Three Selling Points of Google Editions

Google has finally decided to go full blown on their e-book initiative through their recently announced Google Editions which competes directly with Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks, & Kobo. The search engine has been scanning old and out of print books for the last few years and after 10 percent completion have progressed their business model eyeing every book on the planet. Google has reached a settlement with the “Authors Guild, Association of American Publishers and other major author and publishing firms to publish their work and make them searchable.
The move by Google is bound to happen and most likely they have been planning and thinking about it from the get go. They might have started with old books to keep their relationship in good terms with Amazon whom they have partnered in many business ventures. Starting out with “out of print” books also allowed them to develop their technology while keeping a low profile and stay out of radar with the big firms.
The three selling points of Google Edition are as follows:
1. Cloud based e-books – readers no longer have to purchase a specific device to read their e-books only maintaining a limited set of books at a time. All their books are in the cloud which takes care of storage and maintenance.
2. Ability to download in multiple platforms – for people going offline, downloading the e-books no longer require a specific device and have readers perform migration activities to view their downloads in different devices.
3. Google’s technology excellence should allow publishers to reach wider audience and provide better viewing experience to readers.
Google can quickly turn their Google Editions into a huge success to the dismay and disappointment of Amazon and the rest of the players.
I am personally going to be a big user of Google Editions as I have loved my current Books24x7.com subscription which is similar to what Google’s future product offering is going to be. I have never wanted to have another device to maintain in Amazon Kindle, and the like.
Bravo to Google on this.