KGB or Knowledge Generation Bureau: Will This Website Become a Reliable Wikipedia?

Perhaps we've become so used to using Wikipedia to get immediate answers to things that switching to a more accurate source wouldn't be easy. But someone had to break the chain of the world relying too much on Wikipedia for general information on everything in existence (or fabricated). Even though Wikipedia is useful in some ways, I blame a lot of the misinformation we deal with of late mostly on Wikimedia and people brushing aside the problem that the information they read there isn't always 100% accurate. We've grown accustomed to wanting information fast--no matter the flaws. Just because Wikimedia is still at the top of all search engines doesn't mean you have the best possible source.

Now along comes the KGB to perhaps set things right. No, I'm not talking about Russia's Committee for State Security infiltrating our internet and cracking down on misinformation on the web (as much as some people might have dreams of such a thing)--but rather a new service called the Knowledge Generation Bureau. This site is, at the time of this writing, intending on becoming the new ground central where you can get any burning question on your mind answered, either by looking it up through their online databases or by contacting them via text messaging.

You've undoubtedly seen their clever ads showing a woman entering a darkly mysterious facility and being interrogated in an interview by a gray-haired, bespectacled man to test the woman's knowledge on...well, everything. Done as if she's being tested for the CIA while she rambles off the answers to questions tougher than you'd find on Jeopardy, the woman gets the job. Then all subsequent commercials have shown her being led around the supposed KGB facility where experts on general knowledge supposedly work passing on information to inquisitive customers online. Not surprisingly, most of the employees are made to look hilariously eccentric.

Sure, we'd all like to believe the Knowledge Generation Bureau is really like that. Instead, the service will most likely have a general database of supposedly accurate information provided by legitimate scholars that will then be automatically passed on to people for free on their iPhones or at home on the computer. It all sounds quite useful when the internet has increasingly grown stigmas of not providing a single website that can give you a completely accurate answer to the world's cumulative knowledge. We're constantly told that we have to go to a college professor or other scholars and oracles sitting on pedestals somewhere to get a definitive answer to a general or obscure piece of trivia in every category.

Using one place to give you information about everything has already been proven to have more than its fair share of problems, particularly with our old standby Wikipedia. But, of course, Wikipedia depended on the people to provide information, which has been the biggest blight to general information in human history. KGB contends that their information will be gathered by people who really know something...

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If you've kept up on such matters, KGB has been around already since 2007 and providing some limited information via text messaging since then. It's mostly been used in the U.K., however, where the response has been positive and hence the expansion to the U.S. Overall, KGB has mostly promoted itself beforehand as an all-encompassing directory assistance company that provided every type of information for obtaining general phone numbers, when to catch a train or getting movie start times. That might seem a little daring when there's already monopolistic companies providing those services online or through other media and don't want someone competing with them.

That could put KGB into anti-trust suit territory down the road if they manage to become powerful enough. They apparently intend to be the be-all place where you can get information about virtually everything, including the above-mentioned directory assistance services. When you make attempts do such a thing, the chances of providing erroneous information somewhere along the line is going to be inevitable.

Knowing the American populace as we do, there's a good possibility we'll end up becoming complacent to KGB as we've done with Wikipedia. Even I admit that I've become complacent at times to getting quick information online rather than consulting my more scholarly books in my library which could be as much as 50% more accurate. Conversely, a good argument can be made that no knowledge is 100% accurate, even by the scholars. It's the more arcane information where KGB could have the problem because of fewer definitive sources providing the final answer.

We'll nevertheless keep imagining that person who managed to cram a million textbooks into his or her head, sitting in a cubicle and sending off a text message to a random person who asked an offbeat, yet intellectual question. As with Wikipedia, it's probably best to consult two other sources if you're trying to win a bet or trying to find information for something you're researching (hello freelance writers) or for homework (get back to the books you students looking for shortcuts).

Trying to condense all knowledge into one place seems to be the perpetual American way in making things easier in our lives. Yet someone who someday gets one major piece of misinformation from KGB will realize that getting accurate information sometimes takes a lot more effort.

And if the KGB is still hiring those people who know everything, they better keep an eye out for those who received major text message bills getting their education using...KGB itself...

Source:

http://www.kgb.com/#home