - that's the wonder of a free market.
The word "knol" in Dutch:
:-P
1) Old bad horse
2) Carrot
3) Turnip ("knolraap")
It'll never catch on as source of knowledge here
"Two thoughts come to mind" etc...
Wikipedia already exists. Wikis are also open source. Knol is reinventing the wheel to make a proprietary wiki for Goggle to then use to do targeted marketing on each article people look at. They then count the articles people are interested in. They also build up a profile of each and every poster, working out what they are interested in. They most likely will also be able to associate each article viewed, with all google searching from their main site via cookies etc. So they are going to be building up an even greater profile of all users of both google and knol.
So far I'm not seeing a good reason to want to use knol, but I'm seeing many reasons to stay away from knol. Each time I hear the Google "do no harm" PR idea, I'm reminded of the old saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Google is becoming Big Brother. Yet few people seem to be able to see its slowly happening.
I guess most people fail to see its happening, partly as its so many small steps towards that goal and they also fail to see how such detailed knowledge can be used to give ever more power to the ones with that knowledge. knol isn't going to be just an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. knol is going to be a hunny pot, waiting to profile each thing all of us are interested in.
I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying it, but as time goes on, I'm sadly becoming more convinced Big Brother is eventually inevitable. Few people can see its happening and no one is going to really stop what companies like Google are doing, as anyone in power wants the power Google is building for itself. They want a part of that power, so they will not stop it. They will do high profile things to make it look like they are controlling and limiting what companies like Google are doing, but in reality, they will not and cannot stop the extent of data mining that's growing year by year. Yet no one in power would really be stupid enough to want to really stop it growing, as its more power for anyone with access to the profiling data.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
A. Hugle
B. Gwiki
C. Goopedia
D. Gmoney
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
It's not free. It damages WikiPedia by competing with it, solely so Google can make money. It costs humans an enormous amount, as Google joins the "Do evil if it may make money" crowd.
By keeping every email online, Google's GMail has created a surveillance system unlike any other. Remember that the U.S. government believes that it can a) require access, b) require companies not to disclose that they gave access.
Now this.
In the summary is says "with their new product that they call knol (not yet publicly available)"
Did anyone else see this as an acronym, and then get all confused when the words didnt fit the letters ?
They should call it NYPA instead, and get the village people to sing the promo song.
Young man, there's no need to feel dumb.
I said, young man, pick your brain off the ground.
I said, young man, 'cause there's now a new site
There's no need to be a dumb ass.
No man knows it all by himself.
I said, young man, put your pride on the shelf,
And just go there, to the n.y.p.a
I'm sure they can teach you today.
It's fun to learn at the n-y-p-a
It's fun to learn at the n-y-p-a
etc etc
Count me among the people who feel that this is a mistake - speaking as an author, and as a publisher who has worked with hundreds of authors over the years, single authorship and control simply won't work in this sort of a situation. Maintaining content is hugely difficult and time-consuming, and not something that most authors do well (if at all). The beauty of the Wikipedia approach is that anyone who wants can contribute as much or as little as they want, as frequently as they want. If one person loses interest, there's always room for another to take over. There's also an implication in Manber's post that knols will be of high quality because of this authorial ownership. That will be true of some, but the reality of the situation is that most people, even if they are expert in some topic, can't write out their way of the proverbial paper bag. Many won't even have the necessary skills to organize the source material - this stuff isn't nearly as easy as it sounds.
A few other questions: What happens when there are copyright infringement claims against knols that plagiarize content from elsewhere? Will knol authors start by just stealing Wikipedia articles, and will Google act to prevent that? Will Google's policies disallowing specific content for services like Google Groups apply to Google Knol? What happens when a knol author gets busy, becomes bored with a knol, or dies? Will Google be able to argue in international court that it has no oversight over illegal content created using its own service? There's nothing new here, but the bigger the company, the bigger the target.
More in my TidBITS article at: http://db.tidbits.com/article/9360
cheers... -Adam
In proper English, you would capitalize the names of spoken languages.
Hope this is polite enough.
The big problem I am having here is that I can't really decide whether or not this would really be that bad an occurrence. Furthermore, how it's different than the way things currently are.
People already abuse "the system" (whatever that system may be), so it's not like this new Google schtuff would introduce a new problem into the fold. But would it amplify existing problems as you've suggested? It might indeed. But it might be valuable as well.
