Google Knol six months later | Hacker News Reader

Google Knol six months later

arstechnica.com

14 pointsmridulkhan7 comments

The major flaw in Knol, that I see, is that it has contrary goals. To the extent that Wikipedia does work its success is created by the "wisdom of the crowds" mentality where something is monitored by so many people that bad entries eventually get weeded out. Knol’s attempt to just use "qualified writers" prevents the Wikipedia-esque crowd oversight while at the same time limiting the people who contribute at all. This means less oversight and fewer contributors which is a double wammy.

Related to that Knol is clearly a "me too" project for Google. So while a startup or other focused competitor might see the problems that are hindering the service and rush to correct them Knol’s issues go unaddressed which is why it’s so stagnant now.

At this point, with Google tightening it’s purse strings a little, I expect Knol will be put out to pasture before too long (which sadly will come as a major blow to those fighting the scourge of horniness)

Knol is "me too" in the same way Wikipedia is "me too" for Encyclopedia Britannica: it is based on a very different production process. I don't know if the competition model will eventually work for them (it does work for Youtube or the Web as a whole, for example), but there is nothing inherently wrong with it from my limited perspective. Everyone can write knols, it is up to authors to establish reputation or transfer it from the real world.

The key point is the rate of growth. Knol reached 100,000 articles in 6 months and now gets over 140K unique visitors a month. While that's small potatoes for Google, that's pretty good as a measure of a trend.

I work at HubPages, a start up that's similar to Google Knol. From my view, the idea of crowdsourced articles is really taking off. We're getting over 9.4M unique visitors a month at HubPages.

If Google can build a community around knol, it will really be a force. That, after all, is the secret sauce behind Wikipedia: its enthusiastic core, community.

Summary: Knol remains a mess of questionable content, still inferior to Wikipedia on several levels.

I think it's important also to note that the article's author highlights one of the primary issues being "dueling knols" where instead of collaborating (as in a wiki) knol authors compete for the primary knol on a subject.

I think Knol is an interesting proof of the importance of critical mass and that critical mass is achieved with a combination a fantastic product/idea, a vibrant seed community, and a bit of dumb luck. It also suggests that brand recognition is not a significant factor in achieving critical mass for new services.

Like the segway, I can hardly remember life before Google Knol. Strange to think it's only been six months.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com