Few months back Google had announced the development of Knol, a Wikipedia rival. Now Google has made Knol available for public. Knol offers authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects, says Google.
Announcing the public availability of the Knol, Google said, “The web contains vast amounts of information, but not everything worth knowing is on the web. An enormous amount of information resides in people’s heads: millions of people know useful things and billions more could benefit from that knowledge. Knol will encourage these people to contribute their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone.”
Just like Wikipedia, Google’s Knol will focus on variety of topics. But what sets Knol apart is that every article or a knoll will be written by experts on that subject, who will be responsible for the content authored by them. The articles on Knol are subjected to edit. The knolls will be written by individuals, but the revision process will be collaborative.
A feature called “moderated collaboration” will allow readers to suggest edits to knol. Authors will have freedom to accept, reject, or modify before these contributions become visible to the public.
Anyone can participate in building of a Knol. Users can submit comments, rate, or write a review. Further, like in the blog service offered by Google, writers can include ads from their Google AdSense account in the knol they create and receive a share of the revenue generated from their knols.
Moreover, Google has partnered with New Yorker, to allow authors to add one cartoon per knol from the New Yorker’s extensive cartoon database.
Knol seems to be the outstanding platform, to share one’s knowledge. In addition users can read what others are writing about. You can visit Knol at knol.google.com.