The BBC brings news of Google’s plans for an online encyclopedia to rival Wikipedia.
The new project, called Knol, atttempts to address some of Wikipedia’s short-comings by putting more emphasis on respected authors and peer-reviewed content. In exchange for contributing, authors will receive a share of the ad revenue for their pages. Meanwhile, Wikipedia steadfastly refuses to display adverts, and instead relies on charitable donations to cover its costs.
This sounds a lot like the Scholarpedia project that I wrote about previously. But Scholarpedia lacks the considerable backing of the Google machine or the financial incentives of Adsense.
So will Google crush Wikipedia? Will Wikipedia have to adapt to survive? Or is it too entrenched already for Google’s efforts to have any real impact?
Wikipedia’s ad hoc editing certainly results in some interesting articles. During this year’s World Cup I found 3 separate pages detailing rugby player Jonny Wilkinson’s international points-scoring record, each with a wildly different number (including one that put him hundreds of points ahead of all-time record holder Neil Jenkins). Other things Wikipedia has taught me in the last year are that Clash frontman Joe Strummer was in favour of AIDS and global warming (or perhaps it was just a poorly constructed sentence), and that billionaire Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich is in fact a dustman.