Mr. Cauz, Tear Down This Wall

Fans of general resource material likely had mixed emotions about Encyclopedia Britannica president Jorge Cauz’s announcement and subsequent fightin’ words this week. Adding public editing Britannica.com is an exciting step, but bloviated rips on Wikipedia was all ooh and no ahh.

That’s because there’s no need after all (for us, Google, or Wikipedia) to feel defensive—any thunder Cauz could bring down is still a long way out.

Remember Scrappy Doo? Don’t know why I bring him up. Just thought of him for some reason.

To jog your memory, along with the baby-steps into Web 2.0 announcement,
Cauz and his britannican company have long looked down their nose at the crowd-sourced wisdom of Wikipedia. And that, as always, has been a fair criticism. But while this week’s scrappy comments served to get his website a lot of attention, that may be all they get if Britannica stays locked behind a paid subscription wall.

So, smart on the publicity front, even if, once the opposition squints and gets a good look—way down there—they just faintly feel the waft of hot air rising.

Here’s why: According to Hitwise, Wikipedia gets almost