Google shoots for Wikipedia from Knol
WIKIPEDIA has always divided critics between "wisdom of crowds" idealists and "Wackypedia" naysayers but now Google would appear to want a chance to divide them too.
The G-men are planning a rival for the community encyclopedia and the result could well change the way hundreds of millions of us use the web.
Called Knol, a rum sort of abbreviation of the word “knowledge”, the service is aimed at tapping our collective knowledge to make information on the web more reliable.
Here’s the opening of the blogged announcement:
“The web contains an enormous amount of information, and Google has helped to make that information more easily accessible by providing pretty good search facilities. But not everything is written nor is everything well organized to make it easily discoverable. There are millions of people who possess useful knowledge that they would love to share, and there are billions of people who can benefit from it. We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that. The challenge posed to us by Larry, Sergey and Eric was to find a way to help people share their knowledge. This is our main goal.”
Hmm, sound familiar? Of course, this isn’t the first time someone has taken a pop at Wikipedia but the brute power of Google’s search dominance makes it very different to stuff like Mahalo. But if Google goes ahead and places Knol entries higher than Wikipedia entries, that’s the kind of advantage that Microsoft gets from placing IE on its desktop and could attract similar interest from regulators.
You can’t have a go at Knol just yet unless you’ve had a personal invite from Google Knol but, this being the G-men, we can anticipate that over time more of you will be invited to join in the fun, just as occurred with GMail. Slowly, slowly catchee Wiki, or something like that.
I like Wikipedia. It may not be more reliable than the bloke down the pub at times but it has entries for a phenomenally wide range of subjects. After that, you’re probably going to have to use a bit of common sense and find second sources to be confident, but it should get better over time as topics are refined and writers get better.
But then you could say something similar about The INQUIRER. µ
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'But then you could say something similar about The Inquirer.' 
I haven't laughed so hard in ages.
I like Inquirer. It may not be more reliable than the nerd down the research lab but it has put up good news from time to time. After that, you’re probably going to have to use a bit of common sense and find second sources to be confident, but it should get better over time as topics are refined and writers get better.
That's what this is.

Anyone remember a little story from Wikipedia founder about starting a wikiSearch? 

Wikipedia has its flaws, but even with them, it's a whole lot better than Britannica or Encarta -- haven't heard much about them lately, have you?

I think the idea of a WikiSearch scared the hell out of Google -- so this is their counterthrust, a "Googlepedia". Perhaps they will quietly drop the idea if the WIkipedia guy quietly drops wikisearch...

The following article on Techdirt has a different take:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071214/002325.shtml

It outlines how Google's Knol and Wikipedia are basically the opposite of each other.

Watch closely. If Google's Knol picks up, we'll probably see them referencing each other :-)
Wikipestia is good.
It just needs to cut some fake-penises.
Wikipedia must get MASSIVE site hits and Google wants a piece of the pie. That's what it boils down to, money. Right? Why have people visiting Wikipedia when you could have them visiting Knol and earning you $$?
Wikipedia isn't all about running a hideously popular and expensive website - it's about creating a body of work that can be freely reused. So the thing that really caught our eye about the Google announcement is the mockup graphic - it includes a CC-by 3.0 licence tag. IF, and I say IF, they require all Knols to be free content (freely usable, reusable, adaptable, copiable and redistributable by anyone for any purpose), THEN that's something we'll be getting behind big time and saying lots of nice things about in public and so on. Because more free content is a win for everyone. Same with Citizendium, for the same reason. And if Google *doesn't* make Knols free content, then they'll just be another about.com or Yahoo Answers. Or Google Answers. Remember Google Answers?
"Wikipedia has its flaws, but even with them, it's a whole lot better than Britannica or Encarta"

Wikipedia has some very large flaws and it is only better than an established Encyclopaedia (who pay for experts who are willing to put their names to their articles/entries) if you don’t care about little things like potential accuracy, reliability, accountability and a whole lot of other ilities. 

Wikipedia is great for stuff that doesn’t matter like translating love poems into Klingon. Once you wish to find information for more important stuff why the hell would you go to a source that can be edited/vandalised by anyone anonymously? You might as well ask your mates down at the pub.

The problem as I see it is while the majority of the information in Wikipedia might be 100% correct you just don’t know. The key word here for me is “Might”. Until wikipedia has some rather more stringent and accountable editing and oversight procedures it is going to have troubles being accepted as a serious encyclopaedia.
Google Answers was awesome. The amount of solid, well researched knownledge you could found there was...unholy.

Wikipedia on the other side, is just a collection of links. All of their scientific articles are so worthless one would be afraid to read them (check this: open anything tagged physics, look at the talk page and try not to cry) and the pop-culture articles that are actually well researched are being deleted one after another.
Good boy ! You drank the kool-aid and it shows.
I wonder what you would think about the Wiki style of doing things if the road signs were done the same way - editable by anybody.
Just think about that for a minute.
Now think about one more thing : with Wiki, it's not about Truth, it's about Consensus. In other words, if a sufficiently large number of people decided that the Earth was flat, well then that's the way Wiki would consider it.
And scientific data be damned. The Wikizealots have a documented history of ignoring information which does not suit their view of the data.
And that is the essential issue with Wikipedia. It's not whether or not the content is good, or better than another. It's the fact that any moron can modify just about anything he wants to conform to his narrow views, and then the "moderators" can step in and lock down, or banish anything if they see fit to do so.
With Universalis and Britannica (and any other Encyclopedia worth the name), there may be errors, but the revision process ensures that the mistake will be corrected according to scientifically-verified data, and not the whimsical choice of some basement Nazi using secret mailing lists and secret tribunal judgements.