Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Google Launching E-Book Store Next Year

by Terrence O'Brien on October 15, 2009 at 06:01 PM

Google Launching E-Book Store Next YearGoogle is finally trying to make some money from its controversial Google Books project. Sometime early next year, Google Editions will be launched as an outlet for e-books, thanks to deals the search giant has struck with publishers.

Right out of the box, Google will offer some 500,000 books, both direct to consumers and though retail channels like Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. Of course, as with everything Google does, the company will host the electronic texts on its own servers, make them searchable, allow customers to access them from almost any Web-capable device, and provide the books in an open format that can be loaded onto any e-book reader. That openness is seen as a direct challenge to the dominance of Amazon and the walled garden that is its Kindle ecosystem.


Of course, Google will have to find some way to break through the noise. 'Kindle' has quickly become synonymous with 'e-reader,' much as the iPod has with 'MP3 player.' There's also the still unresolved suit jointly filed by the American Association of Publishers and the Authors Guild over Google's scanning and indexing of 10 million books through partnerships with libraries. And even if the U.S. lawsuit is settled, European trade groups may follow with legal challenges of their own.

All that being said, there's still no reason to expect that any of this will dissuade the almighty Goog from carrying forth with the project. The boys and girls in Mountain View, California are no strangers to controversy, competition, or failure. This might be exactly what the e-book market needs to make things interesting. [From: Yahoo! News]

Tags: e-book, e-book reader, E-bookReader, e-reader, google books, google editions, GoogleBooks, GoogleEditions, kindle, top

Comments

1

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular