Well, it looks like the debate is over... Britannica has announced a wiki overlay to its online presence.
"It's a bid by Britannica to remain relevant at a time when the world's most popular encyclopedia, the eight-year-old website Wikipedia, is written entirely by amateur experts. The new version of Britannica Online, set to debut this summer, will emulate the Wikipedia concept by letting subscribers make changes to any article, ranging from minor edits to near-total rewrites."
Hmmm... the shift. It's definitely happening. :)
BTW: I'm not sure about the "debut this summer" part. In my quick travels around the site, it looks like the wiki features are already there (for registered users) Must be in beta :)
2 comments:
Wow! I didn't know they were planning anything like that! Good to know! Thanks!
I really think that's too bad. The only reason that Wikipedia is so popular is because its search results are ranked so high on Google. Do a search on almost anything and one of the top results will be from Wikipedia. Britannica needs to improve their ranking in Google, not go to a wiki model. Afterall, if the accuracy is close (and no matter how small the difference Britannica was more accurate that Wikipedia) what will they gain by going to a wiki model?
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