Google has finally unveiled one of its latest projects, Knol, an online-publishing service which resembles Wikipedia. Promoted by Google as a place where experts on various domains can share their knowledge with the rest of the world, Knol is basically an encyclopedia generated by users. Hence, the resemblance to Wikipedia.

But saying that Knol is just a Wikipedia with a twist is far for describing the concept of Google’s project. Knol, a name derived from Knowledge, aims to create a digital bridge. According to Google, there are millions of people out there who are experts in their specific domain, but they don’t have the technical abilities or the time or the interest to create a blog or a website.

Knol is firstly for this kind of people, who are willing the write one or two articles from time to time and share their knowledge on a particular subject. In fact this is one of the big differences between Knol and Wikipedia. While the last is about anonymity and collaborative effort, Knol is just the opposite: individual research, expertise and real identities.

Also unlike Wikipedia, where each topic gets only one page, the information being added to a main article, Knol will allow multiple takes on the same subject. Let’s say that you’re an expert on graphic cards. You can post for example a buying guide on Knol, but this doesn’t mean that another expert in the same field can’t create a similar article with his/her own knowledge and tips.

For the moment it is quite unclear how and if Knol will be able to relate similar articles, and my guess is that this will remain a task for the users. Based on what I have seen so far on the recently released Knol a good idea is to fragment your knowledge in multiple articles.

For example, Craig Goldwyn, a Writer and Photographer from the Chicago area, as he introduces himself, wrote an interesting article about “Barbecue”. But he also has another piece of work entitled “Barbecue Sauces” listed in his article box.

Also, surprisingly, when I visited Knol, 70 percent of the articles featured on the main page were on medical subjects. And this leads me to the other issue. How will Knol balance the subjects approached by its users? Maybe a feature like “Request an article about…” could be a good idea in the future and a good guide for the authors who will wish to share their knowledge on Knol.

Also, another issue is the controversy. For the moment it is quite unclear how Knol will handle different opinions on the same subject.
In the Help section, the team behind Knol explains that “people are free to disagree with you, to write their own knols, to post comments and ratings.” But will it be enough to let the users decide which article is better?

The users are able to vote on a certain knol, to add commentaries, questions or additional content. But which of these will define the quality of a knol? The votes, the positive reviews, the number of page views? Whose responsibility will ultimately be to indicate a more relevant knol between two or more on the same subject?

What about the situation where a group of users decide to push a certain knol in front of another? Who will mediate a possible argument in this case? Time will tell!

Like other Google services, Google Docs or Google Calendar, Knol offers collaboration options. Once you have signed in (a  Google account is required) in the Global settings area of Knol you can edit the collaboration model of your future knols. There are three options: Open collaboration model, which means that any signed in user could edit your knol, a Moderated collaboration model (which is set as default), meaning that the users can suggest edits to the knoll and the Closed collaboration model.

Other aspect is the license of your knols. There are also three options: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License or just All Rights Reserved.

Other significant difference between Knol and Wikipedia is the possibility to display AdSense ads on your knols.

In the Settings page you will find an AdSense tab, where you can associate the knols with an existing account or just create a new one.