Google Knol – Another Wikipedia Like Service

Knol has been described as a rival to Wikipedia. It is an online wiki like publishing platform from Google. It will be used to create user-generated articles on various topics. It was announced on December 13, 2007:

Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling “knol”, which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project.

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word “knol” as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we’ll do the rest.

Google  Knol  - Another Wikipedia Like Service
(Fig 01: Google Knol Sample Mock-up page)

I guess Google will put ads on the content and they will be getting a share of the profits. Also users will be allowed to rate, edit or comment on the articles. The site is in private beta.

=> Read more: Encouraging people to contribute knowledge

Why Americans Should Never Be Allowed To Travel

A web page about why americans should never be allowed to travel. These are actual stories provided by travel agents. Here is my favorite one:

A businessman called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. “Oh no I don’t, I’ve been to China many times and never had to have one of those.” I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, “Look, I’ve been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express.”

Read rest of stories.