Google’s blog has announced a new project. Calling itself Knol (a term for one unit of knowledge, apparently) it seems like it will be a combination of the wikipedia communal editing and a more “expert” based author.
“The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. 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.”
Currently, it’s invitation only but anyone will be able to write when it opens but they also say
Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors. We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line.
They also admit that they don’t expect every “knol” to be high quality and they will be allowing the inclusion of google ads in the knols (with a substantial kickback to the author…hrm.) so this is certainly something I’ll be keeping an eye on if and when it becomes publicly accessible.
They provide a screen shot of a knol and it does look very slick but still user-friendly, which is something we’ve become used to from Google. I wonder if they’ll release the code to be used off-Google or as part of something like Google domains because I could see it being partly useful for know-how systems in small law firms.