How would the most value be added? I would hope that any rating or ranking of it wouldn't simply be based on the popularity of the search term, as you've kind of suggested, but rather popularity of search results -- the actual content. That is, if 500 people write articles about Brie cheese or snowboarding or slashdot, the best articles on those subjects would surface to the top, leaving the content-less and purely commercial grabs far away from the top views, further pushing them away, while still giving solid, enjoyable contributors a chance to earn some coin for honest work.
Furthermore, since I would have complete editorial control over my article (would I?), it would be published as MY article, rather than the mish-mash of ego-driven, if interesting, slop that can plague Wikipedia. If my article is slop, then it's slop because I am a crappy writer or did a poor job -- not because it went through some sort of review process that churned out a Frankenstein version of what I originally intended to say. And the results, both financial and "page view", would reflect this.
All in all, perhaps this puts a bit more emphasis on the writer/author, than solely the content.
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
- Google clearly envisions that the best entry on a topic will be the first search result for the relevant keyword, a role currently held by Wikipedia in many categories. Google's statement: "A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read."
- Google then keeps the traffic inside its own sandbox, instead of sending it to Wikipedia, and can monetize these pages with targeted advertising.
- This system will encourage leading experts to compete for that top spot in a virtuous cycle. For genuine experts, a popular entry will dramatically increase visibility in their field.
- For organizations with many leading experts, existing content could be swiftly repurposed into killer "knol" entries. Many content owners will seek to seize this opportunity.
Spammers and SEO experts will also seek to exploit the "knol" ecosystem. Google will have to quickly find ways to police abuse, or the made-for-AdSense entries will quickly make it an information garbage dump.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge
It sounds identical to the model that Helium is using (multiple articles, single author, ad-based reward). Sounds like it'll be prone to the same problems like you describe.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
This seems more like a one-time post blog account. If you want to write up a quick article and post it, but don't blog on a regular basis, this avoids the need to set up a web site or blog just to post you're rant online.
I agree this is nothing like Wikipedia
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
Sounds a lot like Creative Commons type choose your own licensing. I think it's a good thing if that's the case. I do wonder if folks like blip.tv and wikipedia are already way ahead of them on this game and can't just offer (more) advertising/revenue possibilities to create the same business overnight?
[M]aybe the correct thing for Wikipedia to do is "teach the controversy".
The entry for John Nash should not read "He was homosexual" or "He was NOT homosexual", but rather "Nash's biography claims he was homosexual [cite provided], but this has been disputed by some [cite provided]."
Right on. This is the heart of the matter, the best practice: teach the controversy.
-kgj
That'd be about -50 since /. actually sucks knowledge out of your brain and leaves ether in it's place.
It seems like WebMD for the rest of us. Like Festivus is for the rest of us.
I guess Google will have an easy way in finding articles copied from other sources. For what I've heard, they have a pretty big database of all the documents published on the net in various formats ;)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wiki was a word with good symmetry, "knol" is not really, they should have picked something more elegant and catchy. Everyone knows "wiki" or "wikipedia" by now, it's a brand unto itself.
Knol better be superior software or else I can't see it competing very well with wikipedia.
hasn't about.com been doing this for years and years and years?
First, if this new scheme works, it will likely lead to Google ranking their own knols up and Wikipedia pages down, which could severely reduce Wikipedia's reach. I think there is a conflict of interest brewing here, unless the Google knols are displayed among the ad results.
As for article quality on Wikipedia, I think Fermi estimation applies: you get 80% quality by throwing many bits of text into the air to see what sticks, but rarely much above that. If you think about it, the original Nupedia approach generated quality at an appalling pace. It's never been obvious to me why quality suddenly becomes easier after you have erected 2 million shacks in various stages of dilapidation. Most the shacks have something useful inside, few are pretty to look at.
It not surprising, either, that many of the people who thrived at Wikipedia in the barn raising stage are leaving the project as it meanders sideways when confronted with a much harder problem. One could argue that Wikipedia is the most successful knock-up ever.
I've never ceased to be amused by the number of people who stumble upon Wikipedia in relation to pop culture, then learn about the vastness and rapid growth and conclude "well, if everyone is doing this, it must be good" only to examine the actual articles and find obvious flaws abounding. Anyone who uses MySpace as their basis step (if everyone is doing it, it must be good) was due for a rude eye opening to begin with.
