Information from the Grassy Knol

Google's latest venture is project Knol. A Knol is a unit of knowledge. Google are encouraging people to contribute within their particular expertise.

Sound familiar? many people are comparing this to Wikipedia which is a very different model. Wikipedia is all about collaborative authoring. Knol is individual contributions posted up on Google to be returned in the page ranks at the top of the search results.

Knol is informed, authoritative wisdom of the individual.
Wikipedia is well meaning, keen, hard working content aggregators looking to share in a collaborative effort.

What is the aim behind the project?

Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project.

Udi Manber, VP Engineering.

What is the real aim behind the project? is there any love lost between Google and Wikipedia? if Google want to displace Wikipedia as one of the key search tools for your average Joe then with this side project they could "adjust" the page ranks in their favour; but they wouldn't ;) would they?

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