Knol v/s Wikipedia

At last Google knol released!
URL:http://knol.google.com/
For last several months there was too much speculations in web space that knol will become a rival for Wikipedia.
Is it true?
The answer is a big NO.

Knol is really like an authorized blogging.There you can find numerous articles on same topic!Users may rate it and its search engine may retrieve best article when we do a search.But what if there is a mistake in article?An author can set permission for public editing on his/her article.Readers can point out mistakes throgh comments.What if the author doesn't want to change his mistake?

The second problem is that distribution of knowledge is not a unified manner.Many authors , many styles!Even knols (thats what a unit of knowledge defined by Google) can't follow Wikipedia style of neutrality because articles are simply in one author pont of view unless he/she permits public editing.

Third problem, how to administrate articles?Is it possible to moderate offensive content like we do in Wikipedia?Both are impossible.I think moderating of knols will take too much time.Concequently there is too much chance for conflict of interest of different people.But Google telling it will not be responsible for knols but respective authors.

That is why i'm telling we cannot compare knol and Wikipedia.Knol will never make a competition for Wikipedia.Because of somewhat topics based content of knol,it is more like About.com, Hubpages.com than Wikipedia.Wikipedia's strength (also weakness) is collaborative content.Knol can't beat that style.Still sincerely i didn't find any reason to believe that Knol will overcome the shortcomings of Wikipedia.Do you think any universities will allow their students to cite from Knol?Never.

Knol as a project

So far i did a comparison of Knol and Wikipedia.But as a product Knol is very useful to mankind.That was the official responce of Wikimedia Foundation ,who hosts Wikipedia and sister projects -"The more good free content, the better for the world".Thats how Knol matters.Sure Knol will take advantage of Google's cutting edge technology and credibility.We have to wait and see how Knols will affect Google's reputation of unbiased search results.Hope google wont be evil...!!!

Further:
Official announcement on Official Google blog
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/encouraging-people-to-contribute.html
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/knol-is-open-to-everyone.html

Wikipedia on Knol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol

News:
Google's Wikipedia rival, Knol, goes public -CNET news
Google announces testing of online reference tool -Wikinews
Death Knell Sounds for Wikipedia, About.com -NewsFactor Network
Knol Launch: Google's 'Units of Knowledge' May Raise Conflict of Interest -Wired
Wikipedia Competitor Being Tested by Google -NYTimes