The Wall Street Journal got the adrenalin pumping. Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), the paper reported last week, plans to enter the digital book marketplace this summer, "throwing the search giant into a battle that already involves Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc."
If that doesn't get your blood pumping, what would? A Google vs. Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) vs. Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) dust-up is the kind of tech war we haven't seen since the early PC makers slugged it out for supremacy on the desktop. Pass the popcorn, and get ready for blood to be spilled.
Except the Journal may have utterly missed the point. What Google is doing may well have profound ramifications on when and how we acquire books. But Google may not be picking any kind of fight with Apple et al. What it may be doing instead is rewriting all the rules of book buying.
The reasons why Google may not be eyeing a beatdown of Amazon or Apple are multiple. According to New York-based publishing consultant Seth Gershel: "Apple gets an e-book competitor, but they want to sell devices and Google's entry does not diminish this."
Indeed, Google may assist Apple's strategy, because a stated mission for the so-called Google Editions is device neutrality -- any book ought to be readable on any device with a browser, and that very well could include the iPad. If Google creates iPad content, Cupertino has plenty to applaud.
As for Amazon, yes, Google may be intruding on its turf. Amazon wants to sell books, not so much devices, says New York media consultant Brian O'Leary, who points to the Kindle app's proliferation across multiple devices as a proof of Amazon's indifference to selling hardware.
Whenever Google sells a book that can be read on a Kindle, that definitely picks Amazon's pocket, says O'Leary. Still, a more immediate benefit for Amazon in that transaction may be that it wins in its format war versus Apple. Besides, he adds, Google does not think like a retailer -- it poses little threat to Amazon there.
Google's plans herald two certain winners, according to Chris Kenneally, director of author relations at the Copyright Clearance Center. He points to book publishers and authors, mainly because the more players there are in e-book publishing and distribution -- and Amazon, Apple, and Google make a dazzling trio -- the more negotiating power reverts back to the content creators and owners. This, he suggests, is win-win-win for copyright owners and readers alike.
No losers so far.
Let’s probe to the next level. Best guesses are that Google already has accumulated rights to some 12 million books. O’Leary thinks Google Edition books probably will reside in the cloud, not on devices, "and this will make digital rights management much more effective." The only cloud player at present is the nascent Kobo from Canada, a non-factor in the US market.
Put the book in a cloud, accessible only by a validated Google account holder, and "it gets much easier for Google to protect that content against unauthorized copying," notes O'Leary, who adds that textbook publishers in particular will rejoice. They are under mounting pressure to make their content available as lower-cost e-books, but real worries about mass copying have put the brakes on their efforts. Google Editions may change that.
Google also may want to reshape how and when we buy books, says O'Leary. What he envisions is a Google search for, say, cats and fleas. Traditionally, results would be a list of Web pages with information on that topic. But what if, with Google Editions, Google decides to mix in a link to a book about cat health, with options for immediate e-book delivery, or delivery of a print-on-demand copy the next day?
"Amazon is good at selling us books when we look for books, but Google may be positioning itself to sell us books when we are not looking for a book, just for information on a topic," says O'Leary. "But when a book is the best source of information, Google appears to want to position itself to sell it to us."
And that changes all the rules.
— Robert McGarvey is a widely published author and expert on social media.
But what if, with Google Editions, Google decides to mix in a link to a book about cat health, with options for immediate e-book delivery, or delivery of a print-on-demand copy the next day?
They are already doing this, and have been since they released Google Books a year or more ago, but all of the "buy" links went to Amazon, B&N, etc. The big change here is that now Google is being the retailer, selling the ebooks directly. It's not really that big of a leap.
It's true, between Apple's Ipad and Google's Book Search technology, this company is transforming the old traditional publishing industry into a new world order. Even print on demand book publishers are turning to Google to fulfil services their services. Whatever happens now in publishing, Google is a huge name.
Oh I know it's not a printed, sit on the shelf kind of book. Instead it sits on a cloud, like you say. But I think that Google can develop an edition that "stamps it" as theirs, verses iPad or Kindle edition (who can do the same).
Whether it's with special illustrations that aren't found in other editions, or "annotated by" would be interesting to see, eh?
As the son of a librarian, I've seen a good number of special editions
It's really not a "rose is a rose" kind of situation, though. A hardback edition on your parents' shelf is permanent. The only ways to destoy, retract, or alter the text are for the book to be destroyed, or for someone to physically enter the house and take the book, or switch it for something else.
Google Editions, from what I've read, is not a line of printed books. It's just e-books. And, much like gmail, google docs, and everything else google, it will probably be stored mostly in the cloud.
I agree that Google isn't Apple's competitor but I will add the word "yet". I've read a few articles such as this that talks about a Google - Verizon alliance to create an iPad-killer.
Google is quickly becoming the Walmart of cloud computing. The family grocery store simply cannot compete. They are who we turn to for all our needs. And what a great marketing strategy. The problem with that model (for us, not them), is all our digital eggs are in one basket. If that system fails, then we are up dodo creek. And even now, we are believers in the Google cloud, but we regularly run into network issues while saving files...and that can be frustrating. Personally, I admire them for trying, but I do not see intelligent people not buying real books. I read books because i stare at screens all day.
...since Google first announced Google Books. For several years they tried to scan all books in the public domain, then all books, period, in order to add books as searchable text. But book publishers and authors kicked up quite a fuss, and I think it was only last year that they reached some sort of settlement involving, what else, money. So this is the first fruit of this new landscape. With the publishers and authors now on Google's side, this could definitely be a gamechanger.
I've hesitated to get involved in e-books up to now, because frankly, I don't like the ones I've sampled. They're heavy, hard to read, and the scrolling required annoys me. Further, I've been unimpressed with the literature available on e-book devices.
A massive move cloudward could promote development of e-readers for people like me. If that happens, we might justifiably credit Google with groundbreaking foresight. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Interesting points - the lack of annotating or otherwise "writing down the margins" is a serious drawback for me and a complete conversion (okay, almost complete conversion) to digital books.
To the point of "Google Editions" - I don't have a problem with this at all - we've accepted it in other forms of printed communications (aren't newspapers kind of like this?) and certainly I remember my parents having a few "famous books by the masters" printed editions on our shelves as kids - from children's books to classic literature to contemporary works.
So why not a Google version... ... ... or an Apple edition ... ... ... or an International Paperless version. That which we call a rose ... ... ...
Interestingly, the electronic annotating process ties into the privacy/DRM issue. Amazon is posting a list of passages most commonly highlighted by Kindle readers. As someone who is curious about what books and passages are on that list, I think that's a great idea. As a Kindle owner, I'm a bit wierded out. Surely, Amazon only plans to use its data about my own underlining as part of the big, aggregated picture. They don't care what I, personally, am underlining.
But Google does. Knowning what I'm underlining will help them target ads to me, especially if they integrate that information with all the other information they have about my searching, reading, favoriting, and clicking history. Which, of course, they will.
And sure, even though Google will only be using this information as part of an automated process to sell me stuff, it could be used for other, less benign purposes.
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