Google is clearly moving fast in setting up partnerships with ebook reader manufacturers and store operators to give some weight to its threat to Amazon and the latter’s Kindle product line.
First, the company teamed up with Sony, adding about 1 million public domain books to the technology giant’s eBook Store.
Now Mountain View has sealed a deal with British Interead, bringing the same amount of ebooks to an online store outside the U.S. for the first time (where close to half a million of them are available for free).
Reading-based Interead is the company behind ebook store COOLERBOOKS. The company also manufactures COOL-ER eReaders, small, elegant ebook readers that kinda look like giant iPods and cost $249 in the United States.
COOLERBOOKS.com accommodates 19 document formats, including EPUB and PDF, and MP3 for audio books, giving the ebookstore the broadest range of formats available on the web.
Enough to pose a threat to Amazon, just the beginning, or a venture destined for failure? Time will tell, but it’s always good to have alternative free ebook stores, even if you won’t be finding the bestsellers over there.
I guess I better go and research how the devices compare… i was always under the impression that the Kindle is the best device out there for this kind of thing
Awesome! Google has moved geared up once again to compete with Amazon team. The impressive fact is that they can accommodate many document formats, including EPUB and PDF, and MP3 for audio books, with E-books.
Really, The threats to Amazon’s Kindle raise up. Google’s grand open book system is now with PDF format and MP3 for audio books. Sure this is going to monopolize the industry.
Vaibhav wrote: “I better go and research how the devices compare…”
It’s hard to be the “best” of anything for long when everyone is using the same parts, the same suppliers and there is very little opportunity for innovation in the combination of those parts. The bookreader today is essentially a largely undifferentiated “commodity” product even though many still consider this market to be “young.” (But note: I bought my first Sony bookreader back in 1994…) The differences between the devices in this market seem to be primarily easthetic decisions or simple binary choices like whether or not to include cell-phone data connection.
The real competition in this market is not between the devices but rather between the business models and infrastructures that will support them. From Amazon, you get a centralized “Big Brother” closed system. Other vendors are hoping that an open, more democratic system is the one that will give them the best opportunity to profit. Compare the business models — which have differences, not the devices which are largely equivelant at this point.
bob wyman
Wait till Apple jumps into the foray…and u’ll see plenty of innovation in this market too…:)
What you said is right on as far as what I am looking for with regard to an e-reader. I would have bought a Kindle a long time ago but when I found out that you can only download publications from Amazon and no one else I stopped. I am looking for a more expansive model rather than the restrictive model offered by Amazon. Does anyone have any indications about that type of format with regard to these products?
Of course , kindle is the best e-reader available as of today..
Maybe it’s just business, but Google’s partnerships have seemed almost vindictive, like Amazon peed in their coffee or something.
I’m not sure what all the hubub is about anyway; these are all public domain books, most of which the general population doesn’t want to read anyway. And since they’re public domain, it’s pretty easy to convert them to be read on any device, Kindle or otherwise.
It was only a matter of time before the market would evolve this way. Although the Kindle and Kindle Store combo is doing well, it still follows the Razor and Blade Model. Now with so many companies offering readers (blades), competition will drive down yieds on devices.
However, on the content distribution platform game (razors), Amazon still is hard to beat. If Amazon wants to continue its domination, it might want to make adjstments and evolve as content distribuion platform of choice. That way they become the universal razor for all blades. It already has experience offering APIs, so it knows a thing or two about opening up its platform.
Being a universal content distribution platform is natural for Google, but it would be interesting to see how they handle commercial books. We’ll see how Amazon evolves its offering to compete.
In my mind the razor and blades are reversed from your example. The Kindle is the razor while the content (books, blogs, newspapers, etc.) are the blades.
Amazon isn’t in this to sell Kindles I don’t think, they are in this to sell content. If they were doing a true Gillette razor and blade marketing system I think the Kindle would be sold at a loss in order to get in the most hands as possible. Amazon has decided not to do that though. It may be they feel they would not be able to get away with it and be hit for anti competitive behavior or they don’t want to take the up front loss.
Amazon is a content company first and foremost. They want you to buy lots of small items. The Kindle is just another way for you to consume that content. This is why they have an iPhone Kindle app as well. I would not be surprised to see expansions to where you can consume Amazon’s content in the future.
Kindle has 3G wireless connectivity, COOL -ER eReaders have no Wi-Fi or any mobile conectivity.
All other specs are pretty much compatible, except of course for the file formats accepted.
I don’t think Google aims this just to beat Amazon. Google wants an open source, while Amazon and others want DRM all the way.
If they add wifi, this will be a real winner
Hm, this phrase is weird.
theezreader accomodates 20+ document formats, which makes it a better candidate for “the broadest range of formats available on the web” award.
Or are they suddenly talking about their