Google's Wikipedia competitor KNOL is out!

When Jimmy Wales announced his entry into the search engine market with Wikia Search, little did he knew that Google would come out with a Wikipedia competitor - KNOL. KNOL is a Google project announced in December 2007. Its functioning is similar to Wikipedia with users generating the content themselves, but here is a twist. KNOL is not a non-commercial project like Wikipedia, infact it shows Ads, and also shares revenue with content generators. So people can expect to make money out of their contributions to KNOL.

When announced initiatlly in December 08, Knol had limited access only by invitation. Google has now opened KNOL to general public now, so anyone with a Goolge ID (say gmail id) can singin at knol.google.com and start contributing. One can integrate his Google Adsense account with KNOL to start making money out of the Ads shown along with their content.

The biggest advantage of KNOL over wiki is the revenue sharing with the content generators. This would encourage much more writers for KNOL. But conspiracy theories suggest that Wikipedia's Goolge search rankings might be compromised to make space for KNOL. However leaving aside rumors it is believed that KNOL would attrach more commercial oriented articles, rather than the natural encyclopedia type content.

I have just configured my KNOL account, would let out the results once I start contributing there.

Also Read:
Wikipedia Founder, Jimmy Wales (Video: Interview) and Jon Hall

Tags: knol google wikipedia encyclopedia adsense