If you are an avid reader, the thought of a digital bookstore that you can access and read the same books you purchase across all of your gadgets will be very appealing. The WSJ reports that Google Editions will launch in the US by the end of 2010 and will then launch internationally in Q1 2011.
Google Editions is the Google digital bookstore and it will be accessible from any device with a web browser. That will mean you can read the books you buy on your Windows PC in the office, MacBook at home, and your Android tablet or smartphone on the bus. Books from Google Editions will be offered through multiple sellers with independent bookstores selling the books online as well.
All purchases will reportedly be tied to a central account so no matter where you buy them you will be able to get to your content in one place. Google Editions is expected to have hundreds of thousands of titles with millions of free offerings thanks to contracts with just about every publisher out there. The sheer number of titles in the library should make it easier to find obscure titles and hopefully get more content in genres like Sci Fi and fantasy that aren’t as readily available on other online bookstores.
Allow me to be the first of 4,000 people to point out that you can already do this on the Amazon Kindle – software that runs on the PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, and, yes, its own hardware too.
And Google have such a good relationship with those book publishers, don’t they? 😉
This is just an example of Google trying to get into everything…
The thing about it, is everything that they DO get into… the do exceptionally well.
I can’t say that I blame them for this move. iBooks are going to be a new niche just like any virtual product like music or video.
I’m sure we will see a jump in the GOOG stock as well.