Google Knol invite

[smithcn]

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Has anyone managed to get a Google Knol beta invite yet?

I've seen the screen shot and a blog but haven't got my hands on an invite yet. I guess I don't know the right people...

Chris

[tbp]

Seems like its a cross between wikipedia and squidoo, don't know whether its worth all the excitement it seems to be generating

[ian-d]

Does just seem to be wikipedia! Why don't they just buy wiki out and have done with it

[HarveyC]

Heh, googled for that text, straight from a squidoo article...

[mboxl1]

It is Wikipedia - except:

it will have adverts

will be an information page that Google will prioritise over others

it will push everyone further down the natural search results

it will negatively impact Wikipedia

page 1, position 1 = Google information (KNOL)

yippee

[stu foster]

Can't get excited for it i'm afraid. Just another nail in the SEO coffin.

[moredial]

I see this as Google's death throw attempts to become a research search engine again.

They really are bad at giving valid research results and, as there is no profit in this area, someone has now come up with the idea of ensuring that there is advertising revenue to be made out of research.

The research information is already out there. Why do we need any more duplicate spam info sitting at the top of the search results? All Google has to do is to return valid research results, based on content and not their flawed popularity algorithm that drops any valid new research content as soon as the next back links update has been calculated.

As soon as anyone puts research content onto knol, the popularity factors will ensure that the original research documents will be penalized as duplicate content, never to see the light of day again.

I think it is the worst concept that Google could have come up with and is the end of 'freedom of speech' on the web with complete domination by advertising dollars of what information will be made available.