Like most bloggers I know, I tend to link to information resources online when I’m writing about a particular topic.
One reason is simply that linking to an explanation of something provides a reader of your content with an opportunity to find out more, or see something in more depth, without you the blogger having to explain it all in your blog post.
And like just about everyone I know, I tend to link to material on Encyclopaedia Britannica online during the past few weeks and getting to know how a raft of new and free social media-related services, aimed squarely at bloggers and other people who publish on the web, will work.
(Disclosure: I’ve been working with Britannica Webshare
Take this topic example - global warming. You want to find detailed information to reference in a blog post. If you participate in Webshare, you can link to global warming on Wikipedia
Go ahead, try it, see what you think. I’m not saying one is better than the other. Both provide breadth and depth of information with links to further details on a very big topic. Personally, I like Britannica’s conversational and lay content style in this example, plus embedded video and other content on the same page to give you a rich multimedia experience. And maybe the word ‘authoritative’ comes into play here: do people think works on Encylopaedia Britannica carry more authority than content elsewhere as those works are researched and written by academics? Are they more trusted therefore? Big questions. But freely linking to full content on the Britannica website is just one element of what Britannica is now offering. The Webshare programme offers widgets to bloggers and other web publishers which you can embed on your own site. Like this widget from which you can explore deeper into a topic and see all content related to that topic: