Google goes after Wikipedia

Google is starting a new service called Knol (as in "knowledge," but easier to spell), according to Google-watcher Garrett Rodgers of ZDnet. The service is not getting a big rollout, with slow debuts being the custom at Google, but there is an invitation to contribute to Knol at the Google blog.

Obviously the target is Wikipedia, which comes up pretty high more times than not in Google searches.

One way that Knol will differ from Wikipedia is that the Google offering will include its authors' names, as opposed to the anonymity of Wikipedia:

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.

I'm pretty sure "the rest" doesn't include "getting paid."

Anyway, here's what the Insomnia entry looks like:

The Google announcement, by the way, includes links to about a hundred items written about Knol. Funny that I haven't heard about it until today, but then again, I'm under somewhat of a rock.