When Bill Cameron, a wonderful CBC news personality, was dying of cancer he wrote, in an award-winning article for the Walrus, "Hair loss. If you want to wound a television performer, take his hair away." Here's a man who devoted his life to the service of truth and poetry, who in his dying days referenced his hair as among his chief instruments.
I'm never sure when people comment on quality whether the underlying question is not actually "does it have a good hair?" The woman pictured in the picture beside the Google knol has a thick head of hair. What could be better than that: a Wikipedia with good hair?
I think Wikipedia begins to stumble the moment it triggers the human grooming reflex among its contributors. At given point in time, 99% of the articles on Wikipedia are having a bad hair day. So far, it can be anything but consistently well groomed.
1. copy wikipedia article
2. paste into knol
3. profit!
rinse and repeat
guess which page will rank higher in google?
So this is kinda like the about.com guides but with more features? It could be a good reference for the specific perspective of a respected author on a subject, but you can go to scholarly journals for that. I also think wiki-style group editing of one article is probably better than multiple, competing articles on the same subject. A few other cons of this "knol" project spring to mind:
1. I'm not sure about the monetary incentive and how that will work...don't scholars already have enough incentive to publish, publish, publish (whether it's a valuable contribution or not)?
2. I'm worried about the soon-to-accumulate articles on cryptozoology, intelligent design, 9/11 conspiracy, and postmodernism by "experts". At least Wikipedia has group editing to curb this a bit.
3. "knol" is obnoxious. It's bound to be worse than "meme". "Did you get that knol I sent you?", "That book is just packed with knol", "This article is knollerific!", and so on. At least whisper it to Ted Stevens so he can ruin it before it's taken seriously:
"They want to deliver vast amounts of knol over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump knol on. It's not a big knolbucket. It's a series of knoltubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your knol in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of knol, enormous amounts of knol."
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
The Register, with their usual love for all things Wikipedian, sum it up as "Google kicks Wikipedia in the googlies".
rant
Get rid of the multiclass shares, exclusivist culture in there and then they can be looked at as open.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I think there are some essential issues still totally unclear and it is therefore impossible to make a judgement if this will become successful with the masses and with those who are interested in an open system with open licenses for the knowledge.
... ? :) )
"Highlight authors" sounds good, but when an article is created collaboratively by dozens or more authors, how should that be done in practice? And why? After all, what counts is the overall quality of the article, not who puts his/her name under it.
Also, in what other ways will this improve over Wikipedia? From the blog one can guess that one important way will be that knols might not be restricted to typical "encyclopedic" knowledge -- so not just "notable" entries (though this is already a gray area in Wikipedai).
I welcome this: I think there is no need really to restrict the entries to just whatever somebody thinks is "notable". The use of a semantic resource about close to everything imaginable would actually quite big, both for humans and for computers.
And that brings me to my next point: will this be yet another text-only resource (what will be the editing method/language? Wikimedia syntax and the associated parsers are really the ugliest, most terrible piece of software in existence) or will there be a way to do semantic markup in addition? In other words, will at least part of this be usable by computers, and I mean computers other than the ones owned by Google (anyone getting a feeling why Google might be interested in doing this in the first place
And finally: what will the license on these pieces of knowledge be? Will it be possible to download all of it at once (as it is currently with Wikipedia dumps)?
Act Now! Hamsters are standing by!
Why is it everything nowadays sounds like it's out of Neil Stephenson's "Snow Crash"?
...
Knol = that for pay encyclopedia
Second Life = Shitty version of the Metaverse
the rise of Christianity = that bizarre sea cult
the rise of gated communities
A Wikipedia with ads?
Any of you people heard about Squidoo? That's essentially what it is.
This is pretty much what HubPages does, except that HubPages publishers have make do with 60% of the revenue after the advertisers (mostly adsense) have already taken their 50%. Google will be able to pass on the entire amount, and also give premium search placement to knols.
I'd just like to add - in no way is anyone OBLIGED to buy a product from the adverts.
:)
Yet. It's not much of a step from claiming that "By not watching the advertisements you are stealing" to "By not being influenced into buying the advertised product you are stealing". If you already can think the first is true then the latter just follows naturally.
