Knol: a unit of knowledge. Launched by Google but was closed in 2009 due to poor adoption. It failed because:
- 100 results to a search term. Users don't know which one to pick.
- Difficult to collaborate. Its authorship ideology makes it almost impossible for others to modify or enhance existing articles.
- Low quality. Since the (user) efforts are so scattered, many articles seem to be unfinished or work in progress at best.
- Little market awareness. Knol? Who "knols"? Who cares?
Update: 1/15/2009: I was almost right! Google is shuting down a lot of services. Too bad that Knol is not yet one of them.
