The Encyclopedia Britannica is starting to open up to the internet after several years of being known primarily as the former employer of a vehement opponent of Wikipedia while their main mission of being an encyclopedia seemed to recede into irrelevance behind their paywall.
This seems to fall into the "if you can't beat them, join them" department. The new program known as WebShare "lets web publishers and bloggers link
to Britannica articles. Your readers will be able to follow those links
without an account." While Wikipedia has grown into one of the top ten (or so) sites on the web and become an essential reference point for internet users Britannica has remained pretty much invisible on the web.
TechCrunch notes that even now Britannica is only taking a half-way step. Britannica will only give free access to approved web publishers but everyone else (they hope) will pay:
"[L]ike the music labels, they still somehow feel as though people should pay to consume their content. And that means search engines can’t index their content. And that means they don’t exist.
Instead of going free and opening up to all, they’re using the new program to simply price discriminate. Give people who may link to the site free access. Everyone else has to pay. So in effect they’re aiming to be half pregnant - they want the benefits of web linking but don’t want to give up the subscription fees from the fools who continue to pay them."
They're also using a blog to update on the project and even twittering. (via Kottke)
