knol versus Citizendium

After posting about Google's knol pilot elsewhere, I wanted to emphasize one aspect here: one competitive thrust is against Citizendium.  The far larger target is Wikipedia, of course, given its huge prominence, influence, Google search ranking, and deeply felt bad reputation.  But Citizendium is closer to knols in several key respects, as several commentators have noted (Ars Technica, for example).

Although it draws on the wiki approach, Citizendium's key difference is articles whose primary content is created by "real names and guidance by expert editors."  Those two features - names and experts - are crucial to knol, and not at all to Wikipedia. The naming is major issue for some critics, such as historians, trained in sourcing content.  knol emphasizes naming even more prominently than does the Citizendium, if the Googleblog sample picture is any guide.

This approach certainly draws on web 2.0 personalization, and even the social graph notion.  But in terms of informatics, this represents a clear move towards named, identified sources, which should appeal to many educators and scholars.  If this takes off, and Google's previous experience with Answers might give us caution, Citizendium will be seriously threatened.  Google's vastly greater name recognition, integration with other services, and growing education presence will see to that.  As Ars Technica notes,

While Wikipedia itself is diverse enough to survive, smaller projects like Citizendium could find the going much tougher.

Larry Sanger takes a different tack.  First, he argues that Google's primary target is Wikipedia, which would certainly make sense when it comes to market share.  Second, he thinks that knols won't come anywhere near competing with his Citizendium, since

Google is entering head-to-head competition with Wikipedia — not so much with the Citizendium (thankfully, we have a different niche: quality)

I'm not convinced that knols won't compete on that level.  It's hard to get at the project now, given its secrecy, but this seems to be precisely where Google hopes to compete.  Listen to the blog post:

Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it.
(emphases added)

The selection mechanism is mysterious at this point, and the post avoids the term "expert", but that seems to be the angle of approach. 

Sanger goes on to argue that knols won't attract a great deal of participation, but this is not altogether convincing.  He sees a

lack of buy-in from the free culture crowd. Many of the sort of people who contribute knowledge to projects like Wikipedia and the Citizendium are likely to be very skeptical of a giant corporation organizing such a project

We're waiting for Siva Vaidkyanathan to offer his first take on this, but Google's sheer range mitigates against an anti-corporate-informatics movement scotching knols.  Far too many people are into the Googlesphere, especially given how relatively few would be need to knol.

Moreover, as Peter Suber and others have noted, the Googleblog sample image (sampled to right) hints that Creative Commons licenses are possible, perhaps by user choice a la Flickr.

Further, it's not realistic to rule out self-interest in knol creation.  Many would be motivated by the possibilities of Google ad lucre, especially if Google results push knols to the top of results lists.  Ditto for reputation growth.

Again, I'm not writing about knol-Wikipedia competition in this post.  Nor am I suggesting that the Googlesphere has targeted Citizendium as a major competitor.  I am not celebrating our knol overlords, nor discounting either another failure, a la Answers, or the possible effects of an anti-corporate movement against Googlized informations.  Instead, the point is simply that knols are a real threat to Citizendium.

Should we check stats in a year, comparing knols and Citizendium?  Perhaps number of articles, or word count, or some stab at user base.

Comments

[Larry Sanger]

They can say all they like that they aim to attract experts. The fact however is that they offer experts no special incentives (at least, nothing that they've announced), and they specifically state: "Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors. We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line. Anyone will be free to write."

They've described any number of Web 2.0 "submit your essay to us!" websites--not an expert-driven encyclopedia. But time will tell, of course.

[Alexandra Kitty]

It's an interesting development and sort of sets up something of an anonymous citizen knowledge-base versus an expert knowledge base. With Wiki, though, there is that push to provide reference links to information provided for the entries.

To me, it seems that knol is a move away from the level-playing field theory of the Internet. Whether "experts" want to reduce that expertise into bite-size entries remains to be seen.

Seems very similar to about.com -- a Web 1.0 creation.

[peter naegele]

According to this article, Google is going to let submitters decide if they wish to allow advertising on their entries. The author will receive a small percentage of revenue from visitors to said entry.

[Stephen Ewen]

Whatever else that might be said, I think one can very clearly infer that the architects of Knol have closely studied Citizendium.

[Bryan Alexander]

Larry, thank you for commenting thoughtfully and rapidly.
What do you make of Google's reputation as incentive? Getting one's name on a knol should lead to enormous, enormous exposure.
Peter's note about advertising points to another incentive, which ramps up hugely given my previous point.
The trickier question is how they sift multiple contributors on the same topic.

Alexandra, good point. How do you think knols will compare with where Wikipedia is now through Google?

I agree, Stephen. Have you spotted any Citizendium notes from the Googlephere, in blog posts, presentations, etc?

[Larry Sanger]

Indeed it's precisely the amount of exposure that might make the difference between Knol succeeding and being an also-ran like h2g2.com. But Google has one problem to solve that exposure alone probably won't solve: motivating actually good, knowledgeable writers to participate. CZ isn't worried about competing with well-exposed mediocrity.

Time will tell, but I suspect that not very many good writers will be interested in enriching Google and being rated by an anonymous crowd. I am sure that they'll get a full complement of good articles on very most popular topics, though. But that wouldn't necessarily make a good encyclopedia.

As to the money incentive, I don't know why anyone takes that seriously. A small amount of thought will make clear that the amount of money most articles will generate will be minimal at best, and the idea of individuals getting pennies when a mega-corporation reaps dollars through aggregation will belie the fairness of the arrangement. Competition for the best Britney article might be fierce...but for the very, very long tail, not so much.

I think that the real beneficiary of the Knol initiative could ultimately be CZ. As people consider that an alternative to Wikipedia is possible after all, and they consider the various inevitable flaws with the Knol project, they will be made aware of other alternatives. Like the Citizendium. Just when, in 2008, we are growing more rapidly than ever and becoming more and more of a serious contender.