Google have announced the long-awaited release its new online encyclopaedia - Knol. The Knol service, with "Knol" itself meaning the smallest individual unit of useful knowledge, is a twist on the traditional wikipedia format, allowing those authors it deems to have expert authority in an area to write on a given subject. It will, however, allow multiple Knol's on the same subject by different authors - a ranking system that relies on user feedback and votes that will help Google determine which is best. This is due in part to the fact that Google wishes to create competition between authors, and in part to a belief that users do not fully trust anonymous Wikipedia editors as trustworthy sources. A point raised by Cedric DuPont, the Google product manager for Knol, who said: "We are deeply convinced that authorship -- knowing who wrote what -- helps readers trust the content."
The real twist in this tale is that unlike Wikipedia, Knol is monetisable. Essentially, when an expert or contributor writes a Knol, the creator retains "ownership" and as such, Google then allows said user to place adverts from their Adsense network on the page. It could therefore be said that as the service is far much more commercially biased than Wikipedia, we will see many multiple entries on highly searched for, key traffic phrases - imagine the hundreds of Knols which will soon be written about Barack Obama or Radovan Karadzic in the hopes of making some Adsense revenue from them. On the other hand, it's likely that we'll see very few Knols for lower traffic keyphrases, leading to the possibility of a popularity-based encyclopaedia.
Of course, the question intriguing those interested in the way Google ranks search results is whether Knol entries - like Youtube(also bought by Google) before it - will gain preferential treatment in the search rankings, especially when compared to Wikipedia. It has long been held within the SEO industry that "no-one can beat wiki" - if Knols begin to outrank Wikipedia results then it is bound to spark debate, especially if users deem the Knol content to be inferior.
Google sources have indicated that they do not wish to be a competitor to Wikipedia, stating "rather than competing with Wikipedia, Knol may end up serving as a primary source of authoritative information for use with Wikipedia articles." But in matters such as this it's often the perceptions of users that carry the most weight and not the protestations of the companies involved - and when it comes to industry opinion of threats to Wikipedia's crown it seems that the jury is still out.
