Google opens the doors to Knol
Today Google released a beta version of Knol, a web application for creating and sharing articles on any subject. If the word "wikipedia" comes to mind - you're not alone. It's not difficult to see strong similarities between Wikipedia and Knol. However, there are also very significant differences. Where content on Wikipedia is the result of a collaborative effort, content on Knol doesn't have to be. In fact, Knol encourages individuals with subject domain knowledge, to create articles. Authors may choose to lock out contributors and go as far as choosing how to license their content. Knol will also be a channel of Google's adsense and adwords services. Content authors may choose to monitize their content by allowing Google to run ads along side content.
Last year I wrote a blog entry called "Google wants a piece of the Wikipedia pie" where I felt that Knol could also improve Google's search service.
Earlier today I signed up for Knol and easily created a few sample articles. Signing up for the service was a snap because I'm already a GMail user and simply signed in using my existing email address and password.
Knol appears to be easier to use than Wikipedia for content creation. My team at work uses an in-house mediawiki server to create Wiki entries for internal use. So I'm very familiar with Wikipedia's style of article formatting. I have to say that Knol is considerably easier to use. Knol uses Google Doc's document formatting features to enable a word processor user interface. Essentially, if you know how to use a word processor - you'll know how to use Knol.
One great feature is that you can to import an existing document to get started. This feature makes it easy to port large amounts of content into Knol. For my test, I uploaded a PDF version of a research paper I wrote a few years ago. The content of the document uploaded quickly and mostly intact. However, none of the document images were imported. This is easy for me to understand given the extra technical challenge of handling this feature. Most of the document's original formatting made it across, but I did need to slightly to reformat the article as paragraph entries were broken. Still, the tasks of making only minor changes to the uploaded document was a very small price to pay.
There appears to be a delay between the time when you publish an article and the time in which it becomes publicly available on the site via the built-in search. I'm guessing that at this stage Google has people evaluating content. Five hours later my document was still not available, although I imagine lots of people are trying the service.
I'm betting that Knol will be a huge success.
Mathcast - (work-in-progress)
A few weeks ago I took a detour from software development to try my hand at video production. In the process I gained deeper respect for video/sound editors and producers. ;-)
In typical Justiniano fashion I dragged the whole family into the project. My daughter Kaitlyn was the host of the show, while my wife Karla worked on the script and hair and makeup.
The video content was mostly filmed in our dining room using a four year old Sony DV camcorder, work lights from a home improvement store, and a rigged blue screen which was really just a yoga mat. I produced the video using Sony Vegas, Sony SoundForge and Adobe Fireworks.
It was a low budget production with promising results. In the next week we'll redo the audio and make minor changes based on feedback. Once completed the video will be available on YouTube and on ZoeyBot.com. In addition, the video is being released under the Creative Commons license and may be freely used on other websites.
Happy Forth of July!
I took the family to Santa Clarita for the annual fireworks display. It was one of those days where everything simply fell into place. It was a day to remember. Karla shot the video below on her Canon digital camera, a decent video from a camera that fits in the palm of your hand. It's amazing how technology marches on.
Listen to the four year old girl in the video. Her wonder is a reminder of just how much we've forgotten with age...
Updated Number Line Racer Animation
One or my summer projects involves creating a math video/tutorial/game which introduces kids to the concept of a math number line.
My goal is to build a high quality tutorial around a relatively simple concept in order to demonstrate my vision for the kinds of tutorial I'd like to see on ZoeyBot.com. Thus far I've used Poser 3D, SoundForge, Acid Studio, and Camtasia Studio. Soon I'll spend time learning Vegas (video editing). My true passion is software development... so why am I learning to use all of these tools? Professional talent is expensive so I've had to roll up my sleeves. ;-)
Carlos Justiniano: technologist, veteran software developer, world record holder, entrepreneur.