Google's Knol not in competition with Wiki: founder

SEOUL, Nov. 3 (Yonhap) -- The founder of Wikipedia, the world's largest open-content online encyclopedia, said Monday that he doesn't perceive Google Inc.'s recently-launched user-generated article project as a competitor yet.

"It seems very different to me from Wikipedia ... individual people control
specific articles instead of being community controlled. It's really more of a
innovative blogging platform than anything else," Jimmy Wales, the American
Internet entrepreneur that founded Wikipedia, commented on Google's Knol service
during a press conference in Seoul.
Wales, the de facto leader of the non-profit online project, was visiting South
Korea to speak at an international business conference in Seoul.
Google launched the English-language version of Knol in July where it invites
users to author their own articles, whereas Wikipedia allows visitors to make
changes to pre-established articles.
"So far we haven't seen a lot of content being created in there, but it's still
very early," Wales said.
"In the future it (Knol) may become a competitor but so far it doesn't seem to
be," Wales noted.
He also said that the recent financial downturn hasn't particularly brought about
a drop in contributions to the non-profit project as of yet, but said will have
to see how things turn out after the Christmas season, a time when donations tend
to increase.
Wales also argued, citing his own experience, that entrepreneurs in the end may
actually benefit from an economic recession, as it forces businesses to adopt
innovative coping strategies.
"It's important to remember that Wikipedia itself was a very much a child of the
dot-com crash. The crash forced us to innovate a lot because we had no money to
invest. It was a time for experiment. I think we are going to see this again."