Google's announcment of Knol, it's Wikipedia killer, sits
right in-between a bunch of stuff I've been writing/thinking about lately. Clearly Google's motivation in this is the lost advertising dollars as Wikipedia searches show up
near the top of many popular searches and the resulting pages display no Google ads. Or as
Nick Carr put it, "I'm guessing that serving as the front door for a vast ad-less info-moshpit outfitted with open source search tools is not exactly the future that Google has in mind for itself. Enter Knol."
The question remains, is this really a need (after all it sounds a lot like some combination of Wikipedia/blogging) or is Google only spreading it's wings where the money is?