My First Knol: Charles Sobhraj, Serial Killer

On July 23rd Google opened Knol up for the world. Google defines knol as a unit of knowledge and uses the term to describe an individual article at their Knol website, as well.

Knol seems designed in many ways to be similar to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a collaborative, user-written encyclopedia. Pick your topic and write an entry on it.

Knol and Wikipedia seem different in a couple of ways. Knol authors are more clearly identified. Wikipedia entries often seem anonymous to the average reader. How do you assess a writer's credentials to cover the topic? Wikipedia also tends to have a one topic=one article approach. Knol is looking to allow (perhaps even encourage) competing articles on the same topic - which means that you could find three or four different articles eventually on, say, the assassination of President Kennedy, each presenting fairly different perspectives on the topic.

I wrote my first Knol yesterday - on the infamous serial killer Charles Sobhraj. Chances are, I'll write a few more...