Of course those are just words uttered by despicable people with no force of law. So I'm not disagreeing with you in any way.
There is such thing as free will.
And many people see this as a problem that should be fixed.
*head explodes with frustration at stupid comments*
You should really get that checked out. There's a lot of stupid on the internet.
The enemies of Democracy are
I think all of these content-generating sites have some form of revenue-sharing..
HuPages: http://hubpages.com/
Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/
Gather: http://www.gather.com/
Seriously, this company is like the Microsoft of web applications. They don't innovate anything, they just buy other companies or reproduce other ideas that have gained popularity. A 215 billion dollar company whose whole business plan is to make incremental improvements to existing online applications? Ridiculous. Even their original "product", the search engine, was a copy of an existing idea, with incremental improvements.
I keep hoping for someone to come up with even better search technology and put us out of our misery. Google needs to go away.
Al Gore states that the author of the example article on insomnia has been romantically linked to Landon Pigg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landon_Pigg Pause for lookup and parsing Man-Bear-Pig is REAL!
Google must be the next Microsoft. They're taking the lead in introducing vaporware.
...means 'tuber' or 'turnip', also 'nag' (the horse, not the action). Not exactly synonymous with the fountain of knowledge IMnsHO...
--frank[at]unternet.org
Last I had heard, Wikipedia was getting attacked left and right for not being elitist enough; wasn't that what led Sanger to split off his own project with more expert peer-review of articles? I guess you can't please everyone...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Your argument does not refute his contention. It only demonstrates that you are not well-read and have exposure to a very small circle of friends.
The fact remains that there is very high-quality journalism being done all the time in America that is also very profitable. Just because you don't bother to look beyond your nose or the people you "hear bragging" doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
Its about time wikipedia (or whatever mind is behind it), to start allowing "different versions".
... interestingly enough, running some "social network" software over wikipedia's history, could throw results on "who" is intervening it. (yes someone or group of someones intervening wikipedia).
... open to public.
The guys that work with "cvs" stuff shall be able to tell how to do this.
That is basically, because, there are as many visions of the history... AND, wikipedia, is like becoming history for the many users that use it.
Yep,
Open Sourcing big brother?
I BET we can get something out of wikipedia and running social network software over the history of controversial pages. Its something like what google could aim to do, but
I BET we can somehow "find" some political bias on some articles, and the networks behind that.
I BET the user Ctrl-Z has something to do with it, and the people supporting him too.
I BET...
lets hope someone reads this.
If you don't want your article to be messed up by well-intentioned but mostly unprofessional edits, you can put it in your user subpage and link to it from the article's discussion page.
Are you saying that every purchase someone else makes 'because' of an ad drains from the GP's wallet? Keep in mind that the GP said "my wallet". Are you're saying the mere presence of a non-intrusive text ad makes people buy something they weren't already considering?
And if non-free is suddenly bad, let's look at Wikipedia with the millions of dollars it receives in donations. It isn't about free and non-free, it's about for-profit and non-profit and what the editors get in return for contributing.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol
Unlike wikipedia. I can't use wikipedia because of the collaborative system that doesn't allow experts in their fields to fact check the accuracy of the information.
I need something that has been vetted, or at least was written by someone in the field that knows more than, "I read this book at band camp so I'm an expert now." If that were true because I read the "Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene then that should make me a physicist, and all my misunderstandings of the universe are facts.
Hopefully, that is Google's goal is to be a repository of information that can be useful. Otherwise don't bother.
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
Okay, I have read enough of these posts about what free is/is-not and who cares? The main issue between knol and wikipedia will be who is paying. Theoretically, wikipedia is funded publicly and thus no one major donor/group can affect the content in a way in-line with their wishes (think network tv / public television) .
Now, knol on the other hand, as many have pointed out will be funded by revenue from advertisers much like network television is funded; when push comes to shove if an advertiser is footing the bill they have some say in the content.
Google prides itself on fairness and "do no wrong," but out of all the private companies in the past how many put the proliferation of knowledge before the generation of capital?
I hope I am wrong.
Do you really want Google, of all institutions, to be the one handling the next generation of all financial transactions? You know they'll store and analyze your spending pattern, do you? Only for more effective advertising, ofcourse. Now that I think about it, I think it would be really smart for Google to get into the microtransaction business for exactly that reason, but I'm not so sure if I'd want them too.