if you like Lovecraft... Posted on 12/06/2010 2:27:32 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Google Inc. on Monday threw down its newest gauntlet in the tech industry, launching its long-awaited online bookstore as a shot against the offerings from Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc.
Google says its e-book store has more than 3 million titles, many of which are free, from almost 4,000 publishers, including Simon & Schuster Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!cbs/quotes/nls/cbs (CBS 17.66, +0.03, +0.17%) and Random House. Additionally, Google /quotes/comstock/15*!goog/quotes/nls/goog
(GOOG 578.50, +0.14, +0.02%) will let independent bookstores sell books through their own sites on the Google e-book store.
“Launching Google eBooks is an initial step toward giving you greater access to the vast variety of information and entertainment found in books,” said Abraham Murray, product manager of Google Books, in a posting in the company’s official blog.
Is there a commercial lesson in WikiLeaks being kicked off Amazon's servers? By highlighting that not all cloud computing is created equal, the episode could benefit companies whose solutions face fewer risks, Rolfe Winkler reports.
The main feature of the Google initiative is that it uses a cloud-hosting environment that allows customers to buy and store their books with Google, as opposed to downloading and storing books on traditional electronic reading devices.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Most interesting.
Yikes, it is.
What does this mean for authors, I wonder?
later
It hardly counts of ‘throwing down the gauntlet’ when it lands on a huge pile of gauntlets that everyone else already threw.
Bookmarked
Free Speculative Fiction is a good one for free Science Fiction stories
True.
I saw an online article this morning showing the Kindle market share in rapid decline due to the iPad — I like the iPad, don’t have either product, but I think a specialized ebook machine would be better for avid readers, while a tablet CPU would be better for, well, most people. :’)
if you like Lovecraft...
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