The back-channel chatter on Google's Wikipedia-like Knol database, which opened to public editing today, is simple: Google plans to use Knol to replace Wikipedia, then serve ads on it.

Wikipedia provides a handy reference-book-like entry among the first three results for most searches on famous people or popular topics. Great for us. But imagine if every customer clickthrough to Wikipedia could be rerouted to an AdSense-powered page from Google's own servers. Would they do that? Hell, they'd be stupid not to.

I know that the first link I look for after a Google search is the Wikipedia page on the topic. The Google would make mad cash if they could usurp Wikipedia's place - but are the users too used to the original to settle for a substitute? Facebook is obviously a superior offering to MySpace on the functionality side, but they've had trouble gaining significantly on NewsCorp's giant.

It's not a bad initiative, though. After reading the Wikipedia page on Knol, it seems like Google's bringing in some great little tweaks to the process. It's not gonna be an opinion-neutral affair. Authors will be able to express their feelings on a topic, and if the other editing authors think the words are worthy, they'll stay in place. Sounds like a prime location for a Grade-A Flamewar.