Knol facts for kids
|
Type of site
|
Reference |
|---|---|
| Dissolved | May 1, 2012 |
| Owner | |
| Created by | |
| Website | knol.google.com (offline) |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Yes |
| Launched | July 23, 2008 |
| Current status | Closed |
Knol was a special project from Google. It was a website where people could write articles about many different topics. Google called each article a "knol," which meant a "unit of knowledge."
Contents
What Was Knol?
Knol was like an online encyclopedia, but it had a different idea. Instead of one big article on a topic, there could be several articles. Each one was written by a different person. This meant you could see different views on the same subject.
How Knol Started
The Knol project was led by Udi Manber, who worked at Google. It was first announced in December 2007. The website officially opened for people to use on July 23, 2008. At first, it had only a few hundred articles. Many of these early articles were about health and medical topics.
Knol vs. Wikipedia
Many people saw Knol as a competitor to websites like Wikipedia. However, it was also seen as a partner. Knol offered a different way to share information. For example, on Knol, each article had a clear author. This was different from Wikipedia, where many people work on one article.
Writing Articles on Knol
Anyone could create and own a new article on Knol. If you were an expert on something, you could write about it. You could even write an article on a topic that already had other articles. This allowed for many different voices and ideas.
Ads and Money
Authors on Knol could choose to show ads from Google's AdSense on their pages. If people clicked on these ads, the author could earn some money. Some people thought this was a good idea. Others worried it might make authors write articles just to earn money.
When Knol Closed
Knol was open for almost four years. Google decided to close the project on April 30, 2012. All the articles were removed by October 1, 2012. You can still find old copies of Knol articles. The Internet Archive saved many snapshots of the website from 2008 to 2012.
See also
In Spanish: Knol para niños
