Google Knol Goes Quiet Next to Hubpages and Squidoo
When news of Google Knol first started buzzing around the web, people called it a potential Wikipedia killer. But with an emphasis on putting a name and face on the article, Google Knol was aimed more at user-generated content providers like Hubpages and Squidoo than Wikipedia.
And while it certainly hasn't become a Wikipedia killer, it's also safe to say it is not much threat to Hubpages and Squidoo. Currently, Compete.com puts Hubpages in the lead with 5.5 million unique U.S. visitors per month, Squidoo in second with 4.9 million and Google Knol a very distant third with barely over 350,000 unique visitors.
Google Knol does boast 61% growth over the last year, but going form 220k to 350k isn't anything to brag about. At that rate, it would take over six years to catch up with Hubpages if they didn't experience any growth at all.
The Google Knol Lesson
If we are to learn anything from Google Knol, it is that Google likes to experiment, but they don't always hit home runs. Google Knol joins such high profile experiments as Orkut, a social network popular in Brazil that never caught on in the U.S., and Google Answers, which couldn't quite capture the popularity of Yahoo Answers. So while new technologies such as Google Voice, Google Wave and Google Maps Navigation catch a lot of web buzz, there is certainly no guarantee that they'll end up being a big hit with users.
Is it that google intentionally concentrated more on other countries than USA in promoting knol? Hub pages and Squidoo seem to be more US centred. Knol may be having around 6 to 7 million page views monthly now.