With respect intended, it may be simpler than that. When a patient with advanced cancer changes his diet, it's seldom because he recently learned he also has a cholesterol problem.
*Britannica's* business plan for generations could rely on a steady stream of institutional purchases. From schools to public libraries to universities, virtually every organization that attempted to keep a general purpose library would buy a set of encylopedias, and then buy updates and new editions. It was a purchase they made if they possibly could even if the budget was small--especially if the budget was small--because if they couldn't obtain specialty texts in diverse areas the librarians could at least direct patrons to a basic overview of most subjects in the encyclopedia.
A lot of small town libraries and elementary schools probably scrambled for funds in order to get *Britannica*. If a free and reliable substitute existed, they'd have an excuse to deprioritize that purchase. Then *Nature*said, essentially, that *B* is wrong nearly as often as Wikipedia. I'd hate to have been a fly on the wall of their sales office during the months that followed.
That's their bread and butter.
What they've done in response to that loss has not been innovative. They're following trends. What they still have is a brand name and a reputation for respectability. In my country, most native speakers age 25 or older used to open a volume of *Britannica* now and then, or at least thought they ought to. Those people are parents now and grandparents. And one thing Wikipedia does not try to be is a babysitter. When Dad's fixing dinner and Mom's not home from work yet, a lot of parents would prefer to sit their little ones down to something educational without having to worry about what they'll find. And a lot of parents don't know diddly about installing screening software.
This may be blue sky speculation, but it wouldn't be entirely surprising if sometime in the next few years *Britannica* gets purchased by a conglomerate that cuts the price and cross-sells its other products. So in order to provide Junior a *guaranteed vandalism-free* article about a blue whale, the tyke will sit through movie promos and toy commercials.
-Durova
On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 5:02 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
I think in fact that the headline is misleading. This isn't really a case of Britannica taking on Wikipedia. It is more like they may have seen Veropedia in their rear view mirror, and gotten scared. A peer reviewed study that unfavorably compared Britannica with Veropedia in terms of timeliness, scope and accuracy would be quite devastating to Britannica, since Veropedia also vets its contents.
I suppose your point is since Veropedia fact-checks Wikipedia articles, but then makes no effort to update them, EB's timeliness would be poor if it lagged that effort. But there is a more traditional reference model, the almanac, where updates are on a one-year cycle. Part of the point I was trying to make is that there are these models between "instant" updating, which WP allows, and a long revision cycle traditional for encyclopedias (of the order of a decade).
Charles
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