Monster & Critics reports that the German edition of Wikipedia (Wikipedia Deutschland) will soon be available in print form.
German Wikipedia will be available in print form this fall. Is that as redundant as it seems?
Condensing the 50,000 most popular entries into a 1,000-page volume, the German Wikipedia will retail for around 20 euros -- with 1 euro donated to Wikipedia Deutschland. According to the article, the volume will be thoroughly fact-checked to counter one of the chief criticisms of the Wikipedia platform; inaccuracies.
On the surface, the notion of printing Wikipedia seems redundant if not counterintuitive. While there is likely a market for those with a desire to have a more tactile reference which they can thumb through -- how much of a market there is for a print version of an online resource remains to be seen. The publishers have suggested that those without a permanent Internet connection may be keen on having their own copy. And that may be. Plus, it's not hard to see how the novelty factor alone could help drive sales initially.
Given that there are nearly 2.5 million articles in the English version of Wikipedia, don't expect a print version any time soon.
The print version of Wikipedia Deutschland is expected to hit stores in September.
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