Google(GOOG) has just announced public opening of their new wiki-knowledge product called “Knol”.

After months of deliberation since December of last year, this project is finally open for people to use.

Let’s take a quick look:

For responding to a Knol subject such as this Lung Cancer article, the user can leave a review with a rating.  This supposedly validates the experts’ writing and becomes part of Knol’s rating system.

Knol also let’s you leave comments.  I believe the comments section is really for those quick comments but the review section should be used for expert reviewers of that subject.

Let’s take a look at the writing aspects of Knol.  You can write a new Knol yourself but you need to stay within these guidelines:

The Knol project is a site that hosts many knols — units of knowledge — written about various subjects. The authors of the knols can take credit for their writing, provide credentials, and elicit peer reviews and comments. Users can provide feedback, comments, related information. So the Knol project is a platform for sharing information, with multiple cues that help you evaluate the quality and veracity of information.

Knols are indexed by the big search engines, of course. And well-written knols become popular the same as regular web pages. The Knol site allows anyone to write and manage knols through a browser on any computer.

Writing a good Knol can definitely boost your SEO and online visibility, especially you are good at what you write about.

Here’s a screenshot of writing a new Knol.  It looks pretty simple and basically it’s like Wikipedia but easier to use.

I don’t know how popular this Knol Project will become but I am sure many webmasters will take advantage of the early SEO you can gain from writing expertise articles.

Knol Resources

Knol Website

How to Write Good Knols

Basics of Writing Knols

Wikia, a search engine developed by Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has relanuches yesterday with some new features.

Continue reading →

(click to enlarge)

Powerset launches its supposedly “human lauguage” search engine. Basically it’s only searching Wikipedia at this point but the search experience is very AJAXed out and good.

I looked up “zedomax” and only thing I could find was Zedomax.com linked to the Hacker article at Wikipedia, which I inserted long time ago.

Powerset looks like great for searching Wikipedia, as Wikipedia’s default search engine sucks.

It may explode onto the mass once Powerset gets more into mainstream search engine market.

Today marks another milestone for San Francisco based contextual search engine Powerset. They’ve launched a showcase for their user search experience - effectively the search engine minus the web crawl. For now, Powerset queries only Wikipedia and augments results with data from Freebase. The product launch comes just a day after reports that the company is being shopped to potential buyers by investment bank Allen & Co.

via techcrunch

A German publisher, Bertelsmann, is going to be printing a book that will largely consist of articles from Wikipedia.

What about the writers and references used in Wikipedia? Do they get paid?

This book and any other future books using Wikipedia as main source of content will have to face a large number of lawsuits for all I can tell right now.

A major German publisher, Bertelsmann, has announced plans to print a book called “The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia,” which goes on sale this September for 19.95 euros (around $32 U.S.). The book will feature some of the year’s most popular articles. Says Dr. Varnhorn, the editor in charge of Bertelsmann’s reference works, in a recent NY Times article, “We think of it as an online encyclopedic yearbook.” A statement that foreshadows the possibility of this book becoming the first of many annually printed editions.

via readwriteweb

We have just launched the OneBuckWiki.com.

Here’s the new Press Release that should be released in couple days:

Zedomax Network Press Release October 12th, 2007 - One Buck Wiki was just Launched!

Zedomax Network, a San Francisco based Web2.0 company, has just launched a new marketing project called OneBuckWiki.com

The One Buck Wiki is a new community of entrepreneurs, web marketers, and normal people who want to promote their busineses online and benefit from the collective traffic that’s generated by other page-owners and One Buck Wiki’s viral marketing.

You can buy a page for only 1 dollar (Limited Time Only) where you can promote your blog, e-store, or any other website. The page(s) you buy will solely have your content and no one elses.

A page on the One Buck Wiki can be edited just as a user would edit a page in Wikipedia, but the difference with the One Buck Wiki is that a person’s page can be used to promote an e-store, a blog, or any other products or a services.

The One Buck Wiki is created by the creators of the Five Dollar Wiki at FiveDollarWiki.com, which was also launched only couple days ago.

They are a team of underground “moonlighters” that work around the clock to bring you the next Internet marketing tool.

The One Buck Wiki is based on a highly developed business model of the MillionDollarWiki.com, adding an extra parameter that allows users to benefit from overall sales of pages and viral marketing.

Basically, the difference between the MillionDollarWiki and the OneBuckWiki is that you can buy a page for one dollar instead of one hundred dollars with the exception that the page(s) you buy now will ultimately multiply 10 times its value at every 1000 pages that the One Buck Wiki sells.

This means that a page bought on the One Buck Wiki today could be worth $1000 when 100,000 pages are sold.

The One Buck Wiki has just launched and they have thousands of unclaimed pages where the user can choose their own words or phrases such as “iPod Store”, “Business”, “Web Development”, or any word phrase you can think of.

There have been a number of “million dollar” ideas on the Internet in the past couple months including the Million Dollar Wiki (MDW), and the Million Euro Wiki (MEW).

The MDW (MillionDollarWiki.com) and MEW (MillionEuroWiki) offered Internet users the chance to own a piece of history at $100 each.

“The buzz with MDW and MEW have seems to reached its plateau (as seen with Alexa Traffic rankings).”

Now, with the One Buck Wiki, you can buy pages that will multiply in value automatically with growth of the website itself.

With all the buzz in paid Wikis, Internet users are demanding more - they want to be involved and they want to interact with the latest online marketing strategy available.

While social bookmarking sites like Stumbleupon, Reddit, and Digg are soaring in popularity, the One Buck Wiki team is pouncing on the opportunity to generate both online traffic and income with their new project.

For more information visit One Buck Wiki FAQ at http://OneBuckWiki.com.

Cool, the Web 3.0 definition is out:

• Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform.

Web 2.0 services are now the commoditized platform, not the final product. In a world where a social network, wiki, or social bookmarking service can be built for free and in an instant, what’s next?

Web 2.0 services like digg and YouTube evolve into Web 3.0 services with an additional layer of individual excellence and focus. As an example, funnyordie.com leverages all the standard YouTube Web 2.0 feature sets like syndication and social networking, while adding a layer of talent and trust to them.

A version of digg where experts check the validity of claims, corrected errors, and restated headlines to be more accurate would be the Web 3.0 version. However, I’m not sure if the digg community will embrace that any time soon.

Wikipedia, considered a Web 1.5 service, is experiencing the start of the Web 3.0 movement by locking pages down as they reach completion, and (at least in their German version) requiring edits to flow through trusted experts.

Also of note, is what Web 3.0 leaves behind. Web 3.0 throttles the “wisdom of the crowds” from turning into the “madness of the mobs” we’ve seen all to often, by balancing it with a respect of experts. Web 3.0 leaves behind the cowardly anonymous contributors and the selfish blackhat SEOs that have polluted and diminished so many communities.

Web 3.0 is a return to what was great about media and technology before Web 2.0: recognizing talent and expertise, the ownership of ones words, and fairness. It’s time to evolve, shall we?

I agree with Jason to a certain extent but I believe this isn’t the fullest explanation of what we are about to see. Web3.0 will be more videos, social networks that cover all types of niche markets. It’s like digg sites that will run everywhere just like blogs are doing right now. I don’t know how long THIS will take but once it takes off, it should be the Web3.0 that we did not expect. Remember, Web2.0 is a concept derived from O’Reiley that we just kinda follow after it took off. Web3.0 will be way more serious than this. We won’t know it’s Web3.0 until it has hit us…that will take time…don’t know when…

Web3.0 via Jason Calacanis Blog

P.S. It will probably be when we call social networks, sonet, just like we are calling weblogs blogs now…