Move over Wikipedia, there’s a new collective knowledge resource in the neighborhood, and it goes by the name of Knol, a new venture, currently in beta, by internet overlord Google. Its intent: to enslave the masses, I mean to inform the masses and, in their own words “to help you share what you know.”
Here is Knol’s first paragraph on Knol:
Knol is a Google project which includes articles on topics ranging from “scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions,” according to Google.[3] Largely the brain child of Google vice president of engineering Udi Manber,[4] it was announced on December 13, 2007 and was opened in beta to the public on July 23, 2008[5] with a few hundred articles.[6]
Here is how Wikipedia sees things:
Knol is a Google project which aims to include user-written articles on topics ranging from “scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions.”[1] The brainchild of Udi Manber of Google,[2] it was announced on December 13, 2007 and was opened in beta to the public on July 23, 2008[3] with a few hundred articles mostly in the health and medical field.[2][4]
Um, ok, so why do we need another user-edited encyclopedia if the only difference is a few words?