The biggest guy in the room can't beat free

In January, Wikipedia got 97 per cent of all the visits surfers made to online encyclopedias, according to the internet service Hitwise. In second place, with 1.27 percent, was Microsoft's Encarta.

In March, Microsoft finally accepted that it couldn't compete with a free encyclopedia in which armies of volunteers instantly update entries, so it announced that it was going to kill the dying Encarta. Tomorrow, like the windows of a haunted Halloween house, all the Encarta websites will "go dark", as the tech people say. Here's how Microsoft explained its decision: "People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past. As part of Microsoft's goal to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today's consumer, it has made the decision to exit the Encarta business."

Bill Gates started Encarta in 1993. He wanted to equip PCs with a CD-ROM encyclopedia, but his preferred business partner, Encyclopaedia Britannica, wasn't interested. So he decided to make his own and fill it with top-quality photographs, which is why he bought the image service Corbis. Then, along came Wikipedia. Although that reference's text-based approach could not compete with the graphics and design of Encarta, that wasn't important to users.

Personally, I'll miss Encarta and its superb World English Dictionary. Here's how it defined one of my favourite words:

pizzazz (noun) an attractive and exciting vitality, especially when combined with style and glamour.

Encarta had pizzazz, but now it's dead. Tomorrow, it will be buried.