As part of the next phase of the Sergey Brin/Larry Page plan for world domination, On Thursday, Google announced that it is currently in the testing phase of a Wikipedia knock-off called "knol" (short for "a unit of knowledge"). The major differences between Wiki and the Google competitor: Unlike free-for-all Wikipedia, only people knowledgeable enough to write "an authoritative article" on a given subject will be asked by Google to contribute to knol, and there will be no collaboration between authors on individual entries. But there will be bylines and a commenting system!

Google, for its part, says it will not edit entries, nor will it "bless any content." Traffic to knol will be driven primarily through—surprise!—Google's search engine. Lest you think the venture is purely a conduit for the dissemination of information, as is the company's self-described mission, the site will also feature ads, with authors able to opt into Google's highly profitable revenue-share system if they so choose.

No launch date has been given, so it remains to be seen if knol will be able to compete with the surprisingly accurate Wikipedia. The interface sure is pretty, though!