Search News: Google – Knol and Void?
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Written By Noah Mallin | September 24, 2008 | Share This
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It seems like every few weeks Google launches a product – a knowledge resource (Knol), a browser (Chrome), a phone (the G1), a personal deodorant (QScore – the Smell of First Page Ranking) …OK I was joking about the deodorant but still…
When your share price is still north of $400 and you are insanely profitable I suppose it’s your corporate right to launch whatever darn products you want. It ain’t no thang but a chicken wing and all that. The question I have is, once you launch a product are you obligated to, you know, actually continue to develop it?
I know I’m not alone in asking this. For instance, Pingdom recently wondered why nearly half of Google products are still in Beta. To be fair GMail (still in Beta) gets some attention but the latest round of launches leaves something to be desired – Knol and Chrome in particular.
Knol has turned into a vast elephant graveyard full of useless information that is designed as much to shill products and increase search rankings as to inform. Launched as a Wikipedia alternative, it has failed miserably. Take a look at what comes up on Knol when I search for failed Mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Now compare that to Wikipedia. Where Knol gives you a bunch of junk Wikipedia gives you a well organized relevant entry.
Chrome is another story. There is a lot of promise in this easy to use, simply designed quick browser. We are weeks from launch though and where are the open-sourced apps like Firefox? Where is the Apple OS compatible version? Is it reasonable to assume that this will be one more of dozens of products I could name that Google launches and then treats with benign neglect?
So why launch them at all?
When I looked at Chrome initially I suggested that Google was more interested in information than in bruising Microsoft’s browser biz. This may be true of Knol, Google Apps and even the Google phone. The core money business for Google is still the advertising surrounding their search engine — the results that they pride themselves on delivering are heavily data-driven. Understanding what people are searching for and even what they do when they aren’t searching Google can help them to understand what results might be most relevant.
Knol, as bad as it is, gives some insight into how Wikipedia is used and what people search for once they get to that sight, just as the G1 gives some insight into how mobile browsers are typically used. Chrome gives the most data of all- allowing Google the potential to see interaction and traffic across many different non-Google spaces.
So from Google’s perspective there may not need to be a need to develop the product once it’s launched, assuming enough people continue using it to obtain meaningful data. The shame is that had Chrome been launched properly and cultivated it could very well be a great browser. Similarly the Knol idea is sound, it’s simply executed poorly. Imagine how much more powerful Google could be if they actually developed everything they launched.
Topics: Google, Mobile, Search: News, Social Media, Uncategorized, Web Analytics |