The buzz today is all about print dictionaries dying. But the buzzers and RT’ers are missing the real news here.
According to the Washington Post, the Oxford English Dictionary is considering a switch to an online-only version of the 126-year-old book. In the Google age, it only makes business sense to save hard costs use existing resources to build online revenue. I totally get it and applaud the concept. If only the phone book publishers would jump on the common-sense bandwagon.
However, it looks like Oxford will still charge nearly $300 for access to the online version. I question the sustainability of that in a free-to-freemium economy.
For all practical purposes, if you want to know the meaning or spelling of a word in 2010, you just plug the word into your search engine.
For example:
Perhaps it’s my personalized results, but you won’t find OED.com in that list.
For me, the news here is that companies can still charge this much money for what is now a commodity. The definition and spelling of a word, thanks to the internet, is fungible.
I’ll be open if I’m missing the point, though. Help me understand what’s worth $.81/day versus the $0.00/day of its competitors.
Do you pay for dictionary services? Is free good enough?