Overheard: Googlepedia

“Anyone writing for Knol is likely to at least peruse Wikipedia content before publishing. And if they see anything good, they are at liberty to simply lift and copy it over to Knol, and get a adsense check for their time.So, in a way, Google has found a way to monetize Wikipedia content after all.” Michael Arrington, A Few Thoughts On Google Knol

It’s been interesting to watch Google and Wikipedia battle it out. Wikia is supposed to announce their new search engine soon, meanwhile Google stays one jump ahead by announcing ”Knol.” According to Udi Manber (Google official blog), a knol is short for a unit of knowledge.

Google  says “A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read.”

Other points of interest: “The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted.”