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? Read the rest of the entry…