Similar to a Wikipedia of sorts, Google has planned on launching Project "Knol," which looks very similar to the infamous Wikipedia. Danny Sullivan has an incredible writeup on Google Knol with screenshots and a brief history of competing websites (Wikipedia, Mahalo, Squidoo, and Yahoo Answers). The Google Blog has more, and it explains that the goal is to highlight the authors (unlike other user-generated content websites that don't necessarily give much thought into the sites' biggest contributors).
But do you think it will make it? AussieWebmaster over at Search Engine Watch thinks that beta will last for about a year (and that will be it, I suppose. Does anyone remember the enormous success of Google Answers? I didn't think so.)
Well, some others are just hoping that Wikipedia stops ranking #1 for every term. Maybe there's hope. And maybe Project Knol won't nofollow pertinent links within the articles.
Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums and Search Engine Watch Forums.
