We have relaunched: What's new at ZDNet Asia?

Britannica.com cuts US staff, adds fees

Summary

The online reference guide reduces its headcount by 31 percent, or 68 employees, as part of a new strategy to concentrate on subscription-based services.

Events

Microsoft MSDN/Developer Event
25 Mar 2010

One Marina Boulevard, Microsoft Singapore

IT Architect Regional Conference Singapore 2010
20 - 21 Apr 2010

Singapore Management University, Singapore

The Internet Show 2010
21-22 Apr 2010

Suntec Singapore

Britannica.com said Tuesday that it has reduced its headcount in the United States by 31 percent, or 68 employees, as part of a new strategy to concentrate on subscription-based services.

The online venture of 232-year-old reference guide Encyclopaedia Britannica said it employed 220 staff members in its Britannica.com US offices before the layoffs. The Chicago-based company said the layoffs did not affect its foreign offices; the company mostly concentrated on positions that produced feature and topical content.

The layoffs are not the first for the privately held company. In November, the reference site cut about 16 percent of its staff, or 75 people, in an effort to reach profitability.

"The way the market is going, companies are definitely looking for other ways to bring in revenue to fill the gap for lagging ad sales," said Betty Cho, Internet analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings. "The speculation is that subscription services are a viable way of making up some of that lost revenue, particularly if that site has a lot of content."

Britannica.com is the latest company reduce its staff after a cooling of the once-sizzling online market. Both online and offline media companies--such as CNBC.com, News Corp, The New York Times Co, CNN and Knight-Ridder--have been affected by the melting online advertising market, often causing them to cut spending and lay off employees.

The reference site also joins other dot-coms in its move to start charging for formerly free services. BlueLight.com and FreeEdgar, among others, have altered their services to charge a fee for additional usage or limit the number of free items.

Britannica.com said it decided to switch to a subscription-based model in response to recent changes in the Internet industry and in an attempt to reach profitability quickly. It has also seen its popularity with Web surfers slip slightly--both at home and at work. In September, the reference site was ranked No 98 among most-visited Web sites, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. In February, however, it slipped to the 159th spot.

The site plans to shift its focus to reference, education and learning content.

"There was a time not along ago when most observers believed that Internet services had to be supported mainly through advertising," Britannica.com chief executive Don Yannias said in a statement. "We are out there in the marketplace, however, and we're convinced that a diversified business model combining free and subscription-supported products is the road to success."

The company said it hopes to sell services such as BritannicaSchool.com, a Web-based educational site geared toward elementary and secondary students. The site is expected to feature study guides and extensive school resources, as well as interactive curriculum materials for teachers. BritannicaSchool is scheduled to launch in June and run as a subscription service for school districts and individuals.

Cho said that companies moving to subscription programs must be able to market their services and show customers the value of paying for the content.

"For sites like Britannica.com, they're going to have to prove their value in providing content that's going to be worth paying for," Cho said. "Britannica can do it. Their loyalty rate is pretty good.... And if a company's got a loyal following, then they stand a better chance of successfully launching a subscription program and getting those people to pay."

Talkback

Add your opinion

In order to post a comment, you need to be registered. (Sign In or register below)

Post your comment
Transform your business interactions with real-time voice, video and telepresence solutions.
Tech Vendor: Cisco

ZDNet Asia Live

Reasons to care about Viacom v. Google - Zd Net Asia.com: Last Thursday's 200-page dump of cour... http://bit.ly/crqRzF #SME #UMG #WMG #EMI

4 hours 47 minutes ago by metaphysicalist on topsy

@BarackObama People voted you in for change. Why are you not listening on ACTA http://tinyurl.com/y8u56g9 #hcr HCR

5 hours 58 minutes ago by studio1411 on topsy

MB Kabbalah IChing - Free Software Downloads - ZDNet Asia: MB Kabbalah IChing is a zodiac sign based software that... http://bit.ly/czUQRr

6 hours 52 minutes ago by fighting_jew on topsy

Found this great little deal calculator http://www.zdnetasia.com/downloa...

14 hours 12 minutes ago by winstoncranford on topsy

Read my blog post on getting the most from your Nexus One: http://www.zdnetasia.com/blogs/m...

