Today's word is knol, and thanks to the indefatigable Peter Suber for that. Knol is Google's answer to the Wikipedia, and Peter quotes a Google blog posting which describes knol, launched on 13 December, and standing for " a unit of knowledge." "Our goal" the blog goes on, " is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only." Wikipedia, to which knol is a rival, has an entry on knol, as one would expect. The BBC has an interesting item on the knol, too, ending with a quote from Nicholas Carr, who suggests that the knol project is a head-on competitor with Wikipedia. "He said it was an attempt by Google to knock ad-free Wikipedia entries on similar subjects down the rankings."
This blog is a friend of Wikipedia, as previous postings have indicated. but as a librarian, the more information the better. Surely?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment