Yeah, I’m comparing Google to the AAs of the world. I’m not jumping on the “Google’s evil” bandwagon just yet, but there’s an analogy here, if you’re allow me:

Google is an advertising company. This is not news. They’re not a search engine company, they’re an advertising company. That’s what they do, and it’s where they make their money.

When you go to a website, you’re, essentially, paying Google for the privilege of viewing the content because, guess what, if it’s on the internet, chances are it’s got Google ads on it.

But, as we all know, when you do a generic search, odds are good that the first result will be for a Wikipedia page. And those don’t have Google ads on them.

So you’ve got this free product competing against all these other products that are ad-supported. And this free product is is really, really popular.

It’s like p2p filesharing. You can’t argue that p2p competes with the legitimate product. And it’s really, really popular.

But where the RI/MPAA have, in large part, failed to produce a better product than the free one, Google’s doing their best to form legitimate competition to the free version.

So where can paid-for (in this case by looking at ads) content produce something that’s better than the free product? Well, in Google’s case, they can have it written by experts, and ensure that they really are experts. Something that Wikipedia hasn’t done.

While the Google blog says that they will be edited by anyone, by “highlighting the author,” authoritative edits by reputable experts will no doubt float to the top. And the picture they give as an example shows what caliber of “author” they intend to highlight.

Now, there’s an argument as to whether that really makes it better, but it’ll play, right? Being able to stamp “Written by an expert” on your product might not always make it better, but it certainly makes it more valuable.

So Google’s doing the smart thing for their business model with Knols. They’re forming real competition to the free product, and are even creating something that they can call better, or at least more trustworthy.

It’s a little scary that they’ll be dominating knowledge in general now, but if you haven’t been a little scared of Google for years, well, you just haven’t been paying attention.