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Google recently announced a project call Knol that will combine parts of Wikipedia and Squidoo to create a new user generated knowledge-base of everything. While the overall project has many similarities existing projects, it differs in a key aspect. Instead of focusing on content like Wikipedia etc., Knol is focused on the credibility of the content and its creators. Some of the key differences are:

• Only one editor can edit a page
• The picture and name of the editor is displayed with the content they create
• Google shares the ad revenue from the page views with the editors.

This is a an interesting and important step for Google which has thus far focussed only on content based ranking (via page rank etc.) of content. By organizing the content around people, Google is adding an editor-based element to their search ranking algorithm. This change to Google algorithm can be potentially applied more widely to rank the usefuness of content in all social sites one global ratings and reputation (like SezWho) data is available.  Such a change can make it so much easy to find quality content in the social web and to provide incentives to the best producers.

This is great news for social media participants like me as Google can finally provide the right incentives for all participants in the social mediums.