Google opened Knol to everybody after announcing it last year. Knol is another free web publishing tool in which author can earn ad money. Main point Google is trying to stress here is focus on authors. Moderated collaboration is allowed and encouraged.
Most Blogs (TC, SEL) are comparing Knol with Wikipedia because of collaboration features. Knol is more like Squidoo or Hubpages.
- The common feature between Wikipedia and Knol is collaborative content creation. But Knol encourages Moderated collaboration with focus on author. This makes Knol similar to Blogs and not Wikipedia. Remember, wikipedia focuses on collaboration with no stress on author.
- Knol authors can earn money just like Squidoo lensmasters.
- Author’s own brand name will be a key factor in Knol’s viewership and ranking. Squioo’s lensmasters have same effect on lenses.
- Anybody is allowed to write anything (with few exceptions of course) on Knol and Squidoo (Poor content will rank low or will not rank at all though) while poor content will most probably be deleted from Wikipedia.
- There will be multiple articles on one topic in Knol and Squidoo whereas Wikipedia will have only one article on any topic.
The list can go on. Knol is a competitor of Squidoo and Hubpages not Wikipedia. Other than individual brand names, web publishing service that generates better revenues for authors, builds better and supportive community, keeps spam to low, and ranks articles correctly will be eventual winner.
2 Comments
I think you’ve got it about right. As General Manager of HubPages, we think that we’re doing a pretty good job of building a community, putting money in our author’s pockets, and keeping spam to a minimum. We welcome the competition from Google — we just hope Google will keep it’s search results neutral.
I agree very much with this article. It is very much more like squidoo rather than Wikipedia. It’ll be interesting to see how Knol succeeds in comparison to (marketing guru) Seth Godin’s website : Squidoo (which has been out of beta for more than 2 years now)