Web Writing, Projects, Theories

Last week Google announced a new service called Google Knol, and Seth Godin from Squidoo was obviously jilted.

Here’s the way I see the landscape of things - we have Wikipedia (articles), Facebook (social profiles / networking), and then Squidoo which seems to blend both. I’m not saying those are the 3 big players (they’re not) but they’re just the 3 I want to look at.

Squidoo’s community allows articles to be tied to the author, which is important because the source of information validates it. But Squidoo doesn’t limit itself to the article format, it allows people to create profiles about anything - there are profiles of people who are huge Harry Potter fans etc., so this kind of capability broadens the scope. Squidoo is not defined, it relies on its users to define each page and link to the pages to build that community.

Here’s what I think is good about Google’s Knol. The name “knol” itself is smart as it functions to market and define the product. It’s in reference to a “mol”, the standard unit of measure for a molecule, atom or anything in Chemistry. Not only does this carry on the scientific culture in Google’s naming of products and services (Google references googol), but it accurately and concisely describes Knol’s purpose. Based on the Google blog post, a knol is a unit of measure for a piece of knoledge. Clever, descriptive, and reinforces Google’s culture.

Now how does Knol fit into the landscape of the Wikipedia, Facebook, Squidoo trio I mentioned above? First I think that Google recognizes areas where Squidoo falls short. Squidoo in its current form suffers from a lack of direction and definition as far as what its community is supposed to be. Is it a social network or an authoritative article network? I think users think of the two as different and its difficult to combine the two like Squidoo tries to do. It’s too open ended so people don’t know what to do with it. Also it has Adsense ads on it in places that cause it to suffer from a usability perspective. The Knol screenshot does not have (intrusive) ads. If Google did implement ads, they would probably be less intrusive, such as how ads are integrated on Google Groups.

Then Google tried to make a mark in this space to make it better. It is smart to tie the writer to the article and that’s what Squidoo does well - it gives the article greater authority and a higher likelihood that it will be linked to. Google Knol is taking advantage of Squidoo’s inability to define itself to an optimal point. Knol looks like Squidoo with a Wikipedia article touch.

So here’s my reccomendation to Squidoo - take this moment of change to respond and adapt. If I were them, I’d divide the site into two components and brand / adjust them accordingly - a social side and a knowledge article side. This way you have the Facebook group feel of the social lenses, and the authoritative article feel of a Google knol.

I just built a web site that’s still under development, but I wanted to post about it here. It is located at www.writershore.com/chicagometra and it’s an easier interface for finding schedules, station locations, and all the information that metra provides on their site, I just reorganized it and linked to some useful maps.