On 26/06/07, The Mangoe <the.mangoe(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I don't know about the future of Britannica-style
encyclopedia
projects-- though I can see such an encyclopedia using an in-house
wiki as a vehicle for their work.
Brockhaus is using MediaWiki for one of its online encyclopedias.
I can see a scenario in which the
determining factor is that Wikipedia is free on-line, and Britannica
is not. Therefore, as long as money is a more important factor, we are
going to tend to drive them out of the market. The only countervailing
factor is quality, but markets are notoriously tolerant of poor
quality. Wikipedia is already "the encyclopedia everyone consults even
though they know it often isn't very good."
Certainly. Wikipedia is better than a Google search, and it's
certainly better than a Britannica you don't have to hand on your
desk.
- d.