The next big thing in mining the wisdom of the crowd?
This looks promising: Google’s setting up a service to make it easy for authors to write up informational pages on any subject they choose. The article bills it as a competitor to Wikipedia, but it would actually be quite different. Wikis are wonderful for encouraging many people in a crowd to pitch in their respective insights on a topic where there’s no disagreement, but it has no capacity for arbitrating or even representing conflict among authors. This system sounds like it could have the ease-of-authorship found on Wikipedia or in blogs, the reference-style focus on reaching for finality over the daily-grind reporter style of blogs and newsmedia, and the warring-editorials style of blogs over the the authoritative-view style of Wikipedia. With the clear dollar incentive of earning Google ad dollars for writing a popular piece, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a lot of writers attracted to the site if and when it ever goes public. I do wonder about a few elements, though:
- How will users be able to find the authors they’re looking for?
- Will it be the same system of cross-linking as exists among blogs, or might there be some attempt at taxonomy?
- Will there be any kind of reputation management so that an author can build up credibility over time?
- Will there be a mechanism for serial publishing (i.e. blogging), or will it be limited to single articles?
- Will ads be the only way to get paid or will authors have the option to put their content behind a micro-payment and/or subscription wall?
- Will there be any relationship with the existing print media, especially the editorial pages, which is the current home for a large body of this content?
