The Encyclopedia Britannica has introduced a program for bloggers and online publishers allowing them to cite and link to full articles. Previously, online publishers were only able to present snippets of Britannica content to their readers due to the 250-year old company’s subscription-based business model that prices EB’s Internet content at $70/year.

The new program, known as Britannica Webshare provides free access to the online version of the world’s largest print Encyclopedia for “… people who publish with some regularity on the Internet, be they bloggers, webmasters, or writers.” When citing a reference from EB, writers can code a link that gives readers access to content from that particular article but not to other pages in the EB site. An embedded widget is also available for participating publishers to use.

The Britannica Webshare program is a smart move forward for EB as it competes for search-user attention against its widely popular but less credible rival, Wikipedia. As noted in a piece by Techcruch’s Michael Arrington, “According to Comscore, for every page viewed on Brittanica.com, 184 pages are viewed on Wikipedia.” Granting online writers access to the highly credible content found within its print and online pages, Encyclopedia Britannica gives writers the ability to cite information with far greater certainty regarding its accuracy and reliability.

(ed note: Encyclopedia Britannica is a Metamend client. We are extremely pleased they are now using the extraordinary power of the blogosphere to build relevant and helpful links for Internet users)