Over the last few years, Encyclopaedia Britannica has had to sit and watch as more people turned to what was easily available and free, to look-up information on a certain topic or event instead of their physical encyclopedias. The simple fact that the Internet, and particularly Wikipedia, is universally accessible to anybody with an Internet Connection and Britannica is not hasn’t been such a good thing for them. To help bring them up-to-date and up-to-speed with their competition, they’ve decided to go social which includes offering Encyclopaedia (yes, that’s how they spell it) Britannica to bloggers for no cost. The program is called WebShare.
Clearly they have to benefit somehow, right? Otherwise they wouldn’t be doing this. So here’s how bloggers are going to help. Any blogger who has gained access to the new WebShare program (bloggers have to get approved first) will have access to over 56,000 articles online. Of course that isn’t even close to the number of articles Wikipedia offers, but theirs are all professionally written and edited (to most, this fact doesn’t really matter). If a blogger is researching a topic and comes across useful information on WebShare, they can link to it and readers will be able to go view the complete article on Britannica’s website. Readers won’t be able to view anything but the article that the blogger linked to, but it still gets them to the site. In the end, the benefit to Britannica is that they’ll have all kinds of links pointing to them which will certainly help their ranking on search engines and might get more people to their site.
We also mentioned that they are incorporating a social aspect to the site. The social aspect is made up of widgets that can be posted on a blog or web site, a new blog, a Twitter Account that people can follow, and an RSS feed.
WebShare has unofficially launched, and the official launch with a Press Release will not happen for another week. Already bloggers are able to register for an account which can be done here. The only requirement for getting the same benefits as paying subscribers is that you need to be a “Web publisher- a blogger, webmaster, or writer.” With such broad terms, just about anybody will be able to at least attempt to register for an account, although that doesn’t mean you’ll get approved.
Thanks for the tip Omar!
Source: TechCrunch
Ashley,
At first I got excited about this offer. Having a second source of “encyclopedia” material might really provide balance and improved accuracy in posts.
But as I was getting ready to step through the registration steps, I noticed the following statement on that page.
“If you qualify, we’ll send you instructions for getting access for a year to Britannica.com, which includes the Encyclopædia Britannica and many other sources of rich, reliable and high-quality information.”
I tripped up a bit on that “…getting access for a year…” phrase.
I couldn’t find any more information on this. So now I am a bit skeptical. It does sound like a great deal, but if as a blogger I come to depend on this material, and a portion of my blog ends up depending on it, what happens when the year is up? Do I get to re-register for another year of free access? Or do I now have to pay to continue using the service.
I wish the page had a bit more clarity about this.
My 2 cents worth.
Claus Valca,
Apparently I read through the registration steps too quickly because I didn’t even notice the part about access for only a year. I imagine over the course of the year they’ll determine if they want to continue to give bloggers “free” access or not and so they put that statement in there so they won’t have to deal with any issues should they decide to stop the offer? Very interesting though…
@Claus Valca:
I did notice that “fine print” while registering. I think the marketing strategy is to let you use their services for free for a year in an effort to convince you that after a year, you will pay whatever their yearly subscription is. It’s like a bait to get new paying customers after the year is over. If that will work or not, I have no idea. Do you?
If your blog honestly relies on the content specifically from this site, then surely you should be willing to pay for it.
Incidentally Encyclopaedia isn’t “how they spell it”, it is how it’s spelt
Or rather “Encyclopædia”
Apparently that’s how it’s spelled in Britain?
They’re definitely putting bait out there for bloggers to come take. I’m doubtful most bloggers would be willing to pay for the service if it weren’t free, so their tactic may not work so well.
I’m disapointed. I expected to get full access to articles, but I only get very short articles even though I am logged in.
I also can’t log in if I have logged out. Do you know where I can log in?
They do have a link which says “Click here to access the Academic or Library Edition” as I have a full premium access, but the articles are still the same, very short. I’m lost.
I did manage to use a log in link in an email and did get to a site with more content. But I´m still not happy as one subject of interest I wanted to research, the Gospel in the Bible was just few lines.
I don´t like this, this site is not user friendly at all. I prefer the simplicity of Wikipedia.
It’s really tough for anyone to compete with Wikipedia’s magnitude though.
Henry,
Could you show some links to the pages your not liking? I seemed to get much bigger articles.
The New Testament gospel: [britannica.com]
Searching for information on Britannica is a hassle. Yesterday I was searching for information on “Global Warming”. Britannica showed none. I went to Wikipedia and the content was overwhelming.
When I need information, I know where to get it when I need it.
Clearly Britannica needs to work on their project! If a topic is easier to find on Wikipedia and there’s more information on it, Britannica will have a real tough time getting even bloggers with a free account to use their service!