Google finally launched Knol today, like many other websites we are talking about a large content play. To some extent, a concept pioneered by About.com and refined by Wikipedia and Mahalo. Authoritative users creating rich indexes of curated content.
In their battles for king of hill, they have all bowed to the same master in the form of Google. So now with Knol the game has changed a bit, after all the big G is the one sending most of the traffic to all these destinations. With Google, content web sites ride the millions of users who come in through just the right keyword. Higher on the hill search results page, the higher your traffic (also known as value).
So while yes there are a few questions, such as how will Google rank and integrate Knol pages into their search results? What about Google Adsense on Knol pages? One can’t help but feel like a bee trapped in someone else’s honey pot.
However I think Knol is not going to be major problem for others in the market. Lets take a look why.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Their index is simply too large and well placed in Google. Sure there is going to be more issues over the content, but that’s also what makes it great. Worst case, the openness and inaccuracies make it laughable like your local evening news. However a shit load of people still watch the local evening news and love it.
Mahalo
Mahalo is also going to do just fine. In fact there is going to be many more that take a similar approach to Mahalo. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery as they say. Having copycats in the market is also good, it means you are doing something right. Mahalo can also beat both Wikipedia and Knol in some areas simply because they will build out pages the others wont. Watch Google Trends for a bit sometime, you’ll find the majority users are more interested in their latest celebrity news as opposed to an authoritative article on a clogged toilet.
You
Yes you! Do you blog our create content online? Yes you’ll be OK too. In fact, you should be on Knol now creating content there. You can even generate adsense revenue within your pages, why let the these guys have all the fun? Better yet, create you own content portal, something under a very fine niche. Dominate the space and start chipping at these big guys for traffic (once again, value).
Whats others are saying:
Danny Sullivian’s great roundup
(if you read only one knol post this year…)
Aside from being Awesome, he is probably best known for his role in the movie King of Kong. He is the guy who gave Steve Wiebe the circuit board used for his controversial Donkey Kong record. Sadly I missed connecting with him at Twiistup4, hopefully well get the chance another awesome time.
For a little of the back story on Mr. Awesome, visit his site and check out the below video.
Content Manager (another me): Someone familiar with large content based sites, we have 500,000 documents and need to get to 10 million. Experience in the areas of vertical based content with heavy SEO goodness a must. The ability to reach out and setup content partnerships with large websites/businesses. This is a full time job, soon to be located in Santa Monica, CA. If you refer someone who works out after 3 months I’ll give you $500.
Wordpress Plugin Developer: We need to create an plugin very similar to easytube. In addition to easing the embed process, it needs to pull and select content directly from our site as well. This is a one time contract gig. Our site is ASP.net btw, strange I know.
Fish Pedicure? At Yvonne Hair, Nail & Tan Salon innovative spa, one can find this interesting service. The fish are cultivated to gently suck rough skin, calluses, and skin flakes off your feet. Hot!
Wow, I’m blogging from my iPhone with the new wordpress iPhone app. The interface is great. You can blog locally and publish later.
I think you can add images inline (find out after I publish this post). One major thing missing is the ability to link text. However without cut & paste, it is already a challenge to share links on the iPhone.
While there is huge potential in the concept of cloud based storage, we continue to see a huge backlash when it fails. For some sites like Twitter they only lose some images, for others like Docstoc, we are dead in the water.
For now, I guess we have no choice but to chalk it up to growing pains of the prototype like landscape we all live in.
You can get the latest updates from Amazon’s rather elaborate S3 status page.
Thanks to my new toy, I’ve captured a whole bunch of it. To start with, here is some video from SummerMash LA, a Mashable.com event. When Pete Cashmore isn’t looking pretty or making out with my wife, he occasionally gets offline to mingle with his adoring masses. In this video he escaped the camera, but don’t worry, I managed to track him down the night before. A unique interview is to follow.
Talk 
