This one is big news – Google has released a Beta of Knol, its new Wikipedia-like service.

As I understand it, this service is based on the idea of making the author responsible for the content. (Wikipedia’s model is that the community edits the content, with a group of moderators responsible for enforcing the rules. Other people can contribute, but it is the author who decides.

I think this is a great idea and has a lot of potential. We will be advising our clients to get involved. Bonus – initial analysis seems to indicate that Knol results get a Google Search Engine Results boost.