Encouraging people to contribute knowledge and to Google's own version of Wikipedia, Knol seem to be very appealing. The project Knol is by invitation only at the moment but from what I have seen sports a clean wordpress like interface.
It is almost like a group blog, wikipedia but giving prominance to people who create articles or books, not the article it self. So Geemodo will thrive to make a gee more and will have prominent place in the knol for Grid, VoIP, Medical, and social information. Perhaps I will make a knol feed at Feedotopia. Here is an excerpt from Official Google Blog post;
"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. 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; we use the word "knol" as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. 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."
That explains a lot. My question is why not Gnol?
Official Google Blog: Encouraging people to contribute knowledge
Tags:
Friday, December 14, 2007
Google Knol, A Cleaner Wikipedia?
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
M$ not enough to buy Wikipedia
Microsoft's attempt to pay someone to alter the content of Wikipedia, has back fired. I think there are many blog posts and news items that point to this saga. I think Microsoft must be getting real soft in the middle now. Trying every which way to push its agenda to the fore. But it should have thought that OSS is more than just money. There may be bloggers that sell may their souls but there are ones that do not. Would I have done it? Don't know. Money is a big attractor, and the amount makes attraction stronger.
Since there are many posts, I will direct you to the sources. But before the links, I should say some things about posts. To be fair links take you to all three camps.
Not all posts are against Microsoft, there is a whole bunch that suck up to M$
The person involved / started the whole issue is Microsoft material from my point. After reading his post, I feel he will feel at home with Microsoft. But to be fair, read his article and the comments that follows.
In his article he says that he is going to correct the wikipedia! we he is welcome as long as he is right about what he writes. But reading his article and comments, I doubt he knows too much. And the entries (if any/ if allowed) will be validated.
Everyone has his or her right to their opinion. Above is mine.
Links;
Wikipedia entry on the issue
Microsoft contacted Rick Jelliffe
Microsoft is awsome, (do I need to say more..)
Microsoft Is Awesome: Microsoft Pays Editors to improve Quality of Wikipedia Articles
