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Google Knol has officially launched and some already say it may be the Wikipedia “killer.” Google has defined the “knol” as a unit of knowledge. How long before this little item become a staple in our society’s day to day vocabulary? Webster’s anyone?

Google Knol is where YOU get to create your own “wiki” like page based on your expertise. The site’s definition is “an authoritative article about a specific topic.” For starters I’m not quite sure how authoritative an article can be if it’s written by the common user, but credential aside, there are a few aspects that may bring writers into the light.

For starters every Google Knol user is identified by their google email login, secondly, their posts are only editable by the user. Unlike Wikipedia where multiple users can change the same page, Knol relies on one editor per created page, and thus cuts down on the randomness of changes from others. Still it begs the question how long will it take before someone can game this system, and unreliable articles start to appear at the top of search results?

Currently users can create knols, but there are only a few to speak of. Trying to search for topics may prove less than stellar due to the lack of substance on the page, but I expect Google Knol to expand very quickly. There are those that dislike Wikipedia simply because the “everyman” can be an expert on anything as long as they create an account and are willing to spend to the time to edit another’s page.

Can Google overtake Wikipedia? Give Knol a try and share your comments here.

Powerset launches their service with a Wikipedia Search tool. For a long time now Powerset has been ridiculously over hyped and has produced nothing, until now. As I mentioned the search engine is based around Wikipedia at present, but im sure will be moving into other sites in the near future. Powerset allows users to search via topic, phrase or question and it uses its own algorithm to work through key words and find the best matches. Powerset is first applying its natural language processing to search, aiming to improve the way we find information by unlocking the meaning encoded in ordinary human language.

For the last 6 months or more the word around the valley seems to be Semantic. Im simply just sick of hearing about semantic search and how it is going to change the search industry. It seems to be time now for some actual results, so can Powerset provide this?

Powerset Demo Video from officialpowerset on Vimeo.

Have a look at who else has been talking about Powerset:

Rev2, Lifehacker, Marketing Pilgrim, VentureBeat, Webware, Inquisitr and Techcrunch.