July
2008
Wikipedia has a challenger…Knol launched
Google has launched Knol: a unit of knowledge today, their version of infamous Wikipedia. At first glance I must say I’m quite impressed, although I’m a huge fan of Wikipedia, the design is really dated and dull. Knol is a breath of fresh air and looks really, really good. Everything I would expect to see from a next gen knowlege base. One small bit of input though, the logo needs to be a bit bigger, it gets a bit lost at the top of the screen. The content is displayed perfectly and is easy to read, the layout is simple and user friendly. Seems the bigger players are remembering that white space is your friend since the new Facebook has adopted a similiar style.
The basics seem the same, but a little more polished and the platform has everything you would expect in all the right places, a search, a big call to action button -write a knol, featured knols, top rated knols, reviews, categories, comments, email/print, revisions etc
One thing I did notice however which I thought was amusing was the comment “Who needs a search engine? Ctrl+F”…classic, thing to see on a Google innovation.
I will be playing with Knol a bit, the big question is even though they have a slick look will they be able to pull a “brain drain” on Wikipedia and amass as much information as Wikipedia? They have a serious ways to go. Good Luck
Let me know what you think.
