Dec 14 2007

12 Things We Don’t Know About Google Knol

Tag: Questions About KnolDarren Barefoot @ 6:19 pm

In truth, we don’t know much. Here are a few questions which immediately crossed my mind:

  1. Once authors create pages, how will they become discovered in Google’s index? That is, will authors have to promote their pages and gather incoming links to achieve a high status for their article?
  2. Will there be a dedicated ‘knol search’, like Google Blog Search? I think the answer is almost certainly yes.
  3. How hard will it be to get a beta invite?
  4. How will the Knol identity system integrate with the rest of the hodge podge that is Google’s ID system. I have far too many Google logins, and most of them don’t talk to each other.
  5. Will authors be able to embed audio and video content in knols?
  6. What will the authoring system look like? Will it have any relationship to Google Docs and Spreadsheets?
  7. What will the revenue split be between Google and knol writers?
  8. How will Google handle multiple competitive knols on the same topic? I assume the same way they handle competition between web pages on any topic, but do searchers really want to see multiple knol search results in the first couple of pages?
  9. How will Knol compete with Mahalo, Squidoo and Wikipedia? For one thing, the revenue model sure beats Mahalo. I’d rather get a trickle of income over five years than $10 for writing an article. I know which one will add up to more money.
  10. Imagine two knols on, say, evolutionary psychology. A global authority and eminent professor writes a knol on the topic, as does a SEO-savvy noob. The professor’s knol is way better, but the noob generates way more incoming links. How will Google handle this?
  11. The sample knol has a Creative Commons license. How will that impact use and re-use of the article’s content?
  12. Will authors be able to moderate reviews of their own page? That is, will they be able to only publish the positive ones? I doubt it.