After Google Wave, KNOL to be discontinued

UPDATED ON 6th of March 2012:

As part of Google’s prioritization of product efforts, we will be retiring Knol.  From now through April 30th, 2012, Knol will work as usual, but we’ve made it easy for you to download your knols to file and/or export them to WordPress.com.  From May 1, 2012 through October 1, 2012, knols will no longer be viewable, but can be downloaded and exported.  After that time, knol content will no longer be accessible

https://knol-redirects.appspot.com/faq.html

KNOL, the Google attempt, a long forgotten Wikipedia competitor, will be shutting down soon…

According:
http://mashable.com/2011/11/22/google-wave-knol-and-gears-headed-for-retirement-video/

Google blog:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-spring-cleaning-out-of-season.html

For previous posts on KNOL, see:

https://scienceintelligence.wordpress.com/tag/knol/

https://scienceintelligence.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/a-piece-of-knowledge-by-google/

Study case: wiki implementation at Pfizer

Pfizer has been described as an early adopter of Enterprise 2.0 technologies for improving collaboration and new ideas. (…) 

The introduction of social media at Pfizer was a grassroots initiative beginning with the establishment of a blog by an individual employee. The blog was open to all employees.

(…) the deployment of wikis at Pfizer began in 2006 when a team leader in the Research Technology Centre (RTC) installed Mediawiki on a computer under his desk. His goal was to launch a scientific encyclopedia with articles being developed collaboratively by Pfizer’s internal research and development team.

The wiki (referred to as Pfizerpedia) proved very popular receiving 12,000 hits from 13,000 Pfizer employees worldwide in the first year.

(…)  Pfizerpedia has become an integral part of Pfizer’s I.T. landscape. The potential of Pfizerpedia is not limited to enhancing collaboration and information sharing among the global workforce. (…)

Pfizerpedia has made it easier to connect researchers and this can help spark innovation and speed pharmaceutical development process which in turn can maximize Pfizer’s return on R&D.

 Craig Standing and Sarah Kiniti. How can organizations use wikis for innovation? Technovation, article in press
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2011.02.005

Updates for SciTopics

SciTopics, is probably the only Science Wiki which is worth reading…

At last, Elsevier has implemented basic functions that were missing, such as print a page, latest posts, etc.

http://www.scitopics.com/

A piece of Knowledge by Google

Knol (pronounce “nol”), which stands for a unit of Knowledge, is a new free (belongs to the Google family) tool which makes it easy to write an authorative web article. Everybody can write a knol about everything (any topic your mind can imagine)!! Knols are not moderated, only rated by readers. Authors retain the power to accept or reject any changes. It is a kind of wikipedia but without editors.

“Knol will place the author’s name on each article, allowing readers to see who wrote the piece, and will allow multiple articles on the same topic. The anonymity of Wikipedia has long been a point of contention with users. Political groups, PR firms and overzealous users have been involved in numerous instances of Wikipedia entries being inappropriately modified. “The key principle behind Knol is authorship,” wrote Google product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Michael McNally.” http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2222530/google-rolls-knol 

 Some knols:

– Introduction to Patents: http://knol.google.com/k/mark-williams/patents/1ec5gce8be2m5/2

 

My opinion: Has been presented at Online Information London, Dec. 2008. As many Google products, adoption and diffusion of Knol during its first months is faster than Wikipedia at the same stage. But the lack of authoritativeness (no control by peers) will probably be seen like a major point by Scientists.

 http://knol.google.com/k/