Britannica attempts a Wikipedia, hesitates to embrace community

The much loved Britannica encyclopedia (remember them?) has decided to go down the Wikipedia route by opening up its content to users. Users will soon be able to create and edit articles, but here’s the catch - updates must first be screened and approved by staff working at the company.

Now while the decision to open up is commendable for such an established (read: old) brand, it must be said that the decision to moderate changes might just cause the initiative to fail.

Success with social media today requires brands to relinquish control and shift ownership of content over to the audience. While it may take a major paradigm shift for Britannica to open up its centuries-old legacy to the public, the way to ensure its survival might just be to crowdsource its growth. This has many benefits, and chief amongst them is the ability to grow and improve the quality of its content base rapidly. Outdated content can be quickly replaced with relevant, up-to-date material and changes can be policed effectively by the community.

Instead of creating a potential bottleneck at content approval level, the content editors at Britannica could work with the community to improve content quality. What we’d have then is a synergy of efforts that could only bring positive results for the brand.