Become An Expert On Google's New Knol

Have you seen Google's new site which allows you to write about your area of expertise? It's called Knol ("a knol is an authoritative article about a specific topic") and it may just offer you another great platform on which to grow your name, brand and/or network.

Knol is a bit of a cross between Wikipedia (in terms of the ability to share knowledge) and the world of blogs (in terms of its publishing tools). However, unlike Wikipedia, others can contribute their ideas/corrections for your page, but only you can edit your page.

To test their current offerings, I searched the site for the term expat and got zero articles. I then searched for the term women and it only brought up five articles:

1. Female Sexual Function and Dysfunction;
2. Urinary Tract Infection in Women;
3. The Decline in Women in Computer Science from 1940-1982;
4. Breast Pain/Lumps in Women; and
5. Libido Problems in Women.

C'mon everyone - let's get in and boost Google's offerings! I suspect the faster you get in, the more potential exposure you might gain for your name/company/brand/hobby/interest. Think about investing 30-60 minutes into creating an expert page on the new Knol - I certainly will. You never know who might discover you. :-)

Best wishes for your weekend, and thanks for your ongoing support, Andrea.

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An update from Sébastien Deschamps (InterExpat and ExpatAngels): If you would like to invest the time in (the beta version of) Google's new Knol, be sure to read about the bugs, work-arounds and searchability issues first. It may help you navigate Knol and not lose your hard work. Cheers.

Want To Help A Reporter and Get Quoted In The Media?

As you know, reporters are constantly looking for sources. They're always writing stories, reporting on something and always need experts in the field. Problem is, they don’t always know how to find the experts that they need.

On the flip side, if you are an expert at something (...and come on, everyone is an expert at something) how do you let the media know you’re available to talk and be quoted when they are writing a story?

Enter: Help A Reporter Out - a US-based site by Peter Shankman, which aims to gather a large database of members interested in helping reporters out and a growing daily list of requests from reporters who need help.

So far, the guy seems to be onto something... he says in this video that he has already built a database of 12,000 sources, used by >2,500 journalists... in just 3 months!

Not sure this site will ever be of benefit to you? Well, you'll never, never know, if you never, never go. Hope it helps some of you.

Best wishes, Andrea.