On 26/06/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@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.