Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Possessing novels with the Google e-bookstore

Formally, the Google e-bookstore opened for business today. Google is attempting to maximize readability of the e-books. This includes storing book purchases “on the cloud”. The questions of whom and how one owns a book, though, are more difficult.

Google e-books accessible now

The launch of the Google e-bookstore began. Monday, December 6 is when it happened. All "public domain" novels are accessible for free while current books are accessible from $9 to $20 at the Google electronic book shop. You will find 35,000 national publishers and regarding 4,000 publisher partners within the U.S. that have partnered to work with Google e-book services. Google e-books also have partnered with the American Booksellers Association, Powell’s and other novel sellers. The ePub and PDF format of the novels is displayed on the Java-based e-reader that also has the page number. Your Google account is where you shop all your Google electronic books that you purchase in order to access them from your gadget.

Google e-books customer support accessible

The Google e-bookstore isn’t the first time Google has tried to enter the retail market. Google tried to pull of the retail product of the Google Nexus One. There were lots of consumer support grievances even though the phone did relatively well. The program for Google electronic books will not fail or succeed based on customer support. The support will probably make a little bit of a difference in the popularity of the support though.

Thinking about possession of Google e-books

The move of customers to the e-books industry raises queries beyond just where money is being spent. It is more like "renting" a copy of a book with an e-book purchase rather than just buying it. The novel itself is still on the servers of a company, and also you have rights to access it. This fuzzy line of possession makes it tough to do many of the things that a physical novel is good for. Not only can you not lend a novel to a friend if you love it, but marking the pages or carrying it around without a battery is tough. This year, Amazon made changes. These affected those who already purchased e-books also. However, electronic books could be really helpful. They could be purchased many places including the e-book store. In the end, though, printed books still surely have their place.

Citations

Tech Crunch

techcrunch.com/2010/12/06/google-ebooks-e-reading-takes-to-the-cloud/



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