Seen this?
http://store.britannica.com/jump.jsp?itemID=114&itemType=CATEGORY&iM...
You can get the full Britannica DVD for US$25!
At that sort of price, I'm tempted to get one myself, not least to say to journalists that I'm not only a fan but I bought a copy ...
And they're clearing this at US$20:
http://store.britannica.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=247&i...
Anyone with dreams of a printed Wikipedia 1.0 should look at this and think how we can get there.
- d.
On 3/24/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Seen this?
http://store.britannica.com/jump.jsp?itemID=114&itemType=CATEGORY&iM...
You can get the full Britannica DVD for US$25!
At that sort of price, I'm tempted to get one myself, not least to say to journalists that I'm not only a fan but I bought a copy ...
And they're clearing this at US$20:
http://store.britannica.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=247&i...
Anyone with dreams of a printed Wikipedia 1.0 should look at this and think how we can get there.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I can actually have access to the academic edition through the Canberra public library system for free through my Library card. For me, Britannica is the free encyclopedia that I can't edit. It comes in handy for researching articles from time to time though.
Regards
*Keith Old*
Keith Old wrote:
On 3/24/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Seen this?
http://store.britannica.com/jump.jsp?itemID=114&itemType=CATEGORY&iM...
You can get the full Britannica DVD for US$25!
At that sort of price, I'm tempted to get one myself, not least to say to journalists that I'm not only a fan but I bought a copy ...
And they're clearing this at US$20:
http://store.britannica.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=247&i...
Anyone with dreams of a printed Wikipedia 1.0 should look at this and think how we can get there.
I can actually have access to the academic edition through the Canberra public library system for free through my Library card. For me, Britannica is the free encyclopedia that I can't edit. It comes in handy for researching articles from time to time though.
Free as in beer, you mean. I've heard that 1911 was the best though, and that lots of stuff that /was/ in that version has been trimmed or removed since, due to a lack of paper.
On 3/24/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Free as in beer, you mean. I've heard that 1911 was the best though, and that lots of stuff that /was/ in that version has been trimmed or removed since, due to a lack of paper.
Yeah, I hear their article on neurolinguistic programming was much less controversial than ours...
Steve
Good value, but do you see Britannica as a direct competitor that you feel the need to make constant reference too. I see them as very different.
Darren Ray
On 3/24/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Seen this?
http://store.britannica.com/jump.jsp?itemID=114&itemType=CATEGORY&iM...
You can get the full Britannica DVD for US$25!
At that sort of price, I'm tempted to get one myself, not least to say to journalists that I'm not only a fan but I bought a copy ...
And they're clearing this at US$20:
http://store.britannica.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=247&i...
Anyone with dreams of a printed Wikipedia 1.0 should look at this and think how we can get there.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Seen this?
http://store.britannica.com/jump.jsp?itemID=114&itemType=CATEGORY&iM...
You can get the full Britannica DVD for US$25!
At that sort of price, I'm tempted to get one myself, not least to say to journalists that I'm not only a fan but I bought a copy ...
And they're clearing this at US$20:
http://store.britannica.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=247&i...
Anyone with dreams of a printed Wikipedia 1.0 should look at this and think how we can get there.
How they can continue to improve their product and make a profit with those prices is a bit concerning. I bought last year's Deluxe Reference Edition for $89 and thought that was a good price. But now it seems that price has dropped at least twice. Even more worrisome is that this year's regular price is even lower than what they say on that page was last years regular price. Hopefully this is just a special and not a sign that EB is becoming desperate in the face of Encarta and the growing use of the Internet as people's first stop for reference information.
BTW, I a bit disappointed in what I got ; all this time weve been putting Britannica on some kind of pedestal and yet almost all the articles Ive looked at were stubs whose only value to me would be to help improve lead sections in our articles. And most of those had corresponding Wikipedia articles that were longer, often much longer. Length and size are not everything (accuracy for one is also very important), but I was expecting more meat for something I pay for. Especially when the purpose of buying was to make sure corresponding Wikipedia articles cover all the same points. Of course, a select few of their articles are famously large and detailed, but those seem to be the exception and stubs seem to be the rule.
Don't take my word for it ; buy the DVD and see for yourself. It certainly is worth the money now and something almost all of us can afford. You should also consider buying the Concise edition - it is great reference to check against to make sure lead sections cover the most vital points of a topic. I've found that EBs introductory sections in their regular articles are not a good model for our lead sections.
-- mav
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Daniel Mayer (maveric149@yahoo.com) [060325 00:02]:
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://store.britannica.com/jump.jsp?itemID=114&itemType=CATEGORY&iM... You can get the full Britannica DVD for US$25!
