Hello Google Knol; goodbye Wikipedia?

This came out while I was at Search Insider. It's interesting that Google is encouraging people to use knowledge for creating content similar to Wikipedia.

At first, it's a beta by invitation only. Google wants these people to use a tool called "knol," which stands for a unit of knowledge, to write what they know about a particular subject.

The Google Blog envisions a knol as an authoritative article in such areas as science, medicine, geography, history, entertainment, product information, how-to-fix-it info, etc.

Google will be testing this concept in beta and then plans to open participation in knols.

It won't be edited, like on Wikipedia. Google says it will only rank the knols but you can't expect all of them to be perfect. Their job is to rank them appropriately in Google SERPs.

Google wants to increase dissemination of knowledge and highlight authors. Here's the description of a knol from the Google Blog:

"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."

Source: Google Blog

Posted by Paul J. Bruemmer

12:42 PM 0 comments

Widgets Becoming Popular Marketing Tactic

AdWeek reports a new Widget Ad Network debuts this week from Clearspring, a provider of cross-platform widget services.

What's a widget? Google calls them Gadgets...widgets/gadgets are a desktop graphical user interface with a specific appearance, behavior and theme. Some are applications with scroll bars, buttons, or text boxes that can be manipulated by the user. Here is a long list of Google Gadgets.

Widgets/Gadgets are gaining momentum as ad vehicles because advertisers are moving from hard sell to soft sell tactics that fit more with a web demographic intrigued with entertainment and willing to form content relationships with brands.

Some may define them a budding tactic, however; this technology is catching on quickly with consumers as well as marketers. comScore has developed a third-party service to measure reach.

Source: AdWeek

Posted by Paul J. Bruemmer

2:30 PM 0 comments

The Bigs of the Blogs

The most popular places in the blogosphere, according to Technorati, as measured by the number of links to those blogs during the past six months. Icanhascheezburger.com was #10 on this list...what is it about comical pictures of cats that continues to keep the world enraptured?

1. Engadget
This gearhead blog is in AOL's Weblogs Inc. network, along with Autoblog and Luxist.

2. Gizmodo
Gawker Media's top blog, the tech-centric Gizmodo tallied nearly 50 million page views in October '07, up 158% from October '06, according to SiteMeter.

3. Boing Boing
This gee-whiz indie blog calls itself a "directory of wonderful things"--from a short story written only with words from The Cat in the Hat to artful Japanese manhole covers.

4. TechCrunch
Web 2.0-centric Techcrunch has spawned an eponymous global network that includes French, Japanese, and British editions.

5. The Huffington PostThe No. 1 political site's starry roster includes Bill Maher, Valerie Plame, Alec Baldwin, Naomi Klein, and Charlie Rose.

6. Lifehacker
Gawker Media--owned Lifehacker gathers Heloise-like hints for the wired generation.

7. Ars Technica
Its name invokes Hippocrates ("Life is short, art is long"), and its commentary focuses on the "art of technology," strolling from gadgets to government regulation to tech-biz news.

8. Mashable!This nexus of social-networking news is for those who can't get enough of Facebook.

9. Blog di Beppe GrilloBasta! On his bilingual (English/Italian) blog, comic/activist Beppe Grillo comments on current affairs, especially corruption in Italian business and politics.

10. Icanhascheezburger.com
This definitely-not-corporate site specializing in zany cat photos was inspired by a pic of a cat with the caption: "I can has cheezburger?"

11. Daily Kos
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga's liberal political blog inspired the annual Netroots Nation convention (formerly YearlyKos).

12. TMZ.com
From A-list to Z, Time Warner's celeb-obsessed TMZ has the dirt and the photos.

Posted by sandra

4:14 PM 0 comments