Encyclopedia Britannica Joins Web 2.0
July 3, 2008
Encyclopedias are a great place to start researching a topic, as they provide broad, top-level information on just about anything. But encyclopedias can be so… static. It’s the 21st century, people! Our encyclopedias should have videos and audio, and we should be able to interact with and possibly even contribute to them!
Well, Encyclopedia Britannica is jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon and just launched a new version of its web site that is both interactive and full of new media resources. With the redesign, Britannica now offers broader and more relevant information — including more photos, videos and multimedia — and incorporates an online community for scholars, experts, and non-expert contributors to connect, interact, and share information.
In the community, scholars and experts are given an online home that lets them promote their work and services, publish and share the work they’ve created outside of the encyclopedia, and interact with other scholars around the world in an academic setting. Readers and users are also invited into the community to suggest changes and additions to the content and to actually publish content on Britannica’s site. Interested users will have the opportunity to prepare articles, essays, and multimedia presentations on subjects they’re interested in and Britannica will help with research by allowing them to easily use text and non-text material from the encyclopedia. The final products will then be published on the site, credited to the people who created them.
And, Britannica is offering a “reward system” to encourage and motivate both experts and readers to contribute and suggest text changes, photos, videos, citations, links and other improvements to Britannica itself. They don’t specify what the “rewards” are, but if you end up publishing content with them, let us know! — LAUREN FROHNE
