Knol screenshot, courtesy of Wikipedia

Google’s recently-acquired reference site, Knol, entered into public beta on 23 July. The site is similar to Wikipedia in that it relies entirely on user-submitted content, but the similarities end there. Instead of encouraging collaboration between users, Knol emphasizes individual authorship, and encourages users to verify that their username is their legal name via credit card or phone. As such, each entry is controlled by a single person, although other users may suggest edits. Knol aims to incentivize contribution by paying authors a share of the ad revenue generated by their content.

 

While Knol’s experiment is certainly interesting, there are several key drawbacks to the model. First, Knol rejects Wikipedia’s collaborative strategy, and permits individuals to promote commercial interests in their content, provided it has substantive value. While neither bias nor profit-motivation are bad in and of themselves, the combination is deadly in this case. A reference site which allows users to submit articles that contain their opinion is one thing, but allowing users to promote commercial interests while paying them to contribute is another entirely. The resulting content will almost certainly be both misleading and of inferior quality.

 

Second, allowing money to enter into the equation is probably a bad thing for both Wikipedia and Knol. The amount users can expect to glean from authoring content is probably relatively small, but given individuals only get paid for content they author, little incentive will exist to suggest edits to others’ faulty content: not only will one not get paid if the edits make their way into the piece, but there is no guarantee the original author will even accept the edits, or is even still active on the site. Not only that, but individuals who would have previously submitted free content to Wikipedia will may gravitate instead toward Knol’s promise of easy money.

 

While it remains to be seen whether or not Knol even becomes popular—after all, it may just go the way of Orkut, another ill-fated Google Web2.0 venture—it can prove detrimental to Wikipedia’s community. The last thing the web needs is more spammy content authored by individuals with dubious expertise in the subject.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education