REFERENCE: ENCYCLOPEDIAS:
The Encyclopaedia Britannica Mends Its Wikied Ways
Encyclopaedia Britannica Goes -- Gasp! -- Wiki
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Wired Campus
June 6, 2008
<http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3064>
Long a standard reference source for scholarship, largely because of its
tightly controlled editing, the Encyclopaedia Britannica announced this
week it was throwing open its elegantly-bound covers to the masses. It
will allow the user community (in the words of the encyclopedias blog) to
contribute their own articles, which will be clearly marked and run
alongside the edited reference pieces.
This seems to be a response to the runaway success of the user-edited
online reference tool Wikipedia.
-----------------------------------------
Leveraging Britannicas Content With WebShare
by Paula J. Hane
Posted On June 2, 2008
Information Today
<http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbReader.asp?ArticleId=49388>
You might think the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica is a dinosaur,
pushed out of existence by free web-based resources such as Wikipedia and
Google. But the publisher of the centuries old print publication (the
first edition was published in 1768:
http://corporate.britannica.com/company_info.html) has been quietly
reinventing itself to stay relevant in the digital ageopening its content
up to online access, leveraging web-based tools like widgets, blogs, RSS
feeds, user comments, and forums, and even providing a daily Tweet on
Twitter and search access via mobile devices. This is not your fathers
encyclopedia any more.
In late April, the company officially announced its new WebShare program,
which has opened the Britannica site (www.britannica.com) for free access
to web publishers and permits free links to full-text entries. Bloggers,
webmasters, online journalists, and "anyone else who publishes regularly"
on the internet can now get free subscriptions to Encyclopaedia Britannica
Online. And, perhaps more importantly, sites can provide links for their
readers to Britannica articles and web surfers who click on a link get the
article in its entirety.
[Sign up for Webshare at this URL: <http://signup.eb.com> ]
-----------------------------------------
Britannica promotes free online tools for bloggers
Frank Washkuch
May 08, 2008
PR Week
<http://www.prweekus.com/Britannica-promotes-
free-online-tools-for-bloggers/article/109944/>
A shorter URL for the above link:
CHICAGO: Encyclopedia Britannica is promoting its online information as a
free service to Web publishers, and has hired Holtz Communication &
Technology (HC&T) to focus PR efforts on bloggers. Encyclopedia's internal
PR team is working on much of the campaign, including outreach to national
and trade publications.
The WebShare initiative first targeted blogs by journalists, libraries,
and academics, giving each free prelaunch access to the technology, said
Shel Holtz, principal at HC&T. The encyclopedia then allowed a dozen
technology bloggers access before its April 29 launch.
Tom Panelas, Britannica director of corporate communications, added, "The
Web is where discussions of key issues are shaped... and Encyclopedia
Britannica should be in the middle of those discussions."
-----------------------------------------
HMS Britannic Optimistic About Deck-Chair Re-Arrangement
from the too-little-too-late dept
Tech Dirt
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080516/0916211136.shtml>
Jacob Grier points out the launch of Britannica Webshare, a service that
will allow bloggers to access the Encyclopedia Britannica for free, and
even to provide links that will allow readers to read individual articles
-- but not the whole encyclopedia -- for free. This is a fine step, as far
as it goes. But it's a comically small step given the challenges
Britannica is facing. The site apparently still won't be available to
non-bloggers, and presumably that means it also won't be available on
search engines. And that means they're throwing away a huge chunk of their
potential audience. But the more fundamental problem is that Wikipedia is
already a much better encyclopedia, and it continues to improve rapidly.
Wikipedia is roughly as accurate and it's an order of magnitude timelier
and more comprehensive. I wouldn't use Britannica much if it were freely
available; I'm certainly not going to waste time applying to be a part of
its "Webshare" program.
We write a lot about old-media companies that are struggling to adapt to
the Internet. We usually suggest business models that will help these
business cope, and maybe even thrive, in the new technological
environment. But I think Britannica might be a rare exception where the
situation really is hopeless.
-----------------------------------------
Finding one's humanity; The failure of Wikipedia
Published: May 11, 2008
International Herald Tribune
Opinion
<http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/11/opinion/edletmon.php>
The failure of Wikipedia
It's perhaps inevitable that those seeking to improve Wikipedia's
often-unreliable articles on the Middle East would be targeted for
criticism by partisans who might prefer the status quo.
So allegations against the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting
in America, or Camera, a group that monitors Middle East coverage for
factual accuracy, by the pro-Palestinian group Electronic Intifada - and
by David Duke, who approvingly published Electronic Intifada's article on
his own Web site - are not surprising.
