Monday, December 17, 2007

Google's 'Wiki' Has Commercial Limitations

Google is beta testing a Wikipedia competitor with a commercial twist that might doom it to failure.

Wikipedia is successful because it is continually being revised and limits each "definition" to a single entry based on consensus.

Google will allow many entries for the same thing and will share the ad revenue with contributors. While this sounds noble, it will lead to an outbreak of self-promotional content spam generated solely to generate revenue without regard for quality. Google is right to share revenue, but there should be strict editorial controls to separate the contributions of academics and experts from the charlatans who will misinform for their own benefit. This could quickly spin out of control.

There is room for Wikipedia competitors, but allowing many entries will be extremely confusing to readers. Google will have to dedicate significant editorial resources to filter out the spam from useful information. The "Knol" name has got to go too.

Via Network World.

Posted By John Gartner at 09:54 AM
Permanent Link: Google's 'Wiki' Has Commercial Limitations | Comments (0)

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