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At first glance, Manber’s title for the announcement—"Encouraging people to contribute knowledge"—would seem to fit with the "wisdom of the crowd" strategy behind Wikipedia and other user-based services. However, the "Insomnia" illustration of the concept behind Knol is clearly author-centric. It even carries a picture of the author. A knol does allow contributions from readers, but they are clearly labeled and sidebarred. Rather than encourage multiple contributors to evolve a complete article in virtual anonymity as Wikipedia does (for an excellent example of this process, see Wikipedia’s own coverage of Knol at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Knol), the Knol project encourages readers to write their own articles. Multiple authors may write an article, but it must be an organized collaboration, perhaps one with a group photo of the smiling authors. [Note: On Monday, Jan. 7, Wikia, Inc. (www.wikia.com) publicly launched its own Wikia search service (http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia) that taps into a community of experts to rank search results and filter content. The cover story by Woody Evans for Searcher magazine’s January issue—"Embryonic Web 3.0: Universal Search, Wikia, and the Birth of User-Generated Search"—describes the new effort. —Ed.]

Overall, the tool seems designed to help people with little knowledge of how to create a website for their work—and even less interest in learning—to follow simple but attractive templates. Manber states, "The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors … We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page … It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we’ll do the rest."

At present, Knol participation is by invitation only, and it focuses on providing solid instructional pieces. A Google representative indicated that it might be months before the company opens it up or makes an official public announcement. For this first round of knol development, Manber wants a wide range of knols on any and every topic that will "be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read." And there we can see the competition issue with Wikipedia. But Manber adds that all the editing and control, including the option to insert ads, will rest with the authors. Rather than one authoritative article growing out of multiple contributions, however, and despite the option for readers to submit comments, questions, edits, and additional content such as links and references, as well as ratings and reviews, Manber expects, "For many topics, there will likely be competing knols on the same subject. Competition of ideas is a good thing." He admits that once knol participation becomes "completely open … we cannot expect that all of them will be of high quality." However, he expects that Google will rise to the challenge of ranking knols appropriately within Google search results. Gallant as always, Google will open all the knol content to any other search engine. That way other search engines can send users off to read knols on Google.

Disruptions Ahead?

Steve Arnold (www.arnoldit.com), a "Pro Bowl Google Watcher" and author of Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator (Infonortics ebook, October 2007), looks on Knol as just another round in Google’s march toward disrupting a variety of marketplaces with its superior technology and massive user base. In an interview with Paula J. Hane published in the January 2008 issue of Information Today (www.infotoday.com/IT/jan08/Hane.shtml), Arnold identified six potential target markets for Google disruptions. One of them was publishing. Arnold stated that "the company’s activity in publishing-related research has been underway continually since 2001," with an intensive ramp-up throughout 2007.

When I spoke with Arnold, he commented that Knol was just the tip of the iceberg for publishing. "It’s just a logical evolution of what Google is up to." He did not consider Wikipedia as a prime target. Instead, he thought that Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia might just get caught in the blast of Google’s typical nuclear explosion. The Wikipedia issue is just a distraction, a misdirection, according to Arnold. He considered Knol just an application in "Google’s great big universe." "It makes sense to start there, but that’s not where it will stop. Google will start at a point that gets traffic and, if it catches on, it can expand into other things, such as scholarly publishing and book publishing."