No subject

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/poor-google-knol-has-gone-from-a-wikip=
edia-killer-to-a-craigslist-wannabe/


We=92ve known for a while that Google=92s Knol <http://knol.google.com/> is=
 no
Wikipedia killer<http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/25/why-google-knol-is-no=
-wikipedia/>,
but now the knowledge-sharing site is being reduced to a sad Craigslist
wannabe. The original
idea<http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/23/googles-knol-the-monetizable-wiki=
pedia/>
behind
Knol was that people could collaboratively write definitive articles about
any topic they like and get rewarded by earning a share of the AdSense
revenues for each page they author. Well, that model doesn=92t work so well=
 if
nobody bothers to read the articles on Knol no matter how much search karma
Google gives them. Quantcast
estimates<http://www.quantcast.com/knol.google.com> that
only 174,000 people visited the site in the past month.

So what do you do if your Knol page isn=92t throwing up enough AdSense penn=
ies
to make it worth your while? You try to sell a pair of stereo speakers
directly to the few lost souls who somehow end up at Knol. Will Johnson, a
self-described =93professional genealogist and biographer,=94 decided to sh=
are
his Knol-edge of a pair of =93Bose 2.2 direct reflecting bookshelf speakers
for sale=94<http://knol.google.com/k/will-johnson/bose-22-direct-reflecting=
-bookshelf/4hmquk6fx4gu/277#>=97his
own (only $70). In fact, he started his own Knol
Marketplace<http://knol.google.com/k/will-johnson/my-knol-marketplace/4hmqu=
k6fx4gu/267#>
 and bookstore<http://knol.google.com/k/will-johnson/wjhonsons-bookstore/4h=
mquk6fx4gu/268#>
.

More in story.

Regards



*Keith*