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Source:Mashable!

Yesterday, only two days in, the negative press and analysis surrounding Google Knol started to pile in, which we recapped to mixed opinion. Not surprisingly, those most directly affected in their business by the launch of the Knol service were the most vocal yesterday.  Still, not everyone who stopped by to comment still regarded this as a failing strategy by Google, some with very vocal defenses.

Regular Mashable commentor Ling said:

“I think you’re jumping the gun here. The key issue, when it comes to whether Google will be able to match Wikipedia with Knol, is the number of people actively working on it. I simply don’t see so many people devoting time to it, or shifting over from Wikipedia. So Knol will be just one more site, liek Mahalo. Nothing earth-shattering there.”

Others believed that there was no clear evidence of abuse of the Knol service for the purposes of SEO or crowding out otherwise deserving content, like Calan:

Nobody is providing a single example where a COMPETITIVE search phrase is being promoted. The only current examples are simply that a specific and uncontended keyword phrase is being returned in the SERPS, and this can in no way prove any wrong doing on Google’s part.

The KNOL site is already linked to by major news sources worldwide and is a hot topic in the news, so it would stand to reason that uncontended search phrases could return results. This does not mean that competitive terms are being given priority ranking.

The time for speculation as to when this will occur, though, is past. A while back I somehow got subscribed to a list belonging to a maker of splog automation software by the name of Peter Drew. He’s since moved to the semi-legitimate world of automated article creation software, but relies on very suspect methods of revenue, affiliate marketing and SEO generation to promote his software.

This morning I received the URGENT ALERT that a mere three days after the launch of Google’s Knol, he’s already created an automated Knol article generator.

As you can tell, the purpose of this software isn’t to create valuable “Knol units” or to spread the altruistic dream of free knowledge for all, but to create Knols with the purpose to squat on as much namespace as possible while attempting to reap the rewards of high value links from the Google domain these articles will sit on.

As he points out in his demonstration of the automation software, the articles don’t need to be particularly informative or even original, so long as they are long, plentiful, and moderately relevant to the keyword.

Peter Drew isn’t the only person operating in this quasi-ethical space of social media gaming, just the one that happens to be (unfortunately) permanently on my radar (all requests to be removed from his mailing lists have been ignored).

Regardless of what Google evangelists and fanboys may say, so far it very clearly looks like Knols have an artificially high ranking in the search results for a lot of keyword tests, and with the ability to buy Drew’s software and create virtually unlimited copies of your articles for related keywords isn’t going to exactly improve the quality of search results in Google’s index.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Google Knol Launches; More Like Squidoo than WikipediaThe Daily Poll: Is Google Knol a Wikipedia Killer?16 More Years (at least) of Brin, Page, and Schmidt at GoogleThe Daily Poll: Which of Google’s New Products Will Be the Most Successful?Are 33% of Blogs Really Splogs?Google’s Knol: Evil and Doomed.Google Knol - More Of The Same

Source:Mashable!

Mecanbe, the goal-oriented progress site that helps you track your milestones, has launched its private beta today. You can use Mecanbe’s tracking tools for personal or team goals. While not as quantitative and explicitly team-directed as services like LiquidPlanner, there are a number of features that aid in the goal-tracking process, including self-assessments, task outlines, and support groups.

Similar to Goalmigo, a core concept of Mecanbe’s overall service is accountability, which you’ll be responsible for. This is measured through the reports you complete, but there are other aspects to Mecanbe which sound far less serious and are quite practical in presenting you with an outlet for self-expression regarding your goals, while helping to inspire others and spread the wealth of information garnered through this sharing of personal experience.

Accomplished through blogs, social media-sharing integration (i.e. Flickr imports), and HTML comments that let others submit things like inspiring song playlists to help the overall community stay on track, the blogging and reporting functions on Mecanbe can be quite helpful.

When thinking of such services, I often cringe because I have a terrible time with self-motivation (especially in the morning) and typically find that sites like Mecanbe only require more self-motivation in order to just maintain a single task. But the ability to hone in on tasks as they relate to each goal makes Mecanbe a useful service that automates enough of the process that the value received from participating in this type of progress-tracking site outweighs the downsides.

For instance, if your goal is to lose 25 pounds by Christmas, then you can orient your tasks around different aspects of the weight-loss process–one task could be directed towards your diet while another could be directed towards your daily workout. This gives you a more comprehensive look at your actions and how they interrelate to your overall progress, meaning you can see whether or not your diet needs to be tweaked instead of your workout plan. Such automated research and output is quite useful, and as mentioned previously on Mashable, such a service can eventually be optimized for corporate use and other forms of team-building.

We have 1000 invites to give to users. Email info@mecanbe.com with the subject line “Mashable” to get yours.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Private Beta Invites Time at MashableAlpha: When Beta Is Not Good EnoughNew Virb Coming; Private Beta Soon to OpenStitcher Prepares To Go Public With Its BetaInternet Explorer 8 Enters Private BetaPownce Launch Party Tonight - Pownce to Exit Private BetaFriendFeed Gets $5M, Launches to the Public

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 5:33 pm and is filed under News, web 2.0, web, tracking, goals, mecanbe, progress, team collaboration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.