RT @3wconsulting: Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oY9f

Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oYbA

Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oYbz

Zdnetasia.com Estimated Worth $178,365 USD. Daily Ad Revenue:$244 USD, Daily Views:81,445 Pages... - http://www.haplog.com/www.zdneta...

The receivers don't transmit back to the satellite. Unless there is a phone line attached to the receiver, they don't have any wa...

2 days 10 minutes ago by bessellbrowne on Apple to join the geolocation craze?

whatever little understanding I have we 'll only progress toward end of the world if we use HPCs to lenthen life of human being. Huma...

2 days 16 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on High computing promises elixir of life

Thanks for the knowledgeable article on SDDs. Allas...when all this reasearch will happen in Indian Universities. Hope the new bill on Fo...

2 days 29 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on APAC HPC users eye solid-state drives

It was a good article. This brings a good opportunity for Indian IT firms to come up with new solutions in this field. HPC can become a b...

2 days 48 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on High computing most-wanted job in Asia

COL KR DHARMADHIKARY(RETD) its very late to reply the link, but if it is still alive and looking for opportunity, i would like to know th...

2 days 45 minutes ago by deb021280 on Education takes off in rural India, helped by PCs

High performance computing (HPC) most-wanted job in Asia http://bit.ly/9vFC3i (via @zdnetasia) #singapore

RT @zdnetasia: EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, on bridging gaps in the organization and its cloud ambitions in Asia. (cont) http://tl.gd/i5jjd

EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, on bridging gaps in the organization and its cloud ambitions in Asia. http://bit.ly/9etOZW

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08 via @zdnetasia

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08

"YOG should have social media rules, too - Internet - News" http://bit.ly/dn6vjD

2 days 32 minutes ago by socialsentiment on topsy

[TECH] URL Shorteners slow Web redirection. - http://bit.ly/bySnWK @zdnetasia

URL shorteners are great but they can slow web redirection & you pray it would never go down http://bit.ly/bySnWK via @zdnetasia

URL shorteners slow Web redirection. http://bit.ly/bySnWK

Chinese agencies cry foul over Google. http://bit.ly/by6rwV

all of sg's isps have been practising compulsory invisible proxy for all home subscribers at their backend since many years back alre...

4 days 29 minutes ago by melvinchia on Web filters mean bad news for business

it is not to good for china.
Proactol

4 days 14 minutes ago by nathonastle on Chinese ad partners beg Google for information

Very good explanation of JMX

5 days 19 minutes ago by Babith B on Managing applications with JMX

The reaction to a report issued Tuesday by Flurry Analytics managed to completely overlook some interesting news--the Android-based Motorola Droid outsold the original iPhone over the same period of time following their respective launches--to focus instead on the sales numbers for the Nexus One.

5 days 22 minutes ago by lonemavericks on diggs

Another ZTE story....

5 days 24 minutes ago by Moderate Your Greed on Philippines opens bid for final 3G license

We at www.fifosys.com have also seen a growth in IT outsourcing and anticipate it as a growing field.

5 days 58 minutes ago by sarah Jane on Companies' outsourcing spend to increase

I agree with you. The iSiVaL is super portable and TVs can't expand their image size. I recorded a video that might bring some ideas to...

5 days 28 minutes ago by Jesse B Andersen on Buying a projector? Try an LED TV instead

hermm... he deserved it.. he shud not talk abt sensitive things like tat, well, he shud think twice before saying all those things, event...

5 days 6 minutes ago by ... on Facebook user charged in Malaysia

Password manager tools are potential security threat. Criminals who hack into the computer can use the password manager to log onto any s...

6 days 6 minutes ago by ohanae on What defaults should random password generators use?

I've found the cross platform utility unetbootin to be rather handy for this kind of thing as well.

6 days 40 minutes ago by Jim on Use Live USB Creator to install Fedora 12 from a USB stick

Thanks for the article. I think the debug command has an "\" after "C:" it should say w32tm /debug /enable /file:C:\l...

6 days 41 minutes ago by Roger Biefer on Manage time accuracy with W32Tm