I've been following the development of Knol and, well, I don't like it. Despite all Google's efforts to put its own media and content-provider right up there with Wikipedia when I do a Google search, I find Knol entries typically self-promoting and lacking all of the interesting debates that make Wikipedia exciting. They also tend to be very Western-centered, more infomercials than information.
It's clear Google is doing everything to promote its own "authorized" news source. In an article in the New York Times for August 11, 2008, "Is Google a Media Company?," Miquel Helft knows that Knol, which Google owns, is rekindlign fears among some media companies that Google is edging in on their turf. But it is more than that. Google searches seem to turn up Knol results more than other results, although Google denies that it is fudging. Yet, as this image shows, even in its second day of existence, Knol's entries were turning up right under Wikipedia in Google searches. Remember back in the day, how people worried about "pipes" and "content," and wanted them kept separate. Google these days is pipes, content, the whole shebang, more and more.
But the larger issue is what Knol is about. it's less about "authorship" and "credentials," to my mind, than self-advertising, self-promotion, and single-minded and narrow-minded points of view. What I love about Wikipedia is precisely that multiple points of view prevail. Take a look at the Wikipedia essay on "the senses" and you'll see what I mean. The fact is, our "five senses" goes back to Aristotle and we still believe in them and teach them to children even though there is nothing sacrosanct about them at all. Here's part of that long and interesting Wikipedia entry:
"There is no firm agreement among neurologists as to the number of senses because of differing definitions of what constitutes a sense. One definition states that an exteroceptive sense is a faculty by which outside stimuli are perceived.[1] The traditional five senses are sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste: a classification attributed to Aristotle.[2] Humans also have at least six additional senses (a total of eleven including interoceptive senses) that include: nociception (pain), equilibrioception (balance), proprioception & kinesthesia (joint motion and acceleration), sense of time, thermoception (temperature differences), and in some a weak magnetoception (direction)[3]. One commonly recognized catagorisation for human senses is as follows: chemoreception; photoreception; mechanoreception; and thermoception. Indeed, all human senses fit into one of these four categories.Different senses also exist in other organisms, for example electroreception.
A broadly acceptable definition of a sense would be "a system that consists of a group sensory cell types that responds to a specific physical phenomenon, and that corresponds to a particular group of regions within the brain where the signals are received and interpreted." Disputes about the number of senses arise typically regarding the classification of the various cell types and their mapping to regions of the brain."
If I search for "senses" on Knol, I get a list of arguments from dull to duller, and none of them tell me what I want: "Marketelligent Declaration" by Bhupendra Khanal, "Counting Carbohydrates for Diabetes" by David Edelman, "Ten Common Sense Portion Control Strategies for Long-Term Weight Loss" by Eric White, "A Hearing Aid Compatible Headset Can Reopen the Sense of sound," "Common Sense About Difficulties in the Bible," "Writing Well: Use Your Senses."
Knol flaunts authorship and credentials. Really? Not in the list above. It has a long, long way to go before it is anything close to interesting in the Wikipedia way---but Google may well be sending you there first because, of course, hits mean revenue, hits allow for better data collection, hits allow for target marketing. ...
Comments (1)
I don't know why google is being criticized for starting knol.
Google created a blogging platform or bought it and made it a part of google. Now it initiated a wiki platform called Knol.
People think google will give preference to its platforms in search. May be. But then public will not go to it for searching if google fails to provide the best information in its search results. In search business I do not see any feature that creates a monopoly.
Google is providing an opportunity for many people to create mini wiki encyclopedias in their subjects of interest and competence and under their editorship. Certainly some people are going to come out with outstanding mini encyclopedias on Google Knol and thus contribute to the knowledge base of the world.
One only hopes Google Knol platform will become profitable and survive for a long time.