[LINK] 2010 EB the last in print

[Frank O'Connor]

Mmmm,

I remember back in the early 90's being cornered by an EB salesman in Preston market. When he tried to sell me the 40 odd volume set for a grand or two, I mentioned that I already had a 30 volume set from one of their competitors on my PC, and that in future I'd be updating that rather than investing in the paper product ... for economic, product performance and product scope reasons that paper simply could not compete with.

His response was that IT based encyclopaedias were simply a flash-in-the-pan and that EB would never stoop so low.

So, EB eventually caved and began offering its digital product in the early noughties ... I have the latest Ultimate Reference Suite sitting on the 'puter I'm currently typing on ... but I've always wondered where that bloke is working now?
---
On 15/03/2012, at 9:11 AM, Roger Clarke wrote:

> Years back, lots of us used Britannica as a case study in abrupt, 
> technology-induced collapse of a longstanding and highly-successful 
> product, e.g. (from a 2002 version):
> 
> "In 1991, Encyclopaedia Britannica sold about 400,000 printed sets, 
> and in 1997 about 10,000. The collapse was triggered by the success 
> of Microsoft Encarta and other CD-ROM versions of lower-quality but 
> approximately equivalent collections sold in a convenient and 
> inexpensive form.
> 
> "Since then, web-based information services have mushroomed. Despite 
> its brand reputation, and the apparent quality and presumed value of 
> the content the company owned, revenue halved, losses have 
> accumulated, the company has changed hands several times, and 
> survival remains uncertain ...
> 
> "Since 1997, in its scramble to survive, EB has tried CD-ROMs, an 
> advertising-funded web-site, gratis look-up of any individual topic, 
> and a web-site that supports subscription-based access by consumers, 
> and subscription-based access by educational institutions. ..."
> 
> Today, hundreds of outlets are reporting that the company that owns 
> EB has announced that, after 244 years and more than 7m sets sold, no 
> new editions will be put to paper. The 32 volumes of the 2010 
> installment were the last. "Future editions will live exclusively 
> online".
> 
> What's really interesting is that the 1991 sales of 400,000 sets 
> represent nearly 6% of the total sales over 244 years.  So there may 
> have been a steep growth curve during the last decade or two, 
> followed by even more rapid collapse of the printed format.  Ah, the 
> perils of predictions based on past data.
> 
> Now, about those climate change graphs ...                 (Just joking!).
> 
> 
> -- 
> Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
> 			            
> Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
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> 
> Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
> Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University
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