Thursday, April 26, 2012

Valuation of Knol - Google's Wiki Article Platform

Valuation of Knol - Google's Wiki Article Platform

Valuation of Knol - Google's Wiki Article Platform

Yahoo's Acquisition of Associated Content - Implications for Knol - Prospects and Valuation

Estimates say Valuation of associated content was done at $100 million. Can Knol's value be $30 million now?

Authors


August 2011

Now Knols value is $30 million

Estimate for Knol's unique visitors is 5 million. At $6 per unique monthly visitor Knol's value is $30 million now.
 
For estimate of unique monthly visitors for Knol  Google Knol - Its Progress.



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Yahoo acquired Associated Content.com. The estimate is that it paid $100 million for it [1]. Many people are worried about the future of knol project. Is this announcement a positive or negative for the knol project of Google.

According to me this is a positive development. There is a valuation benchmark now for the sponsors of knol to ask for adequate funds to grow knol.

Valuation of Google Knol


Shall we start with a trial figure of $10 million? Let us see how we can justify it. And we can add or subtract based on views of readers also.

Associated content has 380,000 users who upload articles, photos and videos [1].
Somebody commented that Yahoo paid 15X of revenue.  There are no estimates available of revenues of knol so far.
There is a comment that six dollars a head referring to the 16 million unique visitors that Associate content is getting every month [3]. There is an interesting observation.
Google ads will not appear in Associated content. Will it lead to some fall in rankings for contents of AC. I do not know.
There are some estimates that say Knol has around 500,000 unique visitors per month. May be in the next few days many people will speculate on knol and we will have more authentic information.
 
Six dollars per unique visitor valuation metric will give $3 million as value to Google knol.
 
But $100 million valuation of associated content cannot be scaled down $3 million like that. The reasons are:
 
Cost of the Platform
 
1. The investment made by Google in knol so far. The cost involved in setting up the infratructure needs to be taken into consideration in valuation.
 
Trusted Brand in IT Services
 
2. Google brand name. Google is a trusted brand name. Even in a mass market activiity like blogging and knolling or even youtube, Google puts in effort to set up best technical infrastructure in both hardward and software areas and also in compliance.
 
Quality Premium
 
3. Quality: Knol is mass market product. But google positioned Knol as a quality product. The initial articles were by reputed doctors and surgeons. That positions knol as a platform for people with specialist knowledge. On Knol, many research papers are published by various academic researchers and professional researchers. Many professors are writing on knol. Details can be looked for in  Specialist Knol Authors with High Academic and Professional Achievements - Directory .
4. A very early project on knol is  Collabooks: The Collaborative Books Project . This project aims at creating online medical books on knol using collaborative writing facilities of Knol.
5. PLoS Currents: Influenza is  completely focused on research articles. It disseminates research in a rapid fashion and it is going great guns on knol platform. The index page which gives links to variuos knols is getting 2085 pv per week which is high in knol terms (Trending Knols ) 
6. Narayana Rao K.V.S.S. is the Global Number One Individual English Knol Author. His major focus in on subjects in management and industrial engineering. His definition for industrial engineering first published on knol only ( "Industrial Engineering is Human Effort Engineering and System Efficiency Engineeering."   Industrial Engineering) is quoted in the magazine "Industrial Engineer", the top magazine for Industrial Engineering in world.
7. Search Based Access: Knol is an open platform. Anybody can publish content. But knol has a system in place to bury the low quality content as it is based on search based access. It has created urls in such a way that visitors and readers are forced to use a search engine to access articles and search engine always shows only quality articles. One can be surprised even when the actual title of an article is given, knol search engine will not show the article and will show many other articles, if the concerned article is a low quality article. Knol has that system of allowing people to post freely but making visible only quality articles.
8. Open online journals are being announced by various organizations on knol. IMedPub is organzing an open online journal.
9. Faculty are encouraging students to post their term papers on knol and using them for peer evaluation.
10. Course pages are being posted on knol providing access to course materials of top institutes to many other institutes in the country as well as the world.
11. Facility to embed Youtube videos is enhancing course pages as relevant videos can be provided to students and access and learning.
12. Knol is basically positioned as a serious learning platform.
 
 
Option Value
 
Knol has a lot of option value built into it.

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Value of Knol is $2.88 Billion


Says Scoreinthebox  com
(Visit http://www.scoreinthebox.com/knol.google.com    ) accessed at 7.40 pm. 22.5.2010 (Indian Standard Time)


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Comparison Between Google Knol and Associated Content

Alberto Auné
20th May 12.04 a.m.

Associated Content:

It is a website with articles on many topics, often related.
Many of them are about the same topic with different points of view.
The topics are Arts & Entertainment, Automotive, Business & Finance, Health & Wellness, Home Improvement, Lifestyle, News, Society, Sports, Technology and Travel, all popular topics.
This means interest and issues on which there is advertising. Advertising is AdSense of Google.
The company pays the authors per visit and not per click.
If an author has 10,000 visits receives money from 10,000 visits.
It is a community, a blog and a newsletter.
It pays only U.s. residents.
The company answers immediately to users who ask questions.
It has a FAQ with the most common questions asked.
It has a tutorial.
The users can publish photos, audio, text and video.
Today (May 19, 2010) is 2.13458 million contributions from users.

Yahoo pays the prize because knows that advertising is profitable because it is directed.

