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Crowdsourced Encyclopedias: Wikipedia, Mahalo and Google Knol
by Allen Stern on July 23rd, 2008
Earlier today Google announced that Google Knol is now open to the public. Danny Sullivan has an awesome overview of how Google Knol works.
I thought this would be a good time to compare three crowdsourced encyclopedias: Mahalo, Google Knol and Wikipedia. Each one takes a different angle on why you should contribute.
Do you participate in any of these crowdsourced encyclopedias? If so, what factors helped make your decision? Was it to help the "greater good" or was it a financial decision?
Here are some thoughts on each encyclopedia and why people contribute to each:
Just made a Knol– part curiosity, part vanity, and part self-interest. It is on a subject I do know well, and the article would be helpful to visitors, but it also would potentially drive those visitors to my own site, which again would be helpful to those visitors.
Will be interesting to see whether it shows up in SERPs or drives any traffic. There is nothing underhanded or anything in it, I just happen to know about the industry that I work in.
Man I just looked at some Knols and theys blows. Looks like a spam tidal wave, I feel like my work was positively objective by comparison. The links are nofollow, so maybe it won’t get too bad, but there are so many links in articles you wonder if the Knol itself actually has any info in it.
I rarely help Wikipedia – but why would anyone help Mahalo when it just is there to help Jason make money?
I like to edit Wikipedia – this way the next person gets the right infos
If anyone is interested in purchasing http://www.oondi.com which is a website similar to Google Knol, send an e-mail to info [AT] oondi [DOT] com. The time is now for these types of websites; the business model has just been validated by Google.
The distinct advantage of oondi.com is that the site also targets other languages such as Dutch and French, which is unique in comparison to Squidoo, HubPages, Google Knol, etc…
Serious inquiries or offers only please.