Google unveils reference tool after 7-month test

(AP) -- Google Inc. is taking the wraps off an Internet encyclopedia designed to give people a chance to show off - and profit from - their expertise on any topic.

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3.6/5 after 29 votes

• thales - Jul 23, 2008
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  Huh. Well, more power to them but I don't see this replacing Wikipedia anytime soon. And the idea that it won't compete with Wikipedia is ridiculous.
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• DoctorKnowledge - Jul 23, 2008
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  Yep. As an avid contributor to Wikipedia, I'd have to say that almost any well-organized encyclopedia project with lots of public visibility will be a challenge to them. Wiki is irregular in quality, and it's hard for someone without much experience to understand where the weaknesses are. Assessing a rock band or a sports star or manga or a soap opera? Completely unreliable, except the hard facts. A historical event? Count on one of the most recent interpretations to dominate the article -- the editors won't even have heard of earlier theories. In other areas, in other aspects of other subjects, it can be excellent. It's a mixed bag, and that invites competition.
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• gopher65 - Jul 24, 2008
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  The problem with this idea is that there is little quailty control. They're going to end up with a lot of garbage articles from nutjobs and wackos who are just trying to get people to buy into their imaginary reality. The same thing happens on the internet at large, and on wikipedia. But on wikipedia at least there is some form of quality control to eliminate most of the crap.
  
  On the internet at large there aren't any controls, and this is what makes search engines (like google) nearly useless for retrieving information from an unknown source. All you get is spam, because the vast majority of the pages google pulls up are garbage. This is the very reason why Wikipedia has become so popular! It isn't perfect, but it is a known quantity, of known quality. This new google project will be like a mini-internet, duplicating the dubious, unsourced, wacko crap that already exists on the web at large.
  
  I think it will be worthless.
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• JustinDoDrop - Jul 24, 2008
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  Im telling you dude, one day Google is going to take over the world. You just watch!
  
  JT
  www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
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• quaffapint - Jul 24, 2008
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  For the fun of it, I just setup http://www.ontheknol.com to track Google Knol frontpage articles, similar to how other sites track Wikipedia.
  
  It will be interesting to see if this goes the way of Google Answers or not.
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• yyz - Jul 24, 2008
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  Some readers may be interested in a new encyclopedia site @ http://en.citizen...in_Page. It seems to emphasize quality entries over quantity and may appeal to some PhysOrg readers.
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• Bookmarking - Jul 28, 2008
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  This sounds like an exciting new product. Google needs to expand the invite list to include me. As a internet marketer I believe this service would be of great value to me and my partners. Knol for the win ;)
  
  Internet Marketing & Promotion Techniques - Drive free traffic to your websites now: http://mysocialbo...pot.com/
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