Google Knol

It will be in July two years of existence.
Knol publishes articles (knols) about popular, educational, scientific and cultural themes without limit of subject.
The knols can be modified without time limit.
There are high quality knols that may have fewer visits than those of lower quality with more visits.
Knol pays some users, not all, with AdSense.
There is then knols that do not produce profit through advertising.
Advertising pays only clicks on advertising.
Knol dont answers immediately to users.
His service for users (Google Knol) does not publish knols a long time.
No FAQ section. There are volunteers who answer questions from users but there is no immediate response from google.
The users can publish photos, audio, text and video.
It does not report the number of users or publications. Then, we don't know how many users and knols there are.
Knol does not have an official community.
Also does not publish newsletters and does not encourage to do communities.

Therefore:

Yahoo buys Associated Content knowing the profit that may have.
Popular topics have many views that generate publicity.
That is business.

A knol is a unit of knowledge and not necessarily a popular topic.
Not all knols have advertising.
In knols were there is advertising not all users clic in them.
A knol can have 10,000 visits and little or no click.
Knol privileges knowledge to make money.

Thus Associated Content has a higher price that Knol because it is a bigger business.

I think Yahoo will remove ads from AdSense and will publish his ads.

Alberto Auné
Alberto Auné




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References

4. http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=10300004I5UX

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Related Knols

 
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Comments

Short urls

http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/2utb2lsm2k7a/2515

Narayana Rao - 28 Aug 2011

This Knol is being tweeted

I found that some knol visitor tweeted this knol. Has he used our social media button?

Narayana Rao - 22 May 2010

Yes I am really happy. I am seeing many more tweets about knol now and I am following every person who is mentioning knol in his tweet. I keep searching "knol" on twitter to find tweets on knol.

It is great if we are instrumental in increasing tweets regarding knol. I am thanking also all authors who are mentioning knol if I am seeing their name for the first time.

Narayana Rao - 22 May 2010

yes it looks like, our efforts are being fruitful and few are responding to it
good going raogaaru
philip

P V Ariel - 22 May 2010

Yahoo AC an Interesting Interview

I Just come across an intersting and informative interview done with AC's founder President Luke Beatty, by Sabha Karim an AC contributor since its inception, A well done interview. I posted a comment there on the plight of Asians and the Non-US contributors.
Here is the link. http://theacweekly.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/exclusive-interview-acs-founder-luke-beatty-talks-about-the-yahoo-partnership/
regds
philip

P V Ariel - 22 May 2010

Knol was Started on 19.5.2010

Started at 10 p.m. of 19.5.2010 (IST)

Narayana Rao - 20 May 2010

To think and talk...

Let’s consider the following:

Associated Content:

It is a website with articles on many topics, often related.
Many of them are about the same topic with different points of view.
The topics are Arts & Entertainment, Automotive, Business & Finance, Health & Wellness, Home Improvement, Lifestyle, News, Society, Sports, Technology and Travel, all popular topics.
This means interest and issues on which there is advertising. Advertising is AdSense of Google.
The company pays the authors per visit and not per click.
If an author has 10,000 visits receives money from 10,000 visits.
It is a community, a blog and a newsletter.
It pays only U.s. residents.
The company answers immediately to users who ask questions.
It has a FAQ with the most common questions asked.
It has a tutorial.
The users can publish photos, audio, text and video.
Today (May 19, 2010) is 2.13458 million contributions from users.

Yahoo pays the prize because knows that advertising is profitable because it is directed.

Google Knol

It will be in July two years of existence.
Knol publishes articles (knols) about popular, educational, scientific and cultural themes without limit of subject.
The knols can be modified without time limit.
There are high quality knols that may have fewer visits than those of lower quality with more visits.
Knol pays some users, not all, with AdSense.
There is then knols that do not produce profit through advertising.
Advertising pays only clicks on advertising.
Knol dont answers immediately to users.
His service for users (Google Knol) does not publish knols a long time.
No FAQ section. There are volunteers who answer questions from users but there is no immediate response from google.
The users can publish photos, audio, text and video.
It does not report the number of users or publications. Then, we don't know how many users and knols there are.
Knol does not have an official community.
Also does not publish newsletters and does not encourage to do communities.

Therefore:

Yahoo buys Associated Content knowing the profit that may have.
Popular topics have many views that generate publicity.
That is business.

A knol is a unit of knowledge and not necessarily a popular topic.
Not all knols have advertising.
In knols were there is advertising not all users clic in them.
A knol can have 10,000 visits and little or no click.
Knol privileges knowledge to make money.

Thus Associated Content has a higher price that Knol because it is a bigger business.

I think Yahoo will remove ads from AdSense and will publish his ads.


Alberto Auné


Alberto Auné - 19 May 2010

I am impressed by your comparison. I included the whole comment in the body. I think this is an interesting topic to knol authors. I request to publish a knol on this in Spanish also. Also I request you to keep an eye on developments in Google about knol. I think some new items on knol will come now.

Narayana Rao - 19 May 2010

A Good News to the Non-US Contributors

This is really a good news to the non-us contributors especially to the Asian content writers.
At present they are giving a good remuneration to the US based writers, as per the news if yahoo take over it will go globally. thats really a good news to the non-us contributors, but I doubt it won't be a positive one to the knol platform, but looks like it become a strong competitor to the knol than the wikie.

thanks raogaaru for initiating this new knol.
best regards
philip

P V Ariel - 19 May 2010
Posted by at 3:52 PM
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