Apparently Google does too. Enter Knol. It is new google wiki….although nowhere in the article do they actually mention the word wiki at all, even though it’s now standard. Here is the comment I left at the techcruch article (there’s a screenshot!)
Please note that the original google blog post dose not mention the word “wiki “at any point. They are bold enough to compete against wikipedia and even dare to change the name to market their own “knol” word. Don’t get me know wrong here, i love google, but they are starting to act like microsoft….trying to copy any sort of successfull products. they should start the knol by defining innovation…so that they can remeber who the once were: open social, android, digg search results, etc etc….all “me too” products. it’s cool to integrate new trends into products and create similar ones, but still innovation is key. i belive “don’t be evil” should be changed for “no copycats” or something. i protest cause i want to keep defending google for years to come and the only way to do it is to innovate……
UPDATE: Duncan Riley from TechCrunch comments on my comment:
I don’t believe this will kill Wikipedia and as Jonathan (#10) points out, this isn’t a Wiki project. It takes the focus on authoritative knowledge Wikipedia has (or the many smaller clones) and raps it in a Squidoo style setting (although notably the emphasis appears more on knowledge than links…unlike much of squidoo, or in particular say Mahalo). Sites like Squidoo (and to a lesser extent Mahalo) that rely on Google SERP’s in becoming authoritive destinations on topics have the most to lose here, and if Google decides to use Knol results instead of Wikipedia, Wikipedia won’t die, but it might eventually take some sort of traffic hit.
And I replied:
Point taken. Wikipedia might not die, but the idea of google promotig the creation of content is kind of strange. I though their core mission was to become the finders of all the imformation of the world, not the sort of “keepers without intereference” type. I think google have still a lot to do when it comes to search and ads, and shouldn’t be distracting itself like yahoo did. growing too thin migh be dangerous. right know they are experimenting …and that’s good. but it’s important to stay focused.
UPDATE 2: Duncan Riely on a followup article in Techcrunch:
I’ve long since subscribed to the “Google is my lord and savior” argument and gave up caring about privacy and other such things years ago, but Knol moves into new territory. Moves by Google into mobile phones with Android and the bid for mobile spectrum in the United States should be welcomed, because they bring new competition into a traditional market; likewise Google’s attempts to break into radio and TV advertising. Knol on the other hand brings the power of Google into a marketplace that is already rich with competition, and a marketplace where Google can use its might to crush that competition by favoring pages from Knol over others, on what is the worlds most popular search engine.
Apparently this Google thing really hit a nerve. Could this turn into a “Netscape Conspiracy” type publicity nightmare, since they could use their search dominance to induce people to use Knol over Squido or Wikipedia, just like MS did with IE.
UPDATE 3: The previous paragraph was also suggested by Om Malik (just in case you don’t believe me!)
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