Google just opened up their Knol capability to all Internet users. The Google concept for a Knol is that it is an authoritative article about a specific topic. It is a unit of knowledge. People can write what they want, but the idea is that they should put their name on it so there is some way to measure credibility. Others can contribute to the knol in measured ways. For example, a setting can be selected so that anyone can edit the entry, or anyone can suggest entries, or no one can suggest changes.
From the Google Blog entry:
“The web contains vast amounts of information, but not everything worth knowing is on the web. An enormous amount of information resides in people’s heads: millions of people know useful things and billions more could benefit from that knowledge. Knol will encourage these people to contribute
their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone.
The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It’s their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good.”
Sounds cool, so I thought I’d give it a try. The first and most important step was trying to think of a subject to write about. I decided to take the easy way out and self-plagerize myself. I copied my list of disruptive technology and created a knol based on it.
I found the knol page was very easy to configure. Within about a minute I had my account active and copied in a bio so anyone interested could read about who I assert I am. I copied in my info on disruptive IT and hit publish and my knol was up. You can check it out here: Disruptive IT knol.
So far, I have to admit, I am not impressed. How could this be of more value than the list I already maintain?
But I’ll keep an open mind for a little while. My goal is to keep that list up to date with new information that will be of actionalble use to the enterprise Chief Technology Officer (CTO). If the knol concept enables a wider swath of people to read and contribute to that list, then it may be a useful concept. If, however, it generates no new information for me or my readers, then it will probably be easier for me just to maintain the list on my blog. Stay tuned and I’ll post more info on this topic after I see results.
