Google's Answer to Wikipedia

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?

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 )

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.

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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