I Knol that!

On the 15th of December Google announced its latest project to develop and run ‘an authoritative store of information’ – i.e. an encyclopaedia. The Googlepaedia is referred to as ‘Knol’ which is a term coined to describe a unit of knowledge.

The announcement prompted many comments and articles across the Internet in podcasts and blog sites because some feel this is Google over stepping the mark. Natali Del Conte of Textra video podcast, commented that “the general idea is that ‘experts’ will contribute content and also share in the ad revenue of each site”. She went on to label this an “odd model” as it allows multiple users to contribute multiple items on the same topic with Google making no kind of editorial contributions.

Google will invite authors to ‘pen’ their knowledge in a format accessible to billions while providing the user the tools and facilities to distribute their “Knol”. Authors of the content will maintain the Knol and opt into the share in advertisement revenue. An example of a Knol page can be found here - http://www.google.com/help/knol_screenshot.html

Currently some would argue that Knol will threaten the existence of Wikipedia. However  Knol is within the remit of Google's mission “To organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful”.

It may be human nature to support and favour the underdog in a monopoly. The Wikipedia Foundation is a not for profit charity which forms the legal umbrella for the Wikipedia site. To date the sites content is generated by the 75,000 registered contributors in 250 languages serving in excess of 9,000,000 articles. Over 2,000,000 of the published articles are written in English.  

Of late there are two major encyclopaedias, Wikipedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The latter is revered as the gold standard of factual information in print.

The benefit of the Wikipedia format is the ability to quickly add and edit incorrect information rapidly across a myriad of subjects which is in stark contrast to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which was first printed in 1768. It is currently in its 15th edition with 32 volumes.

Despite the obvious jockeying of position this does seem to be history repeating its self.  Some may remember in 1993 Microsoft first shipped the Encarta encyclopaedia on CD-ROM. After using Wikipedia for research, I was surprised to read the Encarta brand had continued past the late 90’s.

After continuing to research this I was even more surprised to read there was still a market for CD/DVD based distribution of encyclopaedias in light of the high speed Internet access which, I believed, had effectively killed off the format. MS Encarta 2008 retails for $28.95 USD. According to Microsoft’s Encarta site the encylcopedia is ‘The #1 best-selling encyclopedia software brand for the past 8 years’.  

Now as I drag this essay kicking and screaming back towards the initial point about Google’s Knol project I really hope that Google creates a fantastic service. Google, an organisation able to catalogue an infinity of information for mass distribution, has decided to build a super encyclopaedia which would be freely available to all. This is a massive opportunity for consumers.

However, not everyone shares this view. Kirsh at krishworld.com/blog wrote an entry titled ‘Wikipedia is safe from Google’. He believes the Wikipedia format will prevail because it uses human intuition to organise all information about a topic on one page, rather than subjecting information and publications to a cold computer algorithm, as the Google project would. At Wikipedia, for example, it is not uncommon to see notices informing users that pages are to be merged in order to combine similar entries.

In my opinion the Google Knol project will not dislodge Wikipedia as the first point of call for facts and figures. Knol is simply going to develop into a kind of archive of essays and journals rather that an encyclopaedia. These two services will stand apart by providing different services thus preventing a VHS vs Betamax-style war.