[Foundation-l] Knol, a year later

[David Gerard]

2009/8/10 Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com>:

> Some weeks ago I had an opportunity to talk with a Google employee
> about a number of topics.  One of the things we discussed was Knol.
> Setting aside the way it may have been marketed in the popular press
> at the time, she suggested that Google does not currently see Knol as
> a collaborative medium in the way Wikipedia is.  Rather, they
> currently regard Knol as more of a web publishing platform.  In other
> words, it is a place for individuals and small groups to post their
> work online with a certain degree of infrastructure and visibility
> (and Google ads, of course).


Yes. Google never pushed Knol as a "Wikipedia killer" and at no time,
before or since launch, was it put forward by Google as something that
could replace Wikipedia.

The comparison to Wikipedia was a complete media fiction, invented
from the need to fill space. It has no other basis.


> Rather than being the next Wikipedia, maybe a better analogy would be
> to think of Knol as the next Geocities.


ooh, ouch. I'd hope "the next about.com" at least.


- d.