| By Administrator,
on 24-07-2008 16:33
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Views : 68 |
Favoured : 8 |
Published in : News, Latest |
Yesterday, July, 23 was announced new great project by Google: Knoll. Bethink as "Wikipedia-killer", new portal for knowledge share at the moment of time looks relatively poor (at least in sense of content). There is some number of articles, mostly around health-n-medicine. These topics are not interesting for me, but for the beginning it’s OK. At least one interesting (and useful for me) article I can to found: How to Backpack by From Scratch. Have the new Google project chances for success, on not? History of Internet knows both enough of success and flop stories. Let’s make a look (I hope, unbiased).
Freedom vs. ProfitInitially donation-oriented Wiki is free from banners. The Knol is part of Profit Company which, by the way, owns biggest banner system AdSense. Now there is a bit commercial into articles, but IMHO in the very next future situation will be changed. Good news for authors: when you still have AdSense account, you may implement it in your future articles on Knol and earn some bucks at least for beer. Bad news for all readers (inclusive authors): there are banners. Score 1:0 for Wiki Community vs. ManagementThe Wiki is self-organized structure and managed mostly with freelancers. The Knol is propelled with professional managers who oriented on sales and profit. History says that good promotion as a rule is better then good features. Out of them, any huge community always has a part of anarchy. Yeah, Linux is alive and successful, but I prefer Windows, because it works. 1:1 Time GapThe Wiki is 7 years old, the Knol is just born. On this case it is no reason to compare quantity of articles, authors etc. Another hand, Knol’s developers study on bugs&features of Wiki. At the moment of time Wiki is a leader and this leadership will stay for some years. 2:1, Wiki leads Content qualityWiki is article-oriented; the Knol is author-oriented. It means, you don’t know who writes an article on Wiki, this is a product of “common mind”. Anyone may register multiple accounts on Wiki and publish your opinions from all of them. Wiki’s anonymity triggers enough bullshit in their articles. Wiki declares "neutral point of view" policy, but it not always works properly. In the Knol you know at least an initial author, and registration of next accounts is complicated. Readers may vote, rate, comment and edit articles. Author may accept or deny the or I hope, that this difference will affect on quality… Knol levels again, 2:2. Usability for usersI can say, both of them are very same. Usability for authors Registration on Wiki is really easy and fast. No complicate identification, no mail confirmation. Anyone may be an author in 5 minutes. The Knol provides a serious protection. Any person should be confirmed. Now exist two variants to verify: with phone call and with credit card. The problem is, phone call is available for USA only, and credit card verification not works at all (I hope, it is temporary trouble). 3:2 for Wiki. “Street look”Community envies rich and successful but don’t love them. 4:2 for Wiki. At the moment of time Wikipedia looks better. But time shows... ;-) Last update: 24-07-2008 16:51
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