Google knols best: Wikipedia killer or just seven years too late?

In what seems to be another ‘idea’ that Google hopes to sell as ‘changing the way people look for information online’, the California-based search giant is testing a “free tool” that they’re calling “knol”, which apparently stands for a unit of knowledge. Pardon the pun, but a bit grassy in my opinion!

Not only does the term ‘knol’ just not ring as many bells as ‘wiki’ or ‘wikipedia’ does, but is what Google trying to achieve simply just seven years too late?

Google may have changed the way we search for information online, but Wikipedia can stand tall and proud of having changed the way millions of people search for knowledge online. Ironically, from its own Wikipedia article; “Launched in 2001, Wikipedia is the largest and dominant general reference work currently available on the Internet.”

The difference that Google is promoting (obviously between them and Wikipedia) is that their goal is to “encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it.” Wow, sure seems like they are deviating from the norm these days, doesn’t it? You would have thought that was exactly what Wikipedia was about. The main difference however stems from the fact that Wikipedia’s visitors do not need to be qualified to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge.

The somewhat cool thing that Google wants to promote is the author of the article themselves. As seen in the screenshot, (further below), the writer of the article will be a key part of the Knol web page design. Google believes that author’s don’t get much ‘praise’ online, as they do offline.

One thing however that I find very intriguing is that Google Knol is really starting to sound like a an experiment in the cloning of About.com with Wikipedia! Seriously, think about it!

About has authors or “expert guides” who have to ‘prove’ they really know about the topic they want to write about; whilst Google on the other hand want to “encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it”. I think we’re onto something here!

Google says that ‘anyone’ can write, but believes that there are likely to be competing knols on the same subject. This is where we jump off into Web 2.0 land – because people can submit comments, ask questions, add additional content and even edit the information – another online community!
The funny thing is on the official Google blog, they conclude the post on Google Knol by stating, quote: “We do not want to build a walled garden of content; we want to disseminate it as widely as possible. Google will not ask for any exclusivity on any of this content and will make that content available to any other search engine.” Well of course you won’t build a walled garden of content, Google – sure, the Internet world will always look out for anything that comes out of Mountain View, CA; but do you really think you can take on Wikipedia with its 2,125,453+ articles consisting of over 921,000,000 words? (stats from Wikipedia article)

I mean rating articles, commenting on articles and even asking questions would be ‘hell-a-cool’, but if I’m doing an assignment on World War II, am I really interested in writing a review about the article, or just finding out what I need and getting out of there?

Knowledge is power and content is king, but not everything needs a Web 2.0 slant on it. Don’t get me wrong – as soon as it’s publicly available not only will I be using it, but I’ll probably be blogging about it, but I’d never consider stop using Wikipedia; that’s just a given.

Finally, since this is somewhat of a web design blog, I have to say I like what Google has done with this preliminary design/mock-up for Knol. Google tends to get their user interface; more importantly, the user experience right and this one is certainly carrying on that trend. Soft colours, as well as what appears to be a bit of interactivity (drop down panels for more information, etc) and a fluid, vertical design pane gets the thumbs up from me. I guess we will have to wait and see what Google can make of all of this!

Check out the Knol preliminary web page design >> Show me Knol

So what do you think of Knol? Will it work? Should Wikipedia be worried? Share your thoughts with us. Subscribe to our RSS feed to stay on top of the latest we have to share.