Google Enters the Game for KNOLedge’s Sake

Everyone’s heard of Wikipedia – the infamous encyclopedia that can be edited by pretty much anyone, yet remains accurate and quick enough to look up information on it, as long as cross-references are made.  The only thing Wikipedia has yet to improve on is its payments to contributors – something that Google seeks to remedy with Knol.  The world can never have too much information – can it?

Basically, Google is launching a new encyclopedia called Knol.  User-based, just like Wikipedia with a twist – contributors get paid.  Contributors are allowed to write “pages”, and are then given the option of implementing advertisements for the pages – they also get a cut of the profits made.  Not a bad idea – people get a cut of how well their articles are written, a great example of capitalism!  …right?

My main concern would be plagiarism.  Who’s to stop someone from copying articles from Wikipedia and pasting them directly into Knol?  On a small-scale that’d be a simple situation to quell, but if used on a large scale it might be a hard situation to stop (I’m sure it’d be in the Terms of Use somewhere).  However, Google being the giant it is might have already thought of such a situation and are just biding their time for someone to tempt them into being banned from anything Google for life.  Scary thought, isn’t it?

Another nice serving of food for thought – although the details haven’t been released, how would one user be able to contribute such a large article?  Wouldn’t there naturally be some bias – and thus require the intervention or assistance of a second user?  If so, would the profits be split in half?  If everyone does this, won’t the profits become so diluted that it wouldn’t make much of a difference anymore?

Knol looks like a great concept, but there are certainly a few kinks to be worked out.  I approve of the idea that there is never enough knowledge, but how Google pulls this together I will be anticipating.  Actually, I know they’ve got a way, I just can’t figure out what it is (I live by faith).