Google has unveiled plans for a Wikipedia rival.  Because, it seems, being the go-to source for information on the web isn’t quite enough.  Now they want to be the go-to source for everything. 

There are some differences between Wikipedia and Google’s new Knol service.  The most important one is that authors on Google’s Knol will have bylines, so that everyone can see who authored a particular entry–Wikipedia, of course, lets anonymous users create and/or edit entries, and uses a system of editors to weed out the false info.  Another chief difference is that readers will not have the ability to change an author’s submission, but will instead offer a voting system that lets readers pick the entries that are the best.  Theoretically, the best of the bunch would rise to the top.

From the article:

 ”‘We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content,’ wrote Udi Manber, vice president of engineering, on the official Google blog.”

There’s another wrinkle too:  Google will allow authors to sign up to permit ads to show up on their entries, and is promising a “significant” share of the revenue those ads generate to the author. 

So…in other words…the new Knol service could easily be named: Another Way For Google to Make Money on Ads (but that’s admittedly a long name for a product, so I can see why they went with Knol). 

What I want to know is how this will impact search results.  Wikipedia is already dominating the Google results pages, often coming up #1 for countless queries.  Will Google now “demote” the authority Wikipedia entries carry?  Will Knol entries now be placed across the top of the results?  It’s a slippery slope to allow your own money-making encyclopedia to overpower other sites in the rankings.  Knol will allow multiple articles for the same topic–they claim more is better and that this will allow for maximum overall accuracy, and they may be right–and that voting system will impact which entry on Knol shows up the highest on Google’s results pages.  So what about the secodn-most-voted-on entry for a topic?  Will it still be in the search results too?  Will the top ten results for a query eventually be the top ten entries for that topic on Knol?  When does “providing the best results possible” become “blatantly skewing results to advertise your own product,” you know? 

Anyway, Google is clearly bent on world domination.  I’m not one to rock the boat.  All hail Google, our information overlords!