How they can continue to improve their product and make a profit with those prices is a bit concerning.
Simple answer: they've been in the red for fifteen years ... they're currently privately held by a rich enthusiast. (Sort of like British car companies, which are regularly bought by a rich enthusiast who rapidly becomes rather less rich, then selling it to another rich enthusiast ...)
Hopefully this is just a special and not a sign that EB is becoming desperate in the face of Encarta and the growing use of the Internet as people's first stop for reference information.
I'm telling everyone I know. I really want to see EBI's faces when all these people buy an EB DVD and tell them they heard about it from Wikipedia.
BTW, I a bit disappointed in what I got ; all this time weve been putting Britannica on some kind of pedestal and yet almost all the articles Ive looked at were stubs whose only value to me would be to help improve lead sections in our articles. And most of those had corresponding Wikipedia articles that were longer, often much longer. Length and size are not everything (accuracy for one is also very important), but I was expecting more meat for something I pay for.
A lot of EB's reputation is mystique: who can afford US$3000 for the legendary encyclopedia? But lots of people can afford $25. From what you say, they might be surprised to find how good it really is or isn't.
Don't take my word for it ; buy the DVD and see for yourself. It certainly is worth the money now and something almost all of us can afford. You should also consider buying the Concise edition - it is great reference to check against to make sure lead sections cover the most vital points of a topic. I've found that EBs introductory sections in their regular articles are not a good model for our lead sections.
The point for me in buying the Concise edition is that it's the sort of thing we'd want from a single-volume Wikipedia 1.0, so may be a useful model in terms of paper per topic and so forth.
- d.
--- David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
The point for me in buying the Concise edition is that it's the sort of thing we'd want from a single-volume Wikipedia 1.0, so may be a useful model in terms of paper per topic and so forth.
Yep - and it would be very easy to create a concise version of Wikipedia by exporting all section=0 from a selected group of articles. We'd just need to make sure those lead sections are good. Comparing their size and content with EB Concise (which is a great product, BTW) would help us a lot.
Speaking of which, I just proposed a change to our lead section guideline on size in order to give us enough room in leads to create good concise encyclopedia articles:
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Lead_section#Changing_max_size_o...
-- mav
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
On 3/24/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Seen this?
http://store.britannica.com/jump.jsp?itemID=114&itemType=CATEGORY&iM...
You can get the full Britannica DVD for US$25!
At that sort of price, I'm tempted to get one myself, not least to say to journalists that I'm not only a fan but I bought a copy ...
And they're clearing this at US$20:
http://store.britannica.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=247&i...
They appear to be trying to undercut us. They also appear to be suceeding.
-- geni
On 3/24/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
They appear to be trying to undercut us. They also appear to be suceeding.
What are they undercutting exactly? For a second there, I thought I was going to find Britannica selling Wikipedia on DVD for $30, and Britannica on DVD for $20. Now *that* would be an interesting marketing strategy!
Steve
geni (geniice@gmail.com) [060325 00:08]:
On 3/24/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://store.britannica.com/jump.jsp?itemID=114&itemType=CATEGORY&iM... You can get the full Britannica DVD for US$25!
They appear to be trying to undercut us. They also appear to be suceeding.
Undercutting? I'd say it's the price point for an DVD encyclopedia. The de: DVD is EUR10,- (about US$12). Encarta is US$45. The regular price of the EB DVD is US$50. If we put up ISOs of a finished product en:, US$10 plus postage sounds like a price point someone could sell them at for convenience (4.7GB is slooow even on common present broadband) and a small profit.
- d.
On 3/24/06, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
geni (geniice@gmail.com) [060325 00:08]:
On 3/24/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://store.britannica.com/jump.jsp?itemID=114&itemType=CATEGORY&iM... You can get the full Britannica DVD for US$25!
They appear to be trying to undercut us. They also appear to be suceeding.
Undercutting? I'd say it's the price point for an DVD encyclopedia. The de: DVD is EUR10,- (about US$12). Encarta is US$45. The regular price of the EB DVD is US$50. If we put up ISOs of a finished product en:, US$10 plus postage sounds like a price point someone could sell them at for convenience (4.7GB is slooow even on common present broadband) and a small profit.
- d.
look at the price for the condensed paper version. We would have a hard time matching that.
-- geni
On 3/24/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
look at the price for the condensed paper version. We would have a hard time matching that.
Well, let's not try until we're better than them then. That gives us an extra selling point.
-- Sam