Multimedia Agency

Last July 2008, Google formally made another power-end project public after announcing it last December of 2007. The project is “knol”, yes it is another new word that technology invented and according to Google, knol is simply the “unit of knowledge”. Knol is very similar to blogging though knol is more of scholarly and professional article writing on the web. Blogging is traditionally like an online journal where you can express your sentiments and later evolved that caters to marketing and business endeavors of people while knol lets authors or writers to publish their scholarly works online

Knol: What is it all about?

Knol’s creator, Udi Mander who is also Google’s Vice President for Engineering envisions knol to “encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article”. Just is like blogging, writing a knol is for sharing and in the case of knol, you write to share your knowledge. Unlike other sites for article writing, knol wants to “highlight authors”, and have authority and ownership of their own articles. Knol is the place if you want to build your credibility as a writer online.

Knol also imposes rules and conditions to its authors. Authors are not allowed to market or publish articles that obviously advertise a product or service though business related articles that may mentions products and services are allowed.

Knol and Blog

You can start writing your knol using your goggle account, if you are familiar with blogging then; the steps are primarily the same as blogging. The basic “write and post” routine holds true in knol and readers can leave comments about your article. Knol doesn’t have a “dashboard” like in blogs; you just have to write your article on the page right away and publish it. However, knol is also comparable to writer communities online like Hubpages and Helium. Unlike blogging, readers don’t just give comments on your articles; rather, they can also rate your article. You yourself as a reader to other knols can rate other articles. This feature enables authors to build their credibility online. You can include ads like Adsense from Goggle in your knol can generate revenues, thus earning money through your articles.

Declaring war with Wikipedia

Do a search on knol and all of them will mention the similarity in terms of purpose and goals to Wikipedia though Google doesn’t confirm about this particular issue. There is an ongoing issue that Wikipedia declines to have a partnership with Google since Wikipedia is strong in its stand as a non-profit organization. Google as we all know needs ads and marketing to generate revenue and continue its operations.

So, it is very wise and clever for Google to put and build a competition against Wikipedia. But unlike Wikipedia as mentioned earlier, knol emphasizes author’s ownership in a particular article rather than mere contributor. In your own page, your photo is published with your article, thus making you feel more in control of your articles. Knol like Wikipedia aims to cover all branches of knowledge from science to entertainment and with lots of topics; Knol will soon be another online encyclopedia. But at present, most knols centers on medical topics.

To end up, Knol is another innovating product of Google and indeed another step into the Information Age that we are currently living in. Knol provides writers around the world to find another medium to express and share what they know and particularly their specific field of expertise. Likewise Knol will let authors to have a larger audience taking into consideration the millions of people using the Internet particularly the ones with Google accounts.

Extravagant in style

The Internet has closed the gap between people around the world and drew information within everybody’s reach. As they say, we are now living in what they refer as the Information Age and paved the way for new words such as “techie” and “blogs”. Likewise, some words received alternations in their meanings and became the new set of technological jargons; “yahoo” for example no longer pertains to what cowboys yell, nor is “traffic” when we talk about sites and “google” when we are looking for something in the World Wide Web.

Search engines

Search engines are Internet tools that users make use of to look for information from various websites and links. At present, there are many search engines but Google and Yahoo top them all. However, there is a newly launched search engine called Cuil (pronounced like the word “cool), developed and managed by think tanks from IBM and Google.

Cuil’s Founders

The CEO and one of the founders Tom Costello was a graduate of Stanford University and even taught in the institution for a couple of years. Before Cuil, Costello developed another search engine, named Xift in 1999. Joining Costello are Anna Patterson and Russell Power who worked for Google before establishing their company. The founders used the Irish word “Cuil” which according to Cuil’s homepage is “an old Irish word for knowledge.”

Cuil as a search engine

Cuil takes pride that Cuil in terms of web pages has “three times as many as Google and ten times as Microsoft”. Likewise, Cuil is more particular with keyword-enriched articles with relevant contents in ranking web pages rather than merely basing popularity; though Cuil still regard popularity as an important factor in ranking web pages.

Cuil also has its own features that make it different and unique from the other search engines like Google and Yahoo. The company’s website enumerates three distinct features of Cuil; drill down, roll-over definition and tabs.

Drill down

When you are searching in Cuil, it will not only give you results but a list of categories displayed on the right panel under the name of “Explore By Category”. Cuil wants to refine your searches by giving you more information that might be very useful for your research.

Roll-over definition

This feature sets Cuil apart from Google and Yahoo search engines; it will give a very short definition of the items listed under “Explore By Category”. According to the company this feature will et its users save time since you will know if you should click or not that particular subject based on the definition given.

Tabs

As mentioned, Cuil doesn’t have the “Advance Search” options instead; it has Tabs that specify your particular search. For example, if you are going to search for “toddlers”, the Tabs will give you “activities for toddlers”, “babies and toddlers” and many more. It’s up to you if you want to click on those pages.

Testing Cuil

If you try to search by using Cuil, the striking difference that you will see is the short introduction that they provide along with thumbnails. This feature is really good since you as a user have a little idea of what that particular site or web page is all about. Unlike Google and Yahoo in which the introduction is just a matter of one or two sentences, Cuil really let its users know what site they are about to enter.

Cuil also has their preference feature that will not show pornographic sites from the results of your searches. This is great for families who want to safeguard their family’s viewing. On the other hand, it is hard if you misspell a particular topic unlike in Yahoo and Goggle where they will give you suggestions. Cuil will just prompt you with zero results from that particular search.

To end up, Cuil is a newly launched search engine that you as an intelligent user should try and make use to the maximum. It has several useful features that may suit your searching style.