There’s been a lot of hype this week about Google’s new Knol project that people have been comparing to Wikipedia, and there’s a Joomla connection…
Who are the owners of Knol.com?
Its a Dutch vacuum cleaner company who have been in business since 1969. They have a Joomla website using Virtuemart and a Rockettheme template. Apparently it crashed in the aftermath of the announcement, but its back online now and the owner Hilco Knol says he’s not selling:
"Till now have google don’t take contact with us we are positif suprised for using the name KNOL because it is my own name.
We want to launch our own products what you can see on our knol.com Internet site.
For the rest we see whats happening."
A Few Light-Hearted Knol Points
- Has this been the worst year ever for big companies and domains names? After Microsoft forgot to buy Zune.com and Apple forgot to buy iPhone.com, I guess it was inevitable that Google would fail to buy Knol.com until after making their announcement and driving the price sky-high.
- Will Knol vanquish Wikipedia in the same way that Google Checkout has killed PayPal and Google Video killed YouTube?
- Yes, J.F.K. and bad joke fans, grassyknol.com has already been registered (December 17th this year) and caknoli.com (think about it …) has also gone. Still available … Knolcoward.com and KnolGallagher.com.