When the walls come tumbling down - and, yea, so shall they - the twits who think up this stuff will have a lot to answer for:
According to a post on the Official Google Blog, the new reference tool encourages experts to write encyclopedic articles called knols, which stands for unit of knowledge. Topics would be in an expert's field of interest, and knols would be hosted by Google and included in the lists generated by the company's search engine. "A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read," Google vice-president of engineering Udi Manber wrote in the blog entry. "Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors."I think the words the dingbat is looking for is fact. Maybe facts or some even plainer word describing when facts are organized into short coherent groupings, say, an essay, a paragraph or perhaps even just a passage.
Good timing, though, as "knol" now leaps to the top of the heap for stupidest idea of 2007.
Comments
Darren - December 16, 2007 6:10 AM
Yep, lame name. Though I think there's an obvious reason to choose it--searchability. I expect there were very few English languages examples of the term 'knol' on the web last week. Own the word, own the concept.
Speaking of words, your captcha just made me write "groin residence", which really amused the 12-year-old version of me.
Alan - December 16, 2007 9:47 AM
I am starting to think that Captcha is the new haiku's haiku.<p>Trouble is with "knol", someone else owns the word. You would think that they would do a Google search on the term before embracing it. I likely also means "rear end" in Finnish.