[WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0

[Ray Saintonge]

Durova wrote:
> Bottom line for that organization: they may be cream of the crop as
> encyclopedias go, but in terms of general reliability hierarchies that's
> kind of like being the best in cuisine at microwave dinners.  
It's probably more like cooking on old wood stoves. :-)
> After the *Nature* study it looked very curious that, five months later, *
> Britannica* management revived interest in dead news by publishing a bitter
> rebuttal.  That was lousy PR.  And the head-to-head with Jimbo in the Wall
> Street Journal shortly afterward made it clear--with minimal reading between
> the lines--that ol' *B* must have been hurting financially.  A venerable
> institution doesn't act that counterintuitively unless it's hemmorhaging
> readership and money.
>   
The sentimental in me sees it as sad.  Those at its helm should really 
let Ozymandias die with dignity.
> Privately, I've been telling people for years that I doubt their business
> plan could survive another decade.  They may have embraced wiki-ish
> modifications, but it's too little too late.  They should have anticipated
> the Internet's real potential twelve years ago.  Headlines may say 'Watch
> out Wikipedia', but Alexa says differently.

Their last opportunity was at the time that Encarta first came out.  
Encarta itself lacked the vitality to survuve, but it could still serve 
as a warning that the playing field was undergoing radical change.  By 
the time Wikipedia hit the market it was already too late; the narrow 
window was closed, and Willy Loman had nowhere to go.

We no longer need to be drawn into a competition with EB.  They will 
continue to announce the kind of initiatives like this most recent one, 
but they are little more than gasps for breath.

Ec