Wikipedia Didn't Kill Brittanica — Encarta Did 288
Posted
by
timothy
from the and-how-is-encarta-doing? dept.
from the and-how-is-encarta-doing? dept.
rudy_wayne writes "The end of Encyclopedia Britannica has been widely reported and its demise has been blamed on Wikipedia. However, this article at Wired points out that the real reason is something entirely different. 'In 1990 Britannica had $650 million in revenue. In 1996, long before Wikipedia existed, it was bankrupt and the entire company was sold for $135 million. What happened in between was Encarta. Even though Encarta didn't make money for Microsoft and Britannica produced its own encyclopedia CDs, Encarta was an inexpensive, multimedia encyclopedia that helped Microsoft sell Windows PCs to families. And once you had a PC in the living room or den where the encyclopedia used to be, it was all over for Mighty Britannica. It's not that Encarta made knowledge cheaper, it's that technology supplanted its role as a purchasable 'edge' for over-anxious parents. They bought junior a new PC instead of a Britannica. When Wikipedia emerged five years later, Britannica was already a weakened giant. It wasn't a free and open encyclopedia that defeated its print edition. It was the personal computer itself.'"
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
I still have my Encarta CDs. Does that mean I'm harboring a murderer?
Encarta killed Brittanica (Score:5, Funny)
Nice burn on the /. types (Score:3, Funny)
LOL, he sure has your number.
Re:Encarta killed Brittanica (Score:1, Funny)
[citation given]
You now how three points against your license.
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
No, it means that you should clean up your room. Or maybe try to sign up for a stint on horders [aetv.com].
They forgot to patent (Score:5, Funny)
If only Britannica would have patented cataloging a large amount of factual information in an indexed fashion...
Re:Encarta killed Brittanica (Score:5, Funny)
[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encarta [wikipedia.org]
This is a real Kodak moment! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And brittanica did not see the threat (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Encarta killed Brittanica (Score:5, Funny)
http://xkcd.com/978/ [xkcd.com]
Re:Finally (Score:5, Funny)
If only there was somewhere one could look up how things are spelled...
Re:Compton's? (Score:4, Funny)
According to wikipedia, [wikipedia.org] Compton's was the first multimedia CD-ROM encyclopedia. I think we had a copy of it, too.
Do you have a primary source for that information?