KEY POINTS:
Google opened its website Knol to the public yesterday, allowing people to write about their areas of expertise under their bylines in a twist on encyclopedia Wikipedia, which allows anonymity.
"We are deeply convinced that authorship - knowing who wrote what - helps readers trust the content," said Cedric DuPont, product manager for Knol.
The name of the service is a play on an individual unit of knowledge, DuPont said, and entries on the public website are called "knols". Google conducted a limited test of the site beginning in December.
Knol has publishing tools similar to single blog pages. But unlike blogs, Knol encourages writers to reduce what they know about a topic to a single page that is not chronologically updated.
"What we want to get away from is 'this last voice wins' model which is very difficult if you are a busy professional," DuPont said.
Google wants to rank entries by popularity to encourage competition. For example, the first knol on Type 1 Diabetes is by Anne Peters, director of the University of Southern California's Clinical Diabetes Programmes.
As other writers publish on diabetes, Google plans to rank related pages according to user ratings, reviews and how often people refer to specific pages.
Knol focuses on individual authors or groups of authors. Wikipedia's subject entries are updated by users and edited behind the scenes.
Knol does not edit or endorse the information and visitors will not be able to edit or contribute to a knol unless they have the author's permission.
Knol is a hybrid of the individual, often opinionated entries found in blogs and the collective editing relied on by Wikipedia.
Google will allow Knol writers to run ads on their entries and will share income with them.
"Knols will fill gaps on what we have on the web today. That is what we hope," DuPont said.
