On Dec 14, 2007, at 5:51 PM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Not only can adverts be purchased next to the results for these topics, but if Google is the number one result, which they will be (they emphasize in the blog post that "we are quite experienced with ranking web pages"), they also get to show advertisements next to the result that is clicked on in the event that the advertisement shown next to that result is not clicked on. This is an increase in impressions, and the larger the number of impressions, the greater the chance that one of them will be converted. Even better for Google is when a surfer clicks an advertisement in a Knol article which lands them on a page displaying Google ads, which.... you see where this is going...:)
That's what happens when you leave 10 billion dollars laying on the table. Someone will pick it up. And, in our case, everyone will. However, those who have picked up may also give back.
So, Google knol is somewhat like wikipedia, with each new "revision" of an article having advertisements customized for that revision?
I can't wait to see how their "herbal viagra" knol cluster turns out, or which version of the "George W. Bush" knol gets the highest rank... somehow, I don't see this ending well, without major changes.
Without clear guidelines, group ownership of "a good knol", and smart- mob rule (as with wikipedia), it seems like a one-way ticket into becoming, well, a morass of plagiarism accusations, highly biased articles in competition with each other, and rampant abuse.
For us (and by "us", I mean the folks who have watched and worked in similar projects over the years), I suspect watching knol will be an experience not unlike watching one's own child learn to become a parent.
{{citation needed}} pretty much says it all.
-Bop