Google finally launched Knol today, like many other websites we are talking about a large content play.  To some extent, a concept pioneered by About.com and refined by Wikipedia and Mahalo. Authoritative users creating rich indexes of curated content.

In their battles for king of hill, they have all bowed to the same master in the form of Google. So now with Knol the game has changed a bit, after all the big G is the one sending most of the traffic to all these destinations. With Google, content web sites ride the millions of users who come in through just the right keyword. Higher on the hill search results page, the higher your traffic (also known as value).

So while yes there are a few questions, such as how will Google rank and integrate Knol pages into their search results? What about Google Adsense on Knol pages? One can’t help but feel like a bee trapped in someone else’s honey pot.

However I think Knol is not going to be major problem for others in the market. Lets take a look why.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Their index is simply too large and well placed in Google. Sure there is going to be more issues over the content, but that’s also what makes it great. Worst case, the openness and inaccuracies make it laughable like your local evening news. However a shit load of people still watch the local evening news and love it.

Mahalo

Mahalo is also going to do just fine. In fact there is going to be many more that take a similar approach to Mahalo. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery as they say. Having copycats in the market is also good, it means you are doing something right. Mahalo can also beat both Wikipedia and Knol in some areas simply because they will build out pages the others wont. Watch Google Trends for a bit sometime, you’ll find the majority users are more interested in their latest celebrity news as opposed to an authoritative article on a clogged toilet.

You

Yes you! Do you blog our create content online? Yes you’ll be OK too. In fact, you should be on Knol now creating content there. You can even generate adsense revenue within your pages, why let the these guys have all the fun? Better yet, create you own content portal, something under a very fine niche. Dominate the space and start chipping at these big guys for traffic (once again, value).

Whats others are saying:

• Danny Sullivian’s great roundup
  (if you read only one knol post this year…)
• Allen manages to record a video under 5 minutes!
• Jason on FriendFeed
• Matthew says aloha
• Graywolf is literally foaming at the mouth