Nor are they the key issue. What is most important is that the millions of
people who visit Wikipedia understand the serious shortcomings of this Web
2.0 phenomenon.
According to Citizendium, a competing online encyclopedia created by the
Wikipedia co-founder, Larry Sanger, who was unhappy with the direction
that project was heading, Wikipedia is "part anarchy, part mob rule. The
people with the most influence in the community are the ones who have the
most time on their hands - not necessarily the most knowledgeable - and
who manipulate Wikipedia's eminently gameable system."
-----------------------------------------
Deconstructing Wikipedia at the Berkman Center
Posted by Dan Farber
CNET News
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-9945028-80.html?tag=blog.promos>
During his remarks, Wales outlined what makes Wikipedia different in light
of the perception that world's most-relied-upon information resource is
counterintuitive. The following are notes from his remarks from the
session (in his voice):
There were a lot of mistakes made in the early social design of the
Internet. The unmoderated Usenet groups were difficult to control and
exclude bad behavior. It gave the Internet a bad name in some circles,
leading to spam, trolls and flamewars, and still exists today.
Given that background, and seeing the worst brought out in people, the
community has no means to self-regulate. You end up with the top-down
police state to manage it.
The idea that anyone could edit anything at any time made obvious that
most people were horrible and it makes the Internet worse. I've learned
the analogy to a restaurant. You've been given the task to design a
restaurant and serve steaks. So customers have access to knives, and
people with knives might stab people, so you need to keep people in a
cage. This model makes a bad society, and its view of human nature we
mostly avoid except at the airport.
-----------------------------------------
Column
Professors should learn how to utilize Wikipedia
By The Pitt News (U-WIRE)
Posted: 5/15/08 Section: Opinion Columns
Daily Illini
<http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/
news/2008/05/15/OpinionColumns/Professors.Should.
Learn.How.To.Utilize.Wikipedia-3371741.shtml>
A shorter URL for the above link:
An article from Agence France-Presse said that teachers in the University
of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, have started requiring their
students to write well-researched articles as graded assignments in their
courses.
Overall, this seems like an excellent program. Wikipedia, whether
professors like it or not, has become one of the largest repositories of
knowledge in the world, with more than 10 million articles in 253
languages hosted on the site. Unfortunately, it also has a reputation as
an inaccurate and academically unsuitable means for acquiring information,
especially as a source for papers and other projects.
Programs like the one at UBC could help to change that paradigm and make
the site a resource not only for research but also for encouraging
students to contribute to the aggregate knowledge of the Internet-based
community.
Studies conducted by the science journal "Nature" found Wikipedia to be
about as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica on most issues, and the
site's creators have said that Wikipedia has always strived for greater
accuracy.
----------------------------------------
Web 2.0 Collides With E-Discovery
By Dan Regard & Tom Matzen
Law Technology News
May 30, 2008
Law.com
<http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/
pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202421780523>
A shorter URL for the above link:
You have received a document request from opposing counsel. Among the
various items of calendar entries and e-mails requested is a request for
"Any and all social networking or business networking information related
to the key player(s)."
This raises questions of what is in scope, where is it, how much is
enough, and who is responsible for producing it? Welcome to the collision
between Web 2.0 and electronic data discovery.
Internet entrepreneurs who went through the boom and bust of the dot-com
era are rapidly rolling out new tools, new software and new services under
the moniker of Web 2.0. You are not alone if a definition of Web 2.0
eludes you. It may best be defined in reference to that which was before:
Web 1.0.
Web 1.0 is a "one to many" link between users and data, where users are
connected to information silos via the Internet conduit.
Topics Covered in This Article:
THE WEB AS A PLATFORM
RELEVANCE TO E-DISCOVERY
DISCOVERY OF LINKS AND DEGREES
SOCIAL NETWORKING
----------------------------------------
Fighting Facts and Figures
Wikipedia's the elephant; is there room for traditional reference?
by Gwenda Bond --
Publishers Weekly
5/12/2008
Publishers Weekly
<http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6559355.html>
While encyclopedias have traditionally been the province of expert
contributors and venerable brand names like Encyclopaedia Britannica, the
online juggernaut relies solely on volunteer laboranyone with an Internet
connection can contributeto the tune of more than 300 million edits so
far. Writing in the New York Times last year, Jonathan Dee summed it up:
Love it or hate it, though, its success is past denying....
That success has brought shockwaves to reference publishing, helping
reshape the category.
John Broughton, author of Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, a recent addition
to O'Reilly's popular Missing Manual series, says that publishers can't
ignore Wikipedia's influence: I don't see a way out for content that
competes directly with Wikipedia at this point. They can't compete with an
infinite talent pool. And it's current.
-----------------------------------------
The complete articles may be read at the URLs provided for each.
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