(2007-12-14) Google Knol Vs Wikipedia

Google will launch Knol to compete with Wikipedia. Knol will still allow anyone to add entries, just like Wikipedia, but it'll allow people to have bylines and author profiles so you know just who is pretty much writing your term paper for you. A professor at Cal State? Awesome! Some shut-in from North Dakota? Better get a new source. It'll also have improved referencing tool and allow people to rate Knols for accuracy. In addition to making authors public, Knol will give people incentive to share their knowledge by giving them the option of putting ads on the entries they author. If they do, they'll get a percentage of the revenue that those ads generate. If an author doesn't want ads on their page, they can keep it ad-free. Those aren't bad ideas, but are they big enough to make it worth having 2 online encyclopedias? It seems like a reaction to Wikia search, which would be reasonable counter-attack if your motto wasn't supposedly Dont Be Evil.

Will it have the same SpamWars problem was Squidoo? Will they really be "independent" in Page Rank rules? Does the spam-blog problem in BlogSpot make such a claim more dubious? Page Rank ain't done 'til Wikipedia's off Page 1".

Update: Tim OReilly calls this "trading for their own account", which amounts to trying to grab a bigger piece of the EcoSystem pie. Doesn't sound like a Keystone Advantage strategy.

Jul'2008 update: launched - with instant Page Rank juice.

Doc Searls notes a new front in the SpamWars.