Squidoo, Mahalo, eHow, EzineArticles, etc etc etc just got validation for their business models and competition for the ad network that helps them monetize their sites. Google today launched their Knol project:

The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It''s their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good.

With Knol, we are introducing a new method for authors to work together that we call "moderated collaboration." With this feature, any reader can make suggested edits to a knol which the author may then choose to accept, reject, or modify before these contributions become visible to the public. This allows authors to accept suggestions from everyone in the world while remaining in control of their content. After all, their name is associated with it!

Wired has an article about the designing of Knol, and Danny Sullivan offers more Knol background, including that it is a product from the search team (which could greatly hint at future search integration plans).

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