Knol may work, but probably not

Google has announced their version of the wikipedia, but with straight out article ownership, and in return, a cut of the revenue for the author. Finally, a place where those military historians can get paid for all their brains! Will it work?

PRO:

• article ownership should connote some sort of expertise
• revenue sharing for the author may entice decent writing

CON

• article ownership will likely discourage collaboration– no one really knows everything, and even then, it’s questionable
• revenue sharing for the author will encourage plagiarism, debasement (for traffic), and squabbling

Boil this down, and essentially Google is telling everyone they can be their own Professor. That’s the problem though– “smart” and “learned” is really a peer-review thing. You get your PhD from other PhD smarties, not from popularity contests. Even then, the people who really know something are already publishing their knowledge out there and trying to get paid for it (they’re called “textbooks”). For those who don’t want to go to physical books, there’s this thing called ‘t3h Internet’. Meh. I really cannot see this past Google trying to coopt more data for their database, and handing out a sliver of the cash.

UPDATE: I am looking at that picture of The Professor, and– is that a whiskey still?!?

UPDATE2: Huh.  I think this was just a commercial cover attempt for something that Google was building for the Pickle Factory and their Maryland Cousins.