Nick Carr puts on the curmudgeon's cap for his take on Google's Knol, but I suspect he's on to something. He first points out how high Wikipedia ranks for various search terms, and then summarizes with this:

I'm guessing that serving as the front door for a vast ad-less info-moshpit outfitted with open source search tools is not exactly the future that Google has in mind for itself. Enter Knol.

Call it cynical, but I'd bet good money that Knol is partly motivated by this.

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