Encyclopedia Britannica chases Wikipedia
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Old-age legacy information systems are feeling the pressure from the Net.
The lamescream mainstream media hotly deny it, but they’re old news in every sense of the phrase.
When US Airways plane crashed into the Hudson River soon after takeoff from New York`s LaGuardia Airport, Janis Krums was the first to report it.
“There’s a plane in the Hudson,” he said. “I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.”
And where did he say it?
Not in the New York Times, that’s for sure.
He got the picture (right) on his iPhone and tweeted it via TwitPic.
“Unbelievable pic,” said Stevie Knight. “Just catching up on the news. Another example of Twitter & social media influence today! 
”
No kidding. 
Now another bastion that’s been under threat for some years, and not only from the Net, has belatedly realised it’d better pull its finger out, and soon.
“In a move to take on Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica is inviting the hoi polloi to edit, enhance and contribute to its online version,” says the Sydney Morning Herald, going on »»»
New features enabling the inclusion of this user-generated content will be rolled out on the encyclopedia’s website over the next 24 hours, Britannica’s president, Jorge Cauz, said in an interview today.
He also used the opportunity to take a swipe at Britannica’s upstart nemesis and Google for helping to promote Wikipedia via its search rankings.
“If I were to be the CEO of Google or the founders of Google I would be very [displeased] that the best search engine in the world continues to provide as a first link, Wikipedia,” he said.”Is this the best they can do? Is this the best that [their] algorithm can do?”
Mr Cauz, who is visiting Australia, said the changes were the first in a series of enhancements to the britannica.com website designed to encourage more community input to the 241-year-old institution and, in doing so, to take on Wikipedia in the all important search engine rankings.
“Our goal is to get to Britannica quality, or better,” said Wikimedia Foundation co-founder Jimmy Wales in Nature.
“Editors at Britannica would not discuss the findings, but say their own studies of Wikipedia have uncovered numerous flaws,” said the story.
But that was then.
Sydney Morning Herald – Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0, January 22, 2009
Britannica quality, or better – Wikipedia versus Britannica, December 16, 2005
Nature – Internet encyclopaedias go head to head, December 16, 2005
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It`s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
January 24th, 2009 at 9:36 am
We do live in amazing information times. But, from what I’ve seen, it also means that more and more people are more easily duped with misinformation that they regard as “fact”. Let me try to illuminate.
The “Nature” analysis of Wikipedia vs. EB was flawed:
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/02/community_and_h.php
Wikipedia is getting less reliable over time, not more reliable:
http://chance.dartmouth.edu/chancewiki/index.php/Chance_News_31#The_Unbreakable_Wikipedia.3F
There you have it.
Now, I predict a flood of Wikipediot cultists will invade the comments field, to discredit everything I’ve just illuminated. That is the WikiWay.