Unleash The Power Of Encyclopedia Britannica For Free!

Sunday, April 20th, 2008 | Books, News, RSS

Pretty much everyone’s who has grown up in the United States and is at least 10 years old knows what the Encyclopedia Brittanica is. In fact, the older you are, the more familiar you probably are with the collection. Any type of research, especially if it took place while in elementary school, would usually start by rummaging through the library of books to find sources for your work. Even now, this 250 year old company still offers their yearly updated 32 volume set (with free shipping for only $1395!) and the digitized DVD/CD version (for a lesser $39.99, probably because it doesn’t involve shipping 90 pounds worth of books) via their website. Topics covered in the collection are written by leading experts in their field, including Nobel Peace Prize winners and authors with equally impressive backgrounds. For the last two centuries, Encyclopedia Britannica was the quinnesential source for knowledge for just about any topic….That is of course, until the arrival of wikipedia.

Now, searching wikipedia for definitions, articles, etc.. has taken the place that once was held by the shelf of encyclopedias that could be found at every single school and library. This put the publishing company up against a monsterous rival. How do you compete with something that is completely free? Books, DVD’s, enticing accomplished writers to submit articles all cost money, and Chris Anderson’s “Free” plan wouldn’t help them ensure a 2009 version of the series would be released, but they knew that something had to change.

What ended up changing was…… you guessed it…. their website. They’ve gone all web 2.0 on us. Now you can embed a variety of widgets, all via RSS feeds, into your own site ranging from specific topics of interest as well as neat little feeds that give you a Daily Quiz, Quote of the Day, Featured Contributer, Featured Media, On This Day In History, and much more. Specific topics and articles can be pulled from their massive online archives by signing up to a free new service they’re now calling WebShare. Using this service you can not only reference one of the premier authorities in subject matter directly on your website, but also interact with the company if you require something that isn’t already offered.

They’re giving fun, useful widgets away to the public for free, then are providing resources to authors, webmasters, and bloggers alike with hopes of enticing their readers to sign up for the online service.

For instance, If I was writing an article on one of our past presidents, I could pull a sample snippet from the massive presidential section of the Encyclopedia to accompany my article:

Users wanting more would then have the ability to sign up to learn everything there is to know about the man via Britannica’s subscription online version of their encyclopedia. Unlike wikipedia, you would know that the information you were reading was authentic, not to mention the fact that it would include more media/resources than your average wikipedia page.

Go checkout Britannica’s new website, as I said, they’ve revamped it to incorporate Flash, RSS feeds, widgets, and even now have an official Twitter account. So for all you twitter folks, feel free to add www.twitter.com/EBWebShare and tweet with some books from your childhood.

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