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Monday, December 6, 2010

Google Bookstore Snuffs E-Book Market Monopolies


In my post yesterday I ranted about the dumb Apple mis-management of their clients' subscribers' data; and mentioned that they would lose clients to Google and others if they didn't change their hoarding of actual content provider subscription info...gained through docking on and selling through their iPad store.

Well Google opened their eBook store today! This should change the competitive landscape a little more than just a tad, my friends.

This account of the Google eBook store opening by Matthew Flamm of Crain'e New York Business:

Google shakes up e-book market

The long awaited Google e-bookstore opened for business Monday, heralding a possible sea change in the business of selling digital books.

Describing itself as the world's largest e-books collection, Google eBooks has an inventory of more than 3 million titles, which includes millions of public domain books that are available for free, and several hundred thousand titles that are for sale.

Though some analysts have noted that Google is untested at e-commerce, the search giant's digital bookstore has enough distinctive features to make it attractive for users, publishers and bookselling partners. Most significantly, Google is using a device-agnostic open e-publishing format, which makes its e-books compatible with computers and e-readers from Barnes & Noble, Sony and Kobo, which also use the open format.

A Google eBooks application can be downloaded for the Apple iPad and iPhone.

In addition, since Google has placed the titles in what is known as an “open cloud” platform, they can be accessed by the same user from a range of devices, each one picking up on the same page where the user left off.

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