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Google to Launch Digital Books Early this Summer

- By - Source : Tom's Guide US

Google has said it plans to be in the ebook business by late June or early July.

The Wall Street Journal this week carries a report in which it cites Chris Palma, Google's manager for strategic-partner development, as saying the search giant hopes to be selling electronic books early this summer via an electronic book store called Google Editions.

According to WSJ, the service will allow users to purchase digital books they discover through Google Book Search and retailers (independent and otherwise) will be able to sell Google Editions on their own websites. The bulk of the revenue from these sales will go to the partner.

The service is expected to differ from competition in that it will allow users to access books from a broad range of websites using an array of devices. Though there is a Kindle application for the desktop, it seems as though Google Editions will be much more open; Users can will be able to read books inside their browser and Google is even contemplating special software for reading on devices like the iPad and iPhone.

Read the full Wall Street Journal article here.

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babybeluga 05/05/2010 6:21 PM
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I max out my reading abilities on Tom's...

JMcEntegart 05/05/2010 6:30 PM
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babybeluga :
I max out my reading abilities on Tom's...



Worthy cause.

djtronika 05/05/2010 6:46 PM
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will it be beta for 4 years?

haunted one 05/05/2010 7:14 PM
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I think it's only a matter of time before Google overpowers Apple's app database.

tsk_cable 05/05/2010 7:25 PM
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WSJ Weekly Shonen Jump
=p

ksampanna 05/05/2010 8:00 PM
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But aren't almost all of them already available freely ol?

Mikeadelic 05/05/2010 8:11 PM
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djtronika :
will it be beta for 4 years?



yup, with a big fat smirk while it eats away at iBook sales.

Dirtman73 05/05/2010 9:16 PM
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Mikeadelic :
yup, with a big fat smirk while it eats away at iBook sales.



My god, it's like choosing between the lesser of two evils.

Dirtman73 05/05/2010 9:19 PM
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Google better improve the quality of their digital books. From what I've seen so far, the majority of what they offer is just digitized photocopies of the original books. Project Gutenberg does it much better.

JohnnyLucky 05/05/2010 9:50 PM
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Starting to sound interesting. I'm just having a bit of difficulty making the change from paperback to digital.

babybeluga 05/05/2010 9:59 PM
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JMcEntegart :
Worthy cause.



I like to think I'm pretty righteous.

...or something like that.

Dirtman73 05/06/2010 12:23 PM
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JohnnyLucky :
Starting to sound interesting. I'm just having a bit of difficulty making the change from paperback to digital.



I bought a nook a month ago, and I'm already used to it. I tried reading a real book last night, and it felt awkward. Don't know if that's good or bad :).

2zao 05/06/2010 4:51 PM
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GOOGLE is smart by not wanting to limit its market to one platform...

UNLIKE Apple and many other companies who try so hard to keep all of their content proprietary

gm0n3y 05/06/2010 5:38 PM
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They had better all be DRM free. I have a feeling that they'll be using the 'epub' standard, which despite being 'free and open' supports DRM:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB