Google Knol: Larry and Sergey Get Urge to Break Stuff
It hasn't launched yet, but I find myself wondering already whose businesses Google's soon-to-be-launched Knol service will break. At the very least, by paying people a share of ads running on sub-sites sure to rank high in Google results the company is going to change where people expend effort in creating Wikipedia-like entries on the web.
Here's the money quote from the release:
At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads.
Emphasis, of course, on substantial.
So, is this bad for Wikipedia? Squidoo? Mahalo? Others? It sure feels like Google's Knol could break a lot of stuff.
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