Technology As Innovator

The latest content-creating product from Google, Knol, is heating the debates on whether it would directly compete with current content ecologies.

Below is my view toward Knol.

Knol vs. Wikipedia?

Knol is often compared to Wikipedia.

In fact, Knol is more centralized on authorship and authority in content creation, so I believe that Knol employs the top-down model which is closer to Citizendium than to Wikipedia.

However, to repeat, Knol is not wiki. It takes advantage of collaborative-editing.

Knol vs. Blogs?

More interestingly, some bloggers express their concern that Knol would interfere with professional blogs, which also aim at sharing knowledge.

My view is that Knol does not compete with Blogs, but rather offer an alternative to content publishing.

Knol is more on scientific/academic articles and how-to style, while blogs are more for expressing opinions.

For example, this post Tag of mine is more suitable for Knol, while this entry is more for my blog.

So Knol is another channel and platform to share your knowledge with the world, with more focus on authorization.

How will you use Google Knol?

VCCorp is aggressively penetrating the “expert” content composition in Vietnam with their new products: CafeF, bnok, gocnhin and thenao

1. CafeF

A group-blog service on Finance and Stock developed basing on WordPress

2. bnok.vn

A group-blog service that hosts multiple professional and interest groups.

Currently, bnok is limited:

• Registration done manually
• Each blog is associated with only one group
• Maximum 3 blogs are associated with 1 account

bnok supports import from these platforms

1. Blogger
2. Blogware
3. DotClear
4. RSS
5. GreyMatter
6. WordPress
7. LiveJournal
8. Movable Type / Typepad

From this list, it is observable that their development team utilize plugins for WordPress. To penetrate the Vietnamese market, they should have started building a tool to import Yahoo! 360 blog now.

3. gocnhin

A techmeme clone

4. thenao

A Vietnamese wiki platform. I believe that with their financial base, VCCorp will introduce incentives for contributors in the competition with Wikipedia Vietnamese.

The name “thế nào” gives me the impression of “how stuffs work”.

Comments

VCCorp seems like the only player on this field. Will expert content have any potentials for monetization?

Apart from traditional monetization by advertising on web, selling analysis and contents to consumers is also a good idea.

What do you think about these products?

Major types of blog

Corporate blog

A blog, either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations.

An example: Official Google Blog

Product blog

A blog to update for particular products.

Example: Facebook Blog

Professional blog

A blog written for professional research or thought.

Example: Tai Tran’s Blog

Authority blog

A blog about specific topic(s), written by expert(s) in the area(s).

Example: Copy Blogger is a blog guiding you on effective blogging

Community blog

A centralized blog that facilitates communication between a community. This is increasingly replacing forums.

Personal blog

Blog on personal life of the writer.

Tumble blog

A tumblelog is a variation of a blog that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. Unlike blogs, tumblelogs are frequently used to share the author’s creations, discoveries, or experiences while providing little or no commentary.

Example: Tai Tran’s Reading Achiever

Micro-blog

Blog with very short texts and links.

Example: Tai Tran’s Twitter

Link blog

Blog that only contains links

Types of blog are platform-independent

Blogs are platform-independent. No one prevents you from using WordPress to micro-blog. However, there are recommendations of the platform suitable for each blogging purpose.