While Wikipedia's trustworthiness and authenticity will be questioned as long as it remains in its current format, since it isn't a peer-reviewed or scholarly source of information as vouched for by professional digital encyclopedias (like
Microsoft Encarta or Encyclopaedia Britannica), there can be no doubt that Wikipedia's "open content" policy (which means anyone can copy and edit its content) has greatly democratized information and knowledge in the age of the internet.
"Today, the greatest minds of the world can get together through crowd-sourcing, through
Microsoft Encarta, through Wikipedia to resolve the challenges we face," he said.
So when I was asked to write about ROI for legal marketing, I had to see what
Microsoft Encarta said about "return" and "investment."
Several months later,
Microsoft Encarta shipped with fractal still image compression decoding all those lovely images.
"Joseph I (of Portugal),"
Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia, World English Edition (London: Microsoft Corporation, 1997).
It has already made traditional encyclopedias obsolete in both book form ( Encyclopedia Britannica) as well as CD- ROMs (
Microsoft Encarta).
On the other hand,
Microsoft Encarta has been dropping in popularity.
I recently paged through my
Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary, energized in 2001 by St.
Ian Chilvers, "Mathis Grunewald," The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, 1996), 3, and "Matthias,"
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2001, 1.
GuruNet is more comprehensive and complements CD-ROM or DVD-based reference works such as Encyclopedia Britannica, at www.eb.com, and
Microsoft Encarta Reference Library, at www.microsoft.com/encarta.
According to an internet survey by
Microsoft Encarta, more people aged 18-24 recognise St George as the name of their local pub than the name of a saint, and only one in three knew of St George's day at all.