Writing on the Bloggy Knol

Last month Udi Manber, VP Engineering for Google, revealed in the company's official blog a new project aimed at authors. Still in beta, and apparently nonpaying, the megatech is Encouraging people to contribute knowledge in the form of articles on their specialties. Clicking on the image below takes viewers to an example of a "knol". It's only an image, however, so don't bother clicking on anything that looks like a link. The very hush-hush beta testing is also by invitation only.

At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word "knol" as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we'll do the rest.

Exactly which sector of the Internet this new project threatens is unclear and a matter of great speculation among industry watchers. One theory is that the company's "Pages" project is flagging, and "Knol" will simply prop it up with more tools a la Blogger. After all, a web page is just a web page. Or perhaps Blogger is losing out to Word Press, which offers more plug ins and flexibility in blog design as well as easier integration into complete websites.