Encyclopedia Britannica has launched a program named Britannica Webshare. It offers free access to web publishers, who are loosely defined as "anyone who publishes regularly on the Internet--bloggers, webmaster, and writers who publish on the Web." This offer is worth $70 per year. Web publishers can use Britannica widgets to post links to EB articles on their blogs or web sites. Readers who click on a link will get the entire Britannica article on the subject, even if the article needs subscription.

Almost everyone can't help but see Britannica Webshare as a response to the ubiquity of Wikipedia. TechCrunch has a post on this, in which TechCrunch describes Britannica's move as being half-pregnant: "they want the benefits of web linking but don't want to give up the subscription fees from the fools who continue to pay them." TechCrunch also suggests Britannica adopt a wiki-like format to allow users' editing if they do not want to go out of business. Hmm... if so, is it still Britannica?

I think Britannica has made a positive move to give the public indirect access to one of the most authoritative encyclopedia. No free full-text access to everyone yet. Yes, I know. But it is still much better than the status quo: we know its existence, but most of us cannot afford to get to it, like the Moon.

Even if Britannica goes entirely free, I am not worried that Britannica will kick Wikipedia out of business. Britannica is eloquent and authoritative. Wikipedia is chaotic and energetic. Neither can replace the other. Admittedly, most Wikipedia articles are much less polished than Britannica articles. But Wikipedia is much more update-to-date and detail-oriented. Choosing one over the other is dependent on the subject topic. If I want to offer readers background information about Celeron, I will prefer Wikipedia. For a post concerning communication, Britannica definitely wins out.