A discussion about the software industry and their coders

Finally Encylopedia Britannica is opening up its walled garden to web publishers -- including bloggers and webmasters -- by offerring free access. Wikipedia is already established as the Online encylopedia -- even though controversies keep arising about dumbness of crowds, biased views, fights amongst founders etc.

Though delayed Britannica Webshare is a good move:

A special program for web publishers, including bloggers, webmasters, and anyone who writes for the Internet. You get complimentary access to the Encyclopaedia Britannica online and, if you like, an easy way to give your readers background of the topics you write about with links to complete Britannica articles.

To Register fill the form on this page. So what's the deal? Why suddenly free for web publishers after so long. It seems they believe that readers of blogs with Britannica References will become subscribers.

The FAQ by the Britannica folks is interesting: 

Why are you doing this?

Well, it’s good business, for one thing. We have a great site with a lot or useful, reliable, and high-quality information, and we’d like more people to see it and use it.

Won’t you lose money giving away all those subscriptions?

We don’t think so. On the contrary, with many Web publishers using our products and sharing them with our readers, we expect to see a lot more people subscribing.