Knol for Google: It Is Not Evil, It Is Business
by
on July 29, 2008,
Google is a smart company - smart enough for many people to be surprised after they witness this or that move or an acquisition, surprised enough to say "Why has not anyone thought of that move earlier?" And now it seems that Google has finally realized that it sends way too much traffic from its search results pages to websites that do not contribute to Google's business. What would be the correct move for a business when faced by such a discovery? Find a way to make money by sending traffic to your own properties.
And this is exactly what Google needs Knol for: Google must be tired of being the major source of traffic for Wikipedia and many other independent publishers and now it looks for new ways to further monetize its own business. And for that it simply needed to have a platform of its own to be able to bring tons of content to internet users easily - and displace competitors from the search results. In this particular case Google serves as a full-cycle company: it provides the platform (Knol itself), the revenue (AdSense) and, finally, the distribution (search).
Sure, we hear lots of complaints about Knol already. It is quite obvious that from the day 1 of Knol launch we should have expected voices pointing at spam on Knol created in order to get revenue by building a page on a popular term. It was so obvious that it is almost ridiculous to complain about it now. The explanation here is that no matter what service people use they invariably are motivated by something. And often the motivation offered by the service determines exactly what type of users it will attract eventually.
Google decided that by offering people to monetize their contributions to the encyclopedia of their own they will attract those same people that contribute to Wikipedia out of their own free will and understanding of what good is. Unfortunately, this type of people should be motivated otherwise, and since Google has chosen the easiest motivation factor that ever existed, it ended up with people looking for some quick profit for their contributions - and rarely caring about the quality of contributions at all.
But will poor quality of content stop Google from acting as a content company? I don't think so. If there's anything that could prevent independent publishers from getting lost in the 3rd and subsequent pages of Google search results, it is simply lack of income Google generates by ads on Knol. But that would take having everybody stop clicking ads completely. Is that realistic? I can hardly believe it and I don't see a way the independent publishers could succeed in a campaign to make an average internet Joe stop clicking Google's ads on Google's Knols - correct me if I'm wrong.
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Your conclusion is right. People are clicking on ads because they want to see the ads. Google ad clicking is basically fraud. No doubt there are some people who are trying to make money through unethical means. But a global business like Google and global advertising agencies make sure that such risks are at a tolerable level compared to the genuine advertising audience.
I personally feel Knol is very good idea implemented by Google and it affords a good publishing opportunity to many who have the interest to communicate. I am serious committed to it and plan to a large number of articles at a rate of at least one per day for some period to come. Adsense advertisements are yet to appear on knol pages.
Sorry, there was a typing mistake in my comment. I wanted to type Google ad clicking is basically genuine. It is not a fraud.
Narayana, thank you for the comments. I understand that some people (like you) may be very much excited about Google providing them a new publishing platform that you can not only use for free but make money in addition. But since you have stated that you are planning to contribute to Knol a lot (and I think a daily article is quite a lot), would you mind sharing with us your motivation? What do you really want to achieve with these contributions?
The motivation for any writer first is to express himself. In many of the performing arts, artists have first a desire to perform. At some stage, every artist tries to monetize his skill or art, only some will succeed and many will fail, but the artist remains an artist displaying his art as his circumstances permit.
I am a teacher and I argue among my colleagues that teachers have to take an active interest and write material that helps in learning apart from explaining things based texts written by others.
I see in the instant publishing media an outlet for people to display their interest and knowledge. The scope offered for collaborative improvement also facilitates somebody taking lead and initiating a topic. If it has no utility it may be withdrawn. If there is interest, it can be developed in a collaborative way. My motivation is first is to create materials that I think are useful to public. I do see an opportunity to make some money not big money but useful money even in small amounts, and many vouch safe that Google’s systems are very efficient and reliable with respect to payment of money.
I encourage my colleagues and other teachers to start writing for online platforms and create learning materials.
As you pointed out it may be quite difficult to post daily one article. I am planning things without actually doing it. But whatever I can do in the limited time that I can spare, I shall be happy with that output.
I thank you for putting the question and giving me opportunity to express my thinking on the issue.
@Narayana: Thank you very much for the detailed explanation of your reasons and motivation. But actually your desire to change the world by publishing useful materials for general good is better fit on Wikipedia, I think. But of course Wikipedia does not pay and that gives an advantage to Knol - though I doubt this advantage will really mean improved quality of content on the site.
Thanks both for your comments. I am also a teacher and i do research. Discovering Knol i immediately asked myself : can this be of any interest ?
Wikipedia is perfect for collaborative articles, and the fact everbody participates, compensates errors somebody might make. Scientific articles you want your own are better off being published in scientific press (either directly on line, or the writer publishes the text afterwards indicating where it was published). So what is left for Knol ? Not much apart from the fact money is involved…
Anyways, i agree with Svetlana Gladkova, and with this article, that Knol will probably not have the greatest content. I also would like to say to Narayana Rao KVSS that participating in Knol is not an innocent thing. It may weaken Wikipedia, and at least hurt the noble idea of writing all together and for free.
(Please excuse my mistakes, as i am not an english native speaker/writer).
I feel knol can be used to publish scientific research articles as well as science extension articles. Wikipedia need not have monopoly on internet for collaborative articles. Knol platform can inspire number of mini encyclopedias in different subjects managed by experts who have passion to be authors and creators of knowledge bases.
A platform created by google will have expectation of longevity in the competitive arena and therefore it will attract best people in the subjects.
@Laurent: Absolutely true, scientific work should be kept far from public wikis like Wikipedia (or now Knol) simply because they are better off within the scientific community and also it could result in some patents registration or other work based on the articles.
And it’s a very interesting observation that using Knol must not be all that innocent since it could hurt Wikipedia. I still can’t persuade myself that Knol could actually be a serious competitor to Wikipedia but since this is obviously what Google has in mind, I believe those users that care about the human-powered online encyclopedia of choice for millions of web users should really refrain from using Knol.
@Narayana: As I’ve already mentioned in the post, I don’t really thing that the incentives Google offers to editors could really attract the best editors - and this is my hugest doubt about Knol’s future.