We were interested to see that Google has developed a rival to Wikipedia. Research is a major part of our job as a logo designer, for example, finding information on terms used in a client’s design brief.

Here is an extract from a brief from our client, Geo Consulting:

“Work primarily in the field of development and production geology (ie concerned with extracting hydrocarbons out of the ground) as opposed to exploration (which is finding oil/gas in the ground).
Particular specialities are 1) ‘risking’ of oil and gas volumes (involves probabalistic calculations using Monte Carlo techniques) and 2) interpretation of dipmeter/image logs (electronic equipment lowered down a drill-hole to recorder physical properties of the rocks/fluids - in this case structural information.”

Wikipedia was a mine of information (excuse the pun) on hydrocarbons, Monte Carlo method, dipmeter, geology generally …

Google’s new site is called Knol (meaning unit of knowledge). Unlike Wikipedia which has user-generated information on almost everything under the sun, Google plan to name people who contribute by publishing their profile with each entry. Google believe that knowing who wrote an article will help users make better use of the information, presumably they mean accountable. Also it differs in that anyone can contribute to any article on Wikipedia, on Knol, an article will be written by a single author and other users can edit it only with permission from the author. The other major difference is that Knol will have advertising running alongside the articles, the authors will have the power to allow advertisements to appear on their knols or not, and that if they give permission, they will receive commission.

Although Wikipedia is open to abuse, it is hard to believe that as an encyclopedia, it could be usurped by a commercial version with such a strong emphasis on financial success.

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