Skip to main content

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?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crisis Connections

What the flood situation in Thailand has shown once again is the power of social networks to fill the void of communication. In recent times the role of Facebook, Twitter, and Blackberry messenger has been shown in good and bad light.  The same methods that released the Arab Spring have also been used to coordinate the London Riots . Love them or loathe social networks are here to stay and what the floods show is how they keep people connected.  Some will say there should be no communication void if central government is on top of its game, but with a situation that can change so rapidly, and over such a large area the traditional press certainly struggle to keep the public up to date. Twitter and Facebook have been saviours for those of us outside Thailand at this time.  With roving reporters and connected people like Patee Sarasin and Jetrin out doing and tweeting many more people are kept up to date. Equally useful is the ability to time shift news updates through TV ch
Post a Comment
Read more

Voice puts the pinch on Content

Content providers in Thailand are struggling to stay afloat after a restructuring of the revenue sharing between the mobile operators and themselves. Firms like Advanced Info Service (AIS) have been offering content on their 2.5G networks here for sometime. This has spawned a number of content partners to spring up. The previous arrangement were of the order of 65% to 80%. The new arrangement sets a 50:50 split of the revenue between proivder and operator. The operators say that this is due to the operating costs of their networks and that up to now this has been a trial offering. It smells more like a knee jerk reaction to falling revenues from voice. When will the market wake up and realize that paying for voice is dead. The secret to the success of operators going forward will be in the successful channeling of content, where voice is but another type of content. This is a worrying trend. If the pinch continues then I see that most of the content partners will not survive long. This
1 comment
Read more

SKY New Zealand vaults into the 21st Century

New Zealand is a pretty country but it's also pretty slow in coming forward in many areas. It has it fair share of innovation but some parts of everyday life are still if not 20 years behind but at least 10...until now. Sky in the UK has made use of user driven options through handset interaction for some time, push the red button, Sky NZ still does not support this type of service. But this is where competition shows its value, it forces natural monopolies to innovate, and let's be honest Sky TV is a natural monopoly here by being the only digital TV service (which you have to use if you want to get a decent reception so Freeview doesn't count [yet]). Now Telecom has tied up with TiVo as the sole distributor in New Zealand Sky has had to play catch up, their response iSky. First impressions, given that the full service isn't launched yet, are good. Finally after years of me seeing other countries extending TV into the computer world with the likes of Yahoo -> TiVo
Post a Comment
Read more