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_ News Worth Discussing _ what will replace inaccurate newspaper headlines then?
Posted by: milowent
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/03/britannica-no-more-wikipedia-wins
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/after-244-years-encyclopaedia-britannica-stops-the-presses/
"But in recent years, print reference books have been almost completely wiped out by the Internet and its vast spread of resources, particularly Wikipedia, which in 11 years has helped replace the authority of experts with the wisdom of the crowds."
This is a ridiculous quote.
Posted by: Selina
I just came here to post the last link too!
Wow. Wikipedia Review just got a hell of a lot more important...
What's left now, Pears Cyclopaedia (T-H-L-K-D)? o_O
• http://facebook.com/DKBooks
• http://facebook.com/theopenuniversity
• http://facebook.com/oxford.university.continuing.education
• http://facebook.com/OUPAcademic
• Encarta
?
Posted by: Cunningly Linguistic
Wikipedia to blame my arse.
The cost of the bloody thing was extortionate and their paywall on the net didn't help either.
They charged themselves to a standstill, a bit like the music and film companies are doing.
Posted by: lilburne
Wikipedia to blame my arse.
The cost of the bloody thing was extortionate and their paywall on the net didn't help either.
They charged themselves to a standstill, a bit like the music and film companies are doing.
Nothing has changed.
Sales of Encyclopaedia Britannica peaked in 1990, when 120,000 sets were sold in the United States. But now print encyclopedias account for less than 1 percent of Encyclopaedia Britannica’s revenues. About 85 percent of revenues come from selling curriculum products in subjects like math, science and the English language; the remainder comes from subscriptions to the Web site, the company said.
Posted by: Ottava
Britannica was used before by students to get summaries of things they needed. Now Wikipedia is an easy to do that. Look at Britannica's online attempt - it is quite similar to Wikipedia.
The problem is that Britannica was mostly used for amateurs, not academics, and the amateur market moved elsewhere. Similar to e-books with academic books never really going to be replaced by them (not college text books, but actual scholarly works).
Posted by: Emperor
That really is sad. I hope someone steps in and tries to publish something on paper, even if it's not quite so comprehensive (In addition to World Book). I agree the price point was a little high.
I've really got to start promoting Encyc a little better. So much potential.
Posted by: EricBarbour
It was probably inevitable--for years, only libraries bought the print edition.
Don't feel too bad for them. Try to remember all those housewives who were arm-twisted by encyclopedia salesmen into coughing up a big fat check for a pile of books, that was already obsolete upon publication. Britannica was as guilty of that as any other firm, and they even sat there in the 1990s and quietly bought up most of their competitors, like World Book and Comptons, as they went bankrupt one after another -- because of Encarta. The web came much later.
Posted by: Ottava
Try to remember all those housewives who were arm-twisted by encyclopedia salesmen into coughing up a big fat check for a pile of books,
Don't forget the marketing technique of releasing "letters" at a time. World Book and some of the others did the same thing - I remember as a kid seeing stores have only a couple of letters, and if you wanted the rest of the set you had to constantly come back. Otherwise, you were SOL with only a few letters of one year and some of another, and they didn't always mix.
Posted by: SB_Johnny
Try to remember all those housewives who were arm-twisted by encyclopedia salesmen into coughing up a big fat check for a pile of books,
Don't forget the marketing technique of releasing "letters" at a time. World Book and some of the others did the same thing - I remember as a kid seeing stores have only a couple of letters, and if you wanted the rest of the set you had to constantly come back. Otherwise, you were SOL with only a few letters of one year and some of another, and they didn't always mix.
Yup. Go to any church thrift shop and you'll see plenty of "A-C" and "M-O" volumes, but the number of late-in-the-alphabet volumes are nowhere to be found.
Posted by: Emperor
It was probably inevitable--for years, only libraries bought the print edition.
Don't feel too bad for them. Try to remember all those housewives who were arm-twisted by encyclopedia salesmen into coughing up a big fat check for a pile of books, that was already obsolete upon publication. Britannica was as guilty of that as any other firm, and they even sat there in the 1990s and quietly bought up most of their competitors, like World Book and Comptons, as they went bankrupt one after another -- because of Encarta. The web came much later.
Obsolete upon publication? I disagree. I'd take a 20 year old set of Britannicas over Wikipedia any day of the week. (didn't Kohs do exactly that?)
Over time I've become much more sympathetic to content generators trying to make a living at what they do. Out of all the crap to spend money on, encyclopedias are relatively worthy.
Posted by: gomi
test
Posted by: Selina
(Offtopic I know, but I did say you weren't banned, you didn't believe me did you? 
)
Posted by: Mister Die
Take these articles for instance:
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Biology (scroll down a bit)
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Great+Britain (scroll down a fair bit more)
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Literature (the first part, the second part is just about the USSR specifically)
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Evolution%2c+Doctrine+of
etc.
Posted by: gomi
)(You don't know what I was testing, do you?)
Posted by: Cunningly Linguistic
)(You don't know what I was testing, do you?)
Her patience?
Posted by: thekohser
Some interesting follow-up reading is http://paidcontent.org/article/419-britannica-ends-printing-now-will-face-wikipedia-on-price-quality/, http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2012/03/ftmedia12_-_wikipedia_and_harnessing_the.html, and https://twitter.com/#!/rambrose/status/177335162554679296.
Posted by: barney
Paid content? A Blog? Meh.
Posted by: Michaeldsuarez
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:130.39.60.51&diff=481865136:
Posted by: Web Fred
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:130.39.60.51&diff=481865136:
Bad date formatting too.
Posted by: Enric_Naval
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:130.39.60.51&diff=481865136:
Well, the correct date is 1917 and wikipedia was on the right. I wonder if Britannica really gives 1903, or if this person was just trying to troll.
Posted by: Michaeldsuarez
Well, the correct date is 1917 and wikipedia was on the right. I wonder if Britannica really gives 1903, or if this person was just trying to troll.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ash_heap_of_history&diff=481863141&oldid=467434413
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ash_heap_of_history&diff=485222022&oldid=483930043
The Wikipedians were fooled for over a week.