Google Launches Knol

Yesterday Google unveiled Knol, its answer to Wikipedia. Like Wikipedia, it’s a collaborative site, but there are differences: although a collbarotive site, meaning people can add to articles, each Knol, or piece, will have a primary author, who can choose to become a verified subscriber. And, perhaps more importantly, authors can earn money through Google AdSense, although including that with the article is at the discretion of the primary author.

According to Information Week, the author will also have to approve changes made by others, which means it knowledge base could escape the abuse that’s plagued Wikipedia.

In a blog posting, Google product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Michael McNally wrote:

"The Web contains vast amounts of information, but not everything worth knowing is on the Web. An enormous amount of information resides in people’s heads: millions of people know useful things and billions more could benefit from that knowledge. Knol will encourage these people to contribute their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone."