(Page 2 of 2)
Google also faces the difficult task of generating a useful body of knowledge from scratch. According to Wikipedia, it has taken more than seven years to generate its 9.25 million articles. "There's really no shortcut to getting this kind of coverage," says Pellegrini.
But Google is well positioned to provide a monetary incentive for content generation through its advertising programs, such as AdSense. If Knol attracts the number of users Wikipedia currently enjoys, Google has an opportunity to publish an equivalent number of ads. And some of that revenue would find its way to content providers. Manber writes, "If an author [of a Knol article] chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads."
These payments are likely to be modest, however, especially when the site is newly launched and doesn't yet have enough content to attract many readers. And Kagan believes that for many online content contributors, small payments from revenue-sharing programs will prove less of an incentive than the desire to share something they are passionate about. He points to the example of the revenue-sharing video website Revver, which has yet to approach the popularity of YouTube. "Many times, paying users to do things they wouldn't genuinely do proves not to work," Kagan says.
Google is betting that, if it can generate enough content, its expertise in search--and the effectiveness of peer review--will give it a competitive advantage. But while reader rating systems are common on sites that review goods and services, such as epinions and Amazon.com, it's unclear how effective they will be as a means of promoting user-generated content. Manber writes, "Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content." Wikipedia and peer-reviewed journals, by contrast, have mechanisms for preventing the proliferation of inaccurate content. Peer-reviewed journals publish only those articles deemed worthy by a group of the author's academic contemporaries. Wikipedia articles are constantly edited by numerous authors, so bogus information is typically removed quickly. In 2005, Nature found that there was not a substantial difference between the accuracy of scientific articles on Wikipedia and those in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The back-and-forth behind controversial entries could help reveal their true value.
But Google is likely to be a far harder target than Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Cofounder Jimmy Wales updates Technology Review on Wikipedia.
But there are other competitors also...
Knol will have to compete also with sites like EIOBA , where:
1) They have already huge database of articles
2) They have already working community
3) They have something unique ( look at Intelligent Suggestions )
>>> please explain me how you have hyperlinked your text here >>>
.
gregus80,
please explain me how you have hyperlinked your texts here
all my attempts (HTML, BBcode, etc.) failed
thanks
.
Re: >>> please explain me how you have hyperlinked your text here >>>
You can use standard HTML in your comment to produce text linked to a URL. Be sure to specify HTML rather than text formatting, and preview your results before submitting.
For example, to get Technology Review select Formatting: HTML and code
<a href="www.technologyreview.com">Technology Review</a>
A True Knowledge Market Would Destroy Or At Least Make Irrelevant Both Google and Wikipedia
So far no one really gets it, but I guess we're slowly groping toward a better internet that is a little different than the text-centered internet that was launched in the mid 90's.
Content creation should be picking up your phone and sharing your desk top. It would be so easy to create a Knowledge Market. Instead of facilitating the transfer of tangible products the way EBay does, it would facilitate the transfer of Knowlege from one person to another.
Want to learn Flash? Instead of reading an online tutorial, with a Knowlege Market you could efficiently find someone to teach you. The Knowlege Worker's expertise would be self-described, but it would also be rated by past users. The Knowlege Market could allow anyone to be both teacher and learner. That is, you could learn from anyone on any subject, or you could to teach to anyone on any subject. The point of the market itself, of course would be to bring the two together and to provide a technical means whereby this transfer could take place. All of the technology exists for this to work. Surprisingly no one has put it together yet. I guess everyone is trying to promote their Squidoo Lens to have too much time to think about such obvious things.
Have a problem with PHP at 3 a.m.? Call (text, whatever) someone on the Knowledge Market for help. Want to take a cooking class? Do it online with other people from an expert instructor anywhere in the world.
Most of the information on the internet is a set of meta information which leads you to the information that you ultimately seek. Why not create an application which allows you to directly access the far more valuable knowledge and information that exists only in people's heads?
