| Feature | Encarta (2002) | Wikipedia (2004) | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | | $50-100 / year | Free | | Size | ~50,000 articles | ~500,000 articles (and growing daily) | | Updates | Annual CD / online sub | Real-time, minute-by-minute | | Depth | Short, summary articles | Deep, hyperlinked, evolving | | Authority | Centralized, professional editors | Decentralized, community consensus | | Errors | Fixed in next version | Fixed in seconds | | Multimedia | Licensed clips & maps | Free media + embedded YouTube |
For a generation, particularly millennials, Encarta was a primary research tool for school assignments. It allowed for non-linear exploration of topics through hyperlinks and sophisticated query clustering, which helped users find semantically related information even when they used different search terms. Beyond Keywords: Automated Question Answering on the Web encyclopedia encarta
To fit on a CD-ROM (650MB), Encarta had to be shallow . A typical Encarta article was a short summary (500-2000 words). Britannica's print edition had long-form, scholarly articles (e.g., 20,000 words on "China") written by Nobel laureates. Encarta's content came from Funk & Wagnalls —respectable but not top-tier academic. Teachers and librarians openly dismissed it as "Encyclopedia Lite." | Feature | Encarta (2002) | Wikipedia (2004)