Krishwords

Today Google announced their new project, Google Knol. Their idea is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. My first take on Google Knol is

If it is done correctly, it might kick the butt of Mahalo and if it is done wrong, it will add splog kinda pages messing up the search results

Before we I explain my reasoning, let us take a look at the two other competing projects, Wikipedia and Mahalo. In the case of Wikipedia, the collective wisdom of crowds are used to develop “authoritative” pages on different topics. Mahalo tries to become a “better” search engine by using a small group of paid employees and tipped “volunteers” to write search result pages which can be considered as “authoritative” collection of information on certain topics. Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, is planning to develop a search engine which will also put the “wisdom of crowds” to good use. I am pretty convinced that Mahalo cannot be a Google beater. Only an algorithmic search engine can solve the world’s search problems. I still stand by it. Mahalo kinda products can only add a layer of filtering to algorithmic engines. They cannot replace them. I am not sure what Jimmy Wales is going to do with his project but I am pretty convinced that it can only succeed if there is an algorithmic engine at the center with the “wisdom of crowds” offering a filtering layer. I have listed down my reasons to justify these arguments already, in the post criticizing punditry about Mahalo overthrowing Google. Also, if Jimmy Wales’ project takes off and gets a following like Wikipedia, then their filtering of algorithmic search results will be far superior than Mahalo’s results because of the sheer number of volunteers lending their “brain’s processing power” for Wales’ project.

Letz get back to the discussion about Google Knol. The knols on different topics are meant to be the first thing someone who searches for a topic for the first time will want to read. Now, Wikipedia plays this role in Google searches. Google is expecting their knols to replace Wikipedia in the search results. This has started a discussion in the blogosphere about the demise of Wikipedia. Any such talk is premature. The big differentiator between Wikipedia articles and Knol is that Wikipedia has one (well, in most cases) article on a single topic which is edited and tweaked by the “wisdom of crowds” whereas Knol gives an option for anyone and everyone to write a separate article on any  particular topic. For example, a topic like evolution could have thousands of articles offering two entirely opposing views, thereby confusing the readers. There is no “collective” wisdom to weed out the nonsense from sense. Thus Google’s Knol project lacks the “authoritativeness” of Wikipedia. This requires Google to come up with another algorithm that can rank the Knols on the same topic based on rating, comments, etc. Such a system is also a good breeding ground for another SEO like cottage industry. This is where my statements about “Google doing right or wrong in Knol” assumes significance. We have to wait for this project to become mainstream before we can know if it is going to work or not. Google has a very difficult job of bringing in “authoritativeness” in these Knols, in a totally unbiased manner. It is not an easy task. There are way too many topics where it will be difficult to establish the “authoritativeness”, when there are hundreds or thousands of articles on the same topic. It is easily done in the case of Wikipedia where the wisdom of crowds is applied to a single article. However, if Google manage to get it right, they are going to have a pretty neat system that will augment well for their search results. If Google has “good” search results as a result of Knols, Mahalo loses the meaning of its existence, unless they shift gears to offer something else along with their search results. If Google messes up, Jason Calacanis’ criticism of increased spam in Google search results will get amplified. We have to reserve our judgment on Google Knol till it used in a widespread manner and becomes part of mainstream search experience. But we can be sure that it is definitely not a Wikipedia killer.