Google Launches User-Created Web Encyclopedia

Dec. 14, 2007 — -- Google, in a challenge to Wikipedia, has created a user-generated online encyclopedia called Knol that identifies its writers instead of keeping them anonymous.

"Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling Knol, which stands for a unit of knowledge," the company wrote on its blog. "Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it."

Although it's already drawing comparisons to the best-known user-generated Web encyclopedia Wikipedia, Knol is different in a few key ways. First, unlike Wikipedia, authors of articles on Google's site are highlighted, not hidden. Similarly, articles on Knol aren't collaborative; they are written by just a single author.

"The key idea behind the Knol project is to highlight authors," Google wrote. "We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of Web content."

Users of the site, which is in beta-testing and invitation only, can still participate by ranking the usefulness of entries, adding comments and asking questions. Google will not serve as an editor and expects several knols on each topic.

But can Knol unseat current online leader Wikipedia? Owned by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia was founded in January 2001. It has more than 8.2 million articles in more than 200 languages, including more than 2 million in English.

Even without added competition from Knol and similar sites like Squidoo, Wikipedia has faced credibility challenges that can be primarily attributed to the collaborative nature of its entries. In the Wikipedia model, users write articles and other users can edit the entries by adding or deleting information.

In theory, the entries get more thorough and accurate as they live on the site. The reality, however, is not so simple.

In August 2007, a British graduate student developed WikiScanner, a program that identified the authors behind Wikipedia edits. The program revealed that people at the IP addresses of several major companies made changes to their own or competitors' entries.