Google launched Google Knol today. It’s a site featuring a collection of “knols” – authoritative articles about specific topics. It is a service that is aimed to rival Wikipedia and, in my opinion, will probably be in a position to be the preferred online information resource especially for researchers.

One supposed advantage that Knol has over Wikipedia is that Google Knol articles are written by authorities in various fields. This is in contrast to Wikipedia articles being written and edited by multiple authors who are, oftentimes, anonymous.

The “openness” of Wikipedia has been its main strength and weakness. In some cases, the shared knowledge makes information rich and comprehensive though this freedom to edit articles makes Wikipedia articles open to vandalism and manipulation. The lack of a clear authority behind Wikipedia articles has been on of the arguments against their use for academic purposes.

Google Knol takes away those concerns by placing authorities behind each article. While it seems to be just Google’s take on the encyclopedia concept, Knol is structured in such a way that it doesn’t look and feel like an encyclopedia or a wiki. It has the feel of an online forum and yet has the content fit for an encyclopedia.

Go and see for yourself. Visit Google Knol.