This is huge news. Google tonight decided to disclose on their blog a new project of their’s known as ‘Knol’ that is the early stages of testing. According to them, ‘knol’ stands for “unit of knowledge” and though their description is wordy, it appears very obvious what they are trying to create: a “Pro” or perhaps more accurate, an “Accountable” version of Wikipedia that will be monetized and be featured in Google Search results.

Google has invited a few select individuals who are knowledgeable in a various topic to write a page for them about it – but it will eventually be open to anyone. One of the big differences between Knol and Wikipedia is that the pages’ authors will be highlighted just as an author of a book would be. This aims to not only give them credit for their work, but also to hold them accountable for it. If a page is amiss, anyone is free to create a new one to compete against it. User comments, ratings, and reviews will all help determine which page is the best for a subject.

Most people know full well that the greatest strength of Wikipedia is also its greatest weakness: that anyone can edit it at any time. While there seems to be an army of users who patrol the site looking for questionable edits, the fact remains that at any time I could simply go to say, Osama bin Laden’s page, and write he was killed in 2004 by He-Man. The whole world could then see that until it was corrected. With Knol, pulling such a stunt would destroy my reputation – at least that seems to be the idea.

Wikipedia’s other big weakness? It’s reliance on Google. Wikipedia gets a massive amount of traffic from Google searches – in fact it’s the 3rd most popular site in terms of Google downstream traffic. If Google suddenly starts highlighting their Knol service over Wikipedia – which they certainly make it sound like they intend to do – Wikipedia’s traffic could really plummet.

Google obviously is not stupid. They saw all the traffic going to Wikipedia from their searches and likely thought: “why don’t we make our own”? The question would be why, when Wikipedia is already so firmly established and doing seemingly good work, the kind Google seems to love so much? Well because if you read closely, authors will have the option to put Google Ads on their pages. Cha-ching.

Quite a few people have talked about monetizing Wikipedia in the past – if they had just one banner ad they would make a lot, and I mean A LOT, of money from it – but Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has steadfastly refused this. Most people love that, they see no ads on Wikipedia and think it’s great – who would want a Wikipedia with ads? Well someone also getting paid by those ads probably would. Yes, Google wants to have revenue sharing with Knol page authors.

Google is setting out to create an monetizable, accountable version of Wikipedia – one that would aim to replace Wikipedia as the authoritative source of information on the Internet. To say this is huge is an understatement.

They mention Wikipedia exactly ZERO times in their post.

MORE:
Marshall Kirkpatrick calls this a “game changer” on Read/WriteWeb.

Nick Carr: “For the past year, Chief Wikipedian Jimmy Wales has been doing a lot of trash-talking about taking on Google in the search business. Now Google’s striking back.”