So Google have moved into Wikipedia country with their Knol, it is slightly different in that it is a more top-down than the bottoms-up environment everybody-can-edit Wikipedia.org with Knol you can set various levels of collaboration.

There is one big difference to Wikipedia, Knol allows you the potential to get paid, through the AdSense ads. Which would mean that the more popular your article, among other factors, the higher your revenues. And Google gets a share of these revenues, naturally (even when Google Knol is listed as an entity separate from AdSense with a 0% share in the process)…

Here is an example travel content article: How to backpack

Looks like another step in freeing up some paper resource Esquire magazine will use honest-to-goodness ePaper to commemorate their 75th year. The high tech cover will flash “the 21st Century Begins Now” when it’s on the newsstands.

The editor says he has been frustrated with the lack of change in magazines over the past 150 years. Ink on Paper; lets hope this heralds the start of a new era in publishing.

More info can be found here…

Ever wanted to read a magazine online for free well now you can Mygazines does it using a flippable interface a bit like standing in WHSmith’s browsing the magazines on the rack but from the comfort of your own home along with saving a free trees.

Because the service is free Mygazines could really provide a useful alternative outlet for publishers looking to reach more readers. Original ads from the print version are included too, so it’s a win for advertisers as well.

Just thought I would post this video from Matt Johnson and the the he obviously had a lot of foresight about Britain turning into the 51st state of the USA wayback in the 80s…

Michael Arrington and the guys at Techcrunch have been posting videos and screenshots of Google’s new test search interface which seems to include lots of social features.

Michael even says “Google Continues To Test A Search Interface That Looks More Like Digg Every Day”.

The video shows the new interface with all the social widgets and it looks pretty cool and will be interesting to see what the other search guys think.

This video has a few good insights into how people search and research their travel options online. it is interesting to note that Google is a major starting pint however the most intersting point is the lack of a true multilingual search tool (now that gives me and idea )

[Via Travolution]

So here we have it the guys at Adobe have got together with Google and Yahoo and have developed ways to fully index Flash content without requiring any extra effort from a website owner.

Previously, search engines indexed the “static” text and links on a site, falling far short of capturing all the content.

Basically the web crawlers will trawl through all of a Flash website’s possible “states,” and make that content available through their search results.

This is a significant announcement for businesses that have considered building Flash websites, but didn’t want to sacrifice their search rankings which will remove one of Flash’s big drawbacks.

The legend of the Loch

The legend of the Loch and its mysterious inhabitant has captured the imagination of millions of people worldwide for generations. Now the ancient myth is brought to life to celebrate the DVD and Blu-ray release of The Waterhorse: Legend of the Deep on 30th June 2008.

I know its only half way through the year but Time.com have released their annual issue of the top sites of the year, ”50 Best Websites of 2008.”

They have been producing a list of staff and reader suggestions since 2003. At the beggining it featured sites like eBay, Hotmail, Paypal and Google.

This year we see some different sites like Mobaganda, COLOURlovers, and Wikisky.org to name a few.

There is a nice touch to the voting as users have the ability to influence the rank ordering of the 50 sites by voting.

As Beijing readies for the Olympic Games this august, an official English translation of local dishes which often have exotic names has had to have a make over to avoid some alarming translations :-

This is how they appeared at first (and you can see the newly translated forms below)

MENU 1.0

Chicken without sexual life

Husband and wife’s lung slice

Bean curd made by a pock-marked woman

MENU 2.0

Spring chicken

Pork lungs in chili sauce

Stir-fried tofu in hot sauce.

[Via Reuters]