>>> "If I were to be the CEO of Google or the founders of Google I would be very [displeased] that the best search engine in the world continues to provide as a first link, Wikipedia," he said."Is this the best they can do? Is this the best that [their] algorithm can do?" <<<
This remark convinces me that they still do not get it...
One of the few ways Britannica could make themselves at all relevant in the online world today would be to take the contents of Wikipedia and verify it using whatever method they use to verify and vet their own content. "Wikipedia, verified by Britannica" _could_ be very powerful branding (but it might be too late for that also).
Consider the Britannica website and the Wikipedia website. The Wikipedia website is designed for mass consumption of content. The Main_Page has interesting, topical and relevant links and blurbs on it that _encourage_ you to click and go deeper -- true browsing. When you click on "browse" in the upper right on the britannica.com home page, you are presented with a popup listing the alphabet. This isn't browsing. Britannica's navigation down the right side, with the sliding tabs, is relatively bare in the content topic headings: there are only four or five entries under each one. Compared to Wikipedia, just the "Did you know..." box (one of seven major content divisions on Main_Page) has (as I write this) _23_links_ plus a "nominate an article" link, further encouraging interaction, and deep exploration. And these get updated (most likely automatically) every day. Britannica's interface doesn't seem to encourage exploration. The experience appears to be a direct translation of using a hard-copy of a reference work. Britannica.com is really becoming a poster boy for the complete irrelevance of the ivory tower model of information dissemination (if they aren't already).
Guh, this is embarrassing. Maybe you get more if you pay for a subscription (in which case Wikipedia already has a significant lead), but these two pages:
are incomparable. Ignoring the content for a moment, wikipedia has a references list, external links, related wikipedia links, and the edit history. If you don't believe that Wikipedia is accurate, you are well on your way to verifying the content yourself. Britannica's entry contains none of that.
Britannica.com, the company and the website, seems to have barely changed in the nine years since I worked there.
This could be done, but only on some subset of wikipedia articles. One of the strong points of W is that it reacts to new events very quickly...for example, look at how detailed is the page for Obama inauguration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_2009_presidential_...). And, there are many more current events happening which are continuously updated on W...how could Britannica staff verify it in a timely manner? They will still be behind...
My feelings is, that the Britannica approach, taking the explosion of information and speed everything changes, just can't catch up anymore. They need to reinvent themselves in some more radical way to survive.
"Would-be editors on the Britannica site will have to register using their real names and addresses before they are allowed to modify or write their own articles."
This remark convinces me that they still do not get it...