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Google Set To Tackle eBook Market
Mike writes "Google's latest decision to try its hand selling eBooks promises to make life in the eBook world more interesting, and will likely spur a standards war that in the end may prove beneficial to many consumers. Google's eBook store will pit it directly against Amazon and Amazon's Kindle — an enormously popular eBook reader. This will push many companies to create eBook readers to take advantage of Google's new store, and will flood the market with tough choices. Google does not have a dedicated eBook reader yet, but it seems a logical next step for the search giant."
I seem to remember people saying the same thing about cell phones, but Google is not a hardware company. I'd look for an API and not much else.
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
Lets hope they can bring the price down to 'every man'. 400 for a kindle is pretty steep for a lot people, even during the best of times.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Will they be selling books with or withOUT DRM?
I own a Hanlin V3, and to a great extent stopped using it, as I can't get the books I want for it.
Unless Google teams their ebooks with Apple on a new tablet.
Then, watch out Amazon.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Android based app that's free and open source even, with an essentially open standard so anyone can program nearly anything to connect up. Between an iphone/ipod touch app and an android app, there's just enough space for a dedicated ebook reader to flourish. Maybe a nice addition to a ebook reader is a way to share a book with friends, maybe via bluetooth, letting you transfer a set amount (like in Google books where you only see part of the book) and then a linking system to allow you purchase the rest. Might make it more compelling. If tracked as to who recommended it to who, it could have a new start to rating books, by number of recommendations made.
Amazon's Kindle an enormously popular eBook reader.
I'm not sure the description "enormously popular" is deserved. Just because it is out selling other eBook readers doesn't make it "enormously popular"; how many of these have actually sold?
It doesn't seem that the eBook market has really expanded to the point of anything yet being worthy of the "enormously popular" status, AFAIK.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I want an eBook device that can read the eBooks I already bought and own.
They are in PDF and some on CHM format.
If I am going to spend $300 or more for an eBook device I might as well buy a Netbook that can use PDF and CHM formats for the same price.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
...it will only sell unfinished books
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Yep. I never used iTunes because it didn't run on my OS, and it had DRM (light DRM, but DRM nevertheless). The first time I ever bought music online was from Amazon, and now I'm buying all my music on Amazon. All Amazon had to do to get my business was to offer me the opportunity to pay my money in return for an mp3 file, which nobody else was willing to let me do.
The Kindle is exactly analogous. It has a proprietary format, with DRM. Google says they want to have a format that works on a variety of devices, which presumably means no DRM. If they execute the idea well, I'll probably buy my first electronic book from Google.
Find free books.
Always the same back and forth on this topic every time eBooks are mentioned.
Someone says smartphones/PDAs are better, then someone else (like me) responds that the benefit of an eInk display is:
1) There is no backlight, which helps alleviate eyestrain during long reading sessions.
2) There is no screen refresh, so you can read for a very long time without killing your battery.
Having read extensively on a homebrew-enabled PSP with a LCD screen and now on a Sony PRS-700, I know that the LCD screen does hurt my eyes and the eInk screen does not.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
No, you misread the ending. I read the same book.
[SPOILER ALERT]
The killer's name really was Low Battery.
Low had tried to frame his brother the rapper, 9V. But the power required to electrocute the victim was too high -- and 9V demonstrated he had full charge by having the detective place both his contacts on his tongue. While 9V lost a lot of street cred for getting tongued by a male detective, it did show that he was fully-charged and quite innocent.
So then Low Battery tried to frame his sister, Anita Agatha Battery, but AA Battery simply didn't have the brute power necessary for the job.
Out of blood relatives (and it had to be one of the siblings, as established by DC-NA testing), by process of elimination, it was Low Battery who depleted his power by committing the electrocution, with terminal results.
So sorry. That last pun was just over the top.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I'm probably missing something obvious, but I have yet to understand why we need to insert a middleman store into the chain between producer and consumer.
It seems to me cheaper and more efficient for the publisher of a book (or the author himself) to provide downloads directly.
For physical products, it makes sense to provide some kind of middleman to take care of the hassles involved with delivering the product; but for electronic products, it's not at all obvious to me why such a middleman is necessary.
As an author, I'm still struggling with the question of whether to make electronic versions of my books available; but if were to do so, (and especially having carefully read the contract that Amazon makes you sign to make your work available for the Kindle) I wouldn't be inclined to insert another profit-making entity between me and my readers.
I have been buying ebooks directly from the publisher Baen: www.baen.com For 4 years now. There prices are reasonable $7.99 for a typical release of book that is available in hard cover or 5.99 for a book that is available in paper back. They release the books in multiple formats including HTML. So the books that I bought 4 years ago and read with my palm I can now download again to my iphone and continue to read it. The prices are reasonable so I do not even think about looking for alternative sources for the book *cough bittorrent cough* I have been extremely happy with there products. I just wish other publishers would follow suit so I can continue buying ebooks of other authors that I enjoy. Curiously I just sent an email to Amazon.ca early today at how (since I am in Canada) I cannot get the kindle app or kindle books and how I have not bought any books from them for 4 years because I only buy ebooks. Well everyone says that the customer should decide and I have decided to only buy books as ebooks and I prefer without drm; baen meets those requirements so they get my business and thus far they are my sole source of fantasy/science fiction books that I have bought in the last 4 years.
Wouldn't the Kindle be more analogous to the iPod? Both can use a proprietary, DRMed format. But both also work with well-known, non-DRMed formats. Also, if Google's formats are really open, then won't people be able to read them on Kindles?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
along the right side of each page in the ebook.... yep "ads by google" :D
No, we will see a format war once Amazon has to start considering implementing ePub on the Kindle (because they can no longer ignore other stores, that only carry their books in ePub or DRMed mobi (which doesn't work on the Kindle, because its mobi DRM implementation is different from the standard mobi implementation, even though they own Mobipocket. Can you spell "lock-in"?), or because they want to be able to sell books to people who don't own a Kindle.
Anyway, ePub can technically already do typesetting, as far as that goes in reflowable formats, through CSS. Mobipocket's typesetting possibilities suck. The format is outdated, and although it can be upgraded, it should just go the way of the dodo.
That said, for any book requiring footnotes (endnotes work in ePub), you will need PDF, as I know of no other format that will display them. Reflowable footnotes would be really neat, and are technically possible in ePub, but there is no working implementation yet.
PDF is a terrible format for ebooks. It's designed to instruct a printer how to draw on paper of a specifc, fixed size. An ebook format needs to deal with different screen sizes (possibly wildly different - I read ebooks on my 1280x800 laptop screen and my 177x220 phone screen) and different text sizes (my long-sighted father is going to want larger text in his ebooks than I do). PDF doesn't allow for the kind of reflow that a good ebook reader is going to employ.
The original article seem to focus entirely on a Amazon vs Google battle. But in that article is missing one point: Kindle is not available outside the US. That is: you need an USA registered Credit Card with a USA address to buy one. Yes there are work around - but why should I support a flawed business model.
So for me living outside the US I had to look else where for for eBooks. And if you do you will soon notice that there are better eBook reader then Kindle and that there are better eBook shops then Amazon. Amazon is largely capitalising there good name here. In fact currently it is more like Amazon vs the rest of the world.
For me there is no doubt who is going to win in the long run. While USA is a large marked but it does only represent 5% of human population. Well, unless Amazon changes there business model that is.