Google launched knol today, a Wikipedia like site that allows users to submit articles on almost any subject they choose. This is a clear shot at cutting into Wikipedia's domination of the Web 2.0 encyclopedia market, but how well can it really work?
Knol offers a few things that Wikipedia doesn't, with one of the most major differences being that an author can earn ad revenue from the article he or she has written. Some parts of this are good, some are bad. It lets the authors earn money, but also has authors vying for their chunk of the pie.
While it is good to allow an author to earn money for his work, it also sets up a situation with multiple articles on the same subject, which dillutes any article from ever being truly comprehensive. Wikipedia is highly beloved by many precisely because of the fact that it aims to have only a single article per subject. With Wikipedia, you won't find half the story on one page and half the story on another page too often, and in those situations, you'll almost always find links between the pages. With Knol, authors won't be encouraged to link to other authors, because that is akin to sending customers to your competitor.
When you have authors fighting against one another, rather than collaborating, you won't get the level of detail and thoroughness for which Wikipedia has become known. Instead, you'll have 15 articles on Linux, each one both trying to add something new and copy what information the others have but they don't.
Knol aims to pay each author for the ad revenue generated, but for some, this may be short term profit over long term losses. If I spent time trying to get the best article on a tech subject in there, I'm losing time where I could be absorbing the single Wikipedia article on this subject and putting this new found knowledge to use. This new found knowledge can advance my skills as a developer, and what I learn can be transferred back into the community. Along with this knowledge returning to the community, my increased knowledge increases my value as a developer and allows me to earn more money in the long run. I am fighting where I could be working together with others to bring us all up together.
Another thing that Knol lacks over Wikipedia is an established article base. Wikipedia has exponential growth because it is a Web 2.0 site that employs the most fundamental of Web 2.0 methodologies - the community as the author. The larger Wikipedia becomes, the more audience it will have, and that increased audience will make Wikipedia even larger. Knol comes into the game with no existing knowledge base and no reason to go there other than to post articles.
While I love almost everything Google, I think they took the wrong plan here. Rather than trying to fight Wikipedia, they should've tried to partner with Wikipedia. Use Google's skills and Wikipedia's skills to mutually enhance their products. I think both would've been better served to set in place a semantic search feature where Google can parse Wikipedia's pages to find an answer to a question, similar to TrueKnowledge.
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