Jack Schofield, of the Guardian, questions Google's choice to ignore its predecessors when creating Knol.

"While Knol is based on the same idea," writes Schofield, "inviting users to create pages on topics they know about - HubPages looks better, reads better, and is better organized."

While Knol debuted just this December, HubPages has already passed its second anniversary and Squidoo is even older.

The major difference between Knol and Wikipedia, the site it is so oft compared to, is that Knol encourages competition, not collaboration. Knol, which identifies authors, who take full responsibility for their pages, also offers these authors the chance to make money. "A thousand people can all create pages about the same topic and hope the best one wins," says Schofield.

Schofield's major complaints:

-Knol is painfully academic and "dull;" HubPages invites users to "Publish your passion"

-Hubs are easier to browse than Knols and separate pages with tags like Love, Finance, Business and Health. You can also search by author, vote for hubs you like, comment, become a fan of authors, and request hubs you can't find.

The question remains with HubPages fate, since, as Schofield points out, "it also makes more than 90% of its revenue from Google Adsense advertising, and Google features HubPages as a case study. For a small start-up, this is success. Can that success continue now that Google has invaded its turf?"

Source: Guardian.co.uk