Why is the internet so practically useless and becoming more useless by the day as it is overtaken by the kudzu of millions of people building sites meant to promote hair tonic? It is because it was created by soical phobes--mostly male computer scientists, male mathematicians, people with high IQs, etc. who preferred their computers over people for companionship. These people have really created the internet in their own image which basically limits human interaction but what we've seen in recent years is the most humans actually do want to connect with each other, and this is actually where the power of the internet resides. It's not about better algorithms, folks. It's about connecting human beings. It's about overcoming the barrier that technology represents.
It's great that sites like Squidoo, Wikipedia, HubPages, and Ezines, Helium, Scripd, et al exist to give people a form of self-expression, but ultimately they all fall way short of what people migh ultimately want. Who wants to be stuck behind a computer monitor all day long typing out messages and contributing to someone else's dream in complete solitude when they could be interacting with actual human beings in a much richer, much more textured and meaningful way?
A Knoledge Market would change that by facilitating the transfer of knowledge that people actually want. And as a market, it would bring the price of knowlege down dramatically.
Go on the internet and try to find a private tutor for Adobe Photoshop who is competing with other private photoshop tutors from all over the world for your business in real time--one moreover who has an established curriculum, ratings from past users, a desk-top sharing interface, and a library of past tutorials. Why doesn't this exist? Am I stupid? Why isn't this obvious?
Try to find someone who is willing to show you how to trouble shoot your Epson printer that you bought 4 years ago, or someone who can show you how to operate a new digital camera you just bought. The interent still does a very poor job of helping people find the granular information they need. Unfortunately, it's still mostly about dating, porn, entertainment and shopping.
All Knowlege Market sessions could be captured, then described and tagged. This would be the content. It would be the ultimate social networking tool, internet application, and marketing vehicle. It would change work and so much else. This idea assumes the use of something like WebEx. If you asked the right questions ("how to adjust margins in Word"?) you could get paid for asking them.
I've talked to VC's about it but they don't get it. Hopefully someone will eventuall see the light. Maybe I'm just not very good at describing things because no one else seems to get it either. I dunno.
If by some miracle some MIT genius reads this and wants to contanct me about it, write to dan[at]beyondquotes[dot]com I have the whole thing worked out. Or better yet, just do it. You would be making the internet, and the world a much better place. Maybe you wouldn't have to work for the Pentagon making bombs.
>>> my suggestion for Technology Review >>>
.
you review very good articles and ideas from the web, however, I'm sure, there are many other interesting things found (or invented) by Technology Review users but not posted since off-topic
so, why don't put FIVE "mailboxes" (not a generic "contact us") on your site ("INFOTECH", "BIOTECH", etc.) where the T.R. readers could send things that may become full articles?
I've now (and post here) the first "mail" for the "BIZTECH" mailbox about a new web-idea I've had these days:
I'm trying to start a "New.Space" company on the web raising the funds to do that on eBay!
this is the (temporary) home page of my New.Space Agency:
http://www.newspaceagency.com/
and this is the NewSpaceAgency's eBay auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&sspagename=ADME%3AL%3ALCA%3AIT%3A31&viewitem=&item=280194182637
.
THE GOOGLE "KNOL PROJECT" LOOKS PRETTY GOOD TO ME. Hey, innovation doesn't start with worrying about what MIGHT go wrong. It starts with trying out new ideas in the real world.
Google could be on to a good thing. I certainly like their e-mail service, and most of the other services that come with a Google account. Free.
So what's the problem?
Lighten up.
REG CROWDER
Freelance Business Journalist
London, UK & Brittany, France
http://www.journalistdirectory.com/journalist/TgTQ/REG-CROWDER
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
Our list of the 50 most innovative companies, including the following:
On Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Feed
blunney
17 Comments
Interesting idea...
An interesting idea, but has Google missed something? Part of Wikipedia's appeal is the sense of shared endeavor, of grass roots community. Knol removes that opportunity for participation, and reverts to the same old top-down, we-know-better-than-you authoritarianism.
Note the most successful recently created websites on the web (MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia, Craigslist, etc) enable and encourage their viewers to participate. I don't see how Knol does this.
Or is it just a ploy by the company that will "Do no evil" to sell more ads?
Reply
gregus80
2 Comments
Re: Interesting idea...
These days Google is only about cash. There is no longer "we are cool".
Reply