Patricio Robles
I am a tech reporter and have been writing about technology, digital marketing and startups at Econsultancy since January 2009.
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With Encyclopedia Britannica gearing up to launch a new version of Britannica.com that will incorporate more community features, I decided it was a good time to take a look at Britannica.com.
Is it in a good position to compete with Wikipedia, the user-generated online 'encyclopedia' that eclipses Britannica.com in popularity, or will it have to do more? Here are 5 criticisms of Britannica.com that I believe it needs to address to be successful.

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by Patricio Robles
23 January 2009 09:28am
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The results are in: investments in AOL and a company called Clearwire contributed to a 68% drop in Q4 profit for Google but an 18% increase in sales helped the beat analyst expectations.
All told, Google achieved net income of $382m on total revenue of $5.7bn. Sales, excluding commissions paid to partners, was $4.22bn, beating the consensus estimate of $4.12bn.
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by Patricio Robles
23 January 2009 09:02am
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When it comes to online 'encyclopedias', chances are that Wikipedia springs to mind faster than the 241 year-old Encyclopedia Britannica.
Despite the virtues of an encyclopedia that is 100% edited by humans, Britannica's influence has waned in today's Wikipedia world.
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by Patricio Robles
22 January 2009 18:19pm
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When Google acquired YouTube for $1.65bn in October 2006, many expected that the popular video sharing website would eventually fall into a profitable business model.
More than two years later, Google is trying hard as ever to monetize YouTube. While it's come a long way, all indications are that it still has a long way to go.
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by Patricio Robles
22 January 2009 16:58pm
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It's not the type of party that one usually wants to attend but sometimes you have to make an appearance.
Microsoft today reported disappointing results for its fiscal second quarter. Those results included an anemic 2% revenue growth from the same period a year ago - $900m less than expected.
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by Patricio Robles
22 January 2009 16:20pm
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The inauguration of Barack Obama was more than just another big media event.
Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum and regardless of where you live, President Obama's inauguration was an historic moment for the internet.
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by Patricio Robles
22 January 2009 09:41am
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Services like Facebook and Twitter are changing the ways we
locate and share important news and information, and they have proven
to be valuable additions to the field of journalism.
Yet their rise has created some thorny ethical questions for reporters and news organizations.
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by Patricio Robles
22 January 2009 09:00am
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Mike Grehan, host of the Search Engine Strategies Expo London, wrote a comment on ClickZ last week that made quite a statement.
That statement: "SEO's glory days are over. And we should get over it. Nobody is online
looking for content."
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by Patricio Robles
21 January 2009 16:30pm
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When Google reports its Q4 2008 earnings this Thursday, a lot will be learned about the state of the consumer internet and the online advertising market.
As I mentioned yesterday, one estimate has search advertising spend dropping significantly (8%) in the quarter. This despite the fact that search advertising was expected to hold up better than display advertising; some even predicted search advertising would benefit from a flight to quality.
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by Patricio Robles
21 January 2009 09:37am
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Talk about a launch: minutes after Barack Obama took his oath and became the 44th President of the United States of America, a new Whitehouse.gov launched.
And it appears that President Obama, who made extensive use of the internet as a presidential candidate, will continue to use the internet as the most powerful man in the world.

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by Patricio Robles
20 January 2009 19:20pm
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