Britannica Widgets
Britannica Widgets are here, and with them you can instantly post an entire cluster of related Encyclopaedia Britannica articles on your blog or Web site. Just follow the instructions and copy and paste the several lines of code associated with each widget as html into the appropriate place on your site. Any readers who click on a link will get the entire Britannica article on the subject, even if access to the article normally requires a subscription. Really. Try it.
So let’s say you have a site about philosophy, or astronomy, or basketball. Stick one of the widgets below on your site and your readers will instantly have access to Britannica’s coverage of the subject. And if you haven’t signed up yet for your free subscription to Britannica online, which is available to all Web publishers, please go here.
Go here for more widgets, and please come back because we plan to add many more in the weeks to come.
Tags: Add new tag, astronomy, basketball, philosophy, widgets
April 19th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Nice widgets
thx for them
April 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Hello and congratulations on the launch of a very exciting addition to the blogosphere. I tried registering for the service but your registration form generates an error upon submission. Is there any other way I can go about gaining access to this widget service?
Thanks very much indeed.
April 19th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Splendid idea.
But what kind of web publishers do you mean? Is blogging in English a necessary condition, or blogging at all? Are you interested in helping non-English bloggers?
April 19th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
[…] in who gets their encyclopedic knowledge where. The venerable oldy is striking back though. Britannica Widgets are here. The ScribeMedia Gerbil is our in-house pet that gathers what’s best and greatest around the […]
April 19th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Dear Godric,
Bloggers and and Web publishers in any language are welcome to take the free subscription to Britannica Online. (The encyclopedia and the rest of the site are themslves in English.)
If you manage a Web site, edit a Web site, or contribute regularly to a Web site or different Web site, you qualify for a subscription. Please come and apply: click on the Registration button on the right-hand column.
Tom Panelas (for Britannica)
April 19th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Andrew,
I have your e-mail address and will respond to you shortly. My apologies for the problem.
Tom
April 20th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
[…] of code associated with each widget as HTML into the appropriate place on your site,” Tom of Britannica WebShare wrote in a post. “Any readers who click on a link will get the entire Britannica article on the subject, even […]
April 20th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Forgive my skepticism, but “Any readers who click on a link will get the entire Britannica article on the subject, even if access to the article normally requires a subscription” just doesn’t seem to be true, and I’ve been checking every widget I’ve come across in my curiosity about this feature.
From what I’ve seen, the widgets only show the “concise” (read: short and useless) versions of articles that are *already visible to anyone*. How are these widgets more than merely getting bloggers and web publishers to *advertise Britannica for free*?
April 20th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Nihiltres,
That shouldn’t be the case. Which widget are you using, may I ask?
Just a thought: Have you clicked on the “explore topic” button? That brings up the entire article. What you see in the widget box itself is indeed just a summary. The whole article is just a click away, however. The “all articles” button also gives you the complete table of contents for the widget.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
[…] it…. their website. They’ve gone all web 2.0 on us. Now you can embed a variety of widgets, all via RSS feeds, into your own site ranging from specific topics of interest as well as neat […]
April 20th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
These widgets are great! They do use iframes, though - do you have any plans to release them as straight html/css so they may be included on sites designed for mobile phones?
April 20th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Could you help ? I made a mistake filling the form to suscribe, giving an old and no more used email. I tried to submit again with the right email, but it doesn’t work. Thanks.
April 20th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
V.Clayssen,
I’ll e-mail you in a few minutes to see how I can help.
Tom
April 20th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Webshare and widget both are great services. I would like to see more widgets added for more niche categories in order for the service to be really useful for Blog audience.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:44 am
abhilash,
There are many more widgets on the way. Please come back soon.
Thanks,
Tom (for Britannica)
April 21st, 2008 at 1:30 am
Thanks for the prompt response, Tom. There seems to be issue with Links opening in both Widget and Webshare Link sharing. I have shared couple of examples in my blog post Britannica Webshare and Widget Program.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:19 am
abhilash,
I’m puzzled. I’ll e-mail you for details so we can find out what’s going on.
Tom
April 21st, 2008 at 8:56 am
[…] que la popular enciclopedia permite a bloggers y editores web realizar consultas e incorporar widgets en los blogs gratuitamente. Podéis leer toda la información en Techcrunch, donde se ha difundido la noticia o […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Mobi Enthusiast,
I am glad that you found our widgets useful. There are many more on the way. Regarding creating mobile friendly versions of these, yes that is in our to-do list, but we are first focusing on formats that can spread virally, and iFrame makes it easy for people to incorporate it on a wide variety of sites. We are also working on Flash versions of these widgets.
On the mobile front, we have a nice implementaion of our encyclopedia for iPhones. You can find it at i.eb.com. Also, pocket.eb.com is a mobile-friendly implementation of our Concise database.
-Kunal (Britannica)
April 24th, 2008 at 8:07 am
[…] destacar que Britannica Webshare ha dissenyat alguns atractius aplicatius (widgets) per a inserir d’una forma més atractiva els articles als webs. Encara n’hi ha pocs, […]
April 29th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Have installed a widget on a web page but when the full content opens it is obscured by a request to login or sign-up for trial membership. Am I missing something in the setup?
April 29th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Kelvyn,
That was caused by a bug that got introduced during a data update last evening. We are very sorry about the problem. It should be resolved very soon. Please give it a try in a few hours. We’d really appreciate if you could let us know if the problem persists.
Thanks again for your patience.
= Kunal (Britannica)
May 1st, 2008 at 4:14 pm
The problem is resolved, thanks.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:06 am
[…] to Britannica Blog post on Widget, when you click on the article in the widget (Explore Topic Button), it should bring whole article […]
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
[…] Welcome to WebShare y Britannica Widgets - En Twitter: EBWebShare. View blog reactions Votar en Otras entradas sobre: […]
February 28th, 2009 at 3:21 am
[…] and writers who publish on the Web.” This offer is worth $70 per year. Web publishers can use Britannica widgets to post links to EB articles on their blogs or web sites. Readers who click on a link will get the […]