On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
I think this casts a new interesting perspective on the decision by Microsoft to buy out powerset.com.
I will be watching with interest, how they will develop that product, and whether they intend to incorporate it more extensively into their other product offerings.
I have to admit I was skeptical initially when I heard powerset.com would be "gobbled up". But should it turn out that Microsoft were to really seriously put effort into powerset.com, any relief Encyclopaedia Britannica may have gained from the reduction of competition for number two spot, may prove a little short lived. That is unless of course Microsoft/Powerset make some kind of deal with EB that they can use powersets semantic search engine on also EB product.
Of course it is possible that MS have made the judgment that the whole sector is not good for them, but actually I would prefer to be hopeful that this means they would give more impetus to powerset now. I personally think powerset is currently the best interface for wikipedia, bar none.
On the gripping hand, if developing powerset is not on the cards for Microsoft, perhaps now that they have decided to not hold onto encarta, they might be persuadable to sell powerset off, since holding on to it is not fending off a competitor to encarta. The question of course then would be, who would be willing to buy powerset off their hands?
David Goodman replied:
Britannica in its various incarnations and Encarta were excellent and useful reference works. Britannica remains useful. Encarta I think could have remained useful also. I really regret that we had a role in killing it. Why should we be pleased? The commercial organizations need to compete. We do not. The more encyclopedias the better.
I think the answer is that we should be pleased that we became so much *more* useful. This is the _sentimentally_ sad, but logically *glorious* facet of competition as a concept.
You won't find a world record holder in any sport that will not admit to a sadness when somebody surpasses theirs, and likely the fans of that particular sportsman will feel a pang in sympathy. But ask the sportsman squarely if they don't feel that their result being an inspiration for others to excel and surpass that result is and was a source of pride for them too, and I guarantee 99,9 % of record holders will say they genuinely thought their record was there to be broken, and as an inspiration for others to go faster, higher, stronger.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen