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Move over Wikipedia, here comes Knol.
Already the owner of the world's most visited website, Internet giant Google Inc. has begun testing a new service known as Knol, which in time may come to rival the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
According to a post on the Official Google Blog, the new reference tool encourages experts to write encyclopedic articles called knols, which stands for unit of knowledge. Topics would be in an expert's field of interest, and knols would be hosted by Google and included in the lists generated by the company's search engine.
"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," Google vice-president of engineering Udi Manber wrote in the blog entry. "Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors."
A screenshot from Google's Knol featuring a post on insomnia written by an expert whose name and picture are prominently displayed.
Wikipedia relies on Google's search engine to drive traffic to its website and its entries often appear near the top of Google search lists. For instance, a search for "Canada" on google.ca lists the Wikipedia entry for Canada first, above even the federal government's official website.
By creating a Wikipedia rival, Google would be able to keep more users on its own site, which in turn will help generate advertising revenue for the Mountain View, Calif., company. Google's business is based almost entirely on selling clickable sponsored text links on its search pages and the sites of its partners. Knol authors who agree to let Google post advertising on their pages will be entitled to a share of those revenues.
Unlike Wikipedia, each knol will be written by an author or group of authors whose names will be attached to the piece in an effort to create a sense of accountability. Because anonymous users can edit Wikipedia, the information on the site is sometimes unreliable.
While Google users will not be able directly to edit knols, they will be able to post reviews as well as submit comments or questions and suggest edits. It was not clear in the blog post who would make those edits. Google officials could not be reached for comment.
"The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors," Mr. Manber said. "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."
Many subjects will have more than one competing knol on the same topic, he said.
"We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line. Anyone will be free to write. ... Competition of ideas is a good thing," he said.
Wikipedia is owned by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, based in St. Petersburg, Fla. Sandy Ordonez, a spokeswoman for Wikimedia, said the foundation welcomes the Google initiative and hopes the project will adopt a policy of free content.
"The more free content, the better for the world," she said. "Free content is about freedom - the freedom for anyone to use, study and apply, change and redistribute the work, for any purpose."
The knol project is currently going through a trial phase with a handful of selected users. The Google blog entry gave no indication as to when the service would be available for widespread use.
Created in 2001, Wikipedia claims to have 75,000 active contributors and more than 9 million articles in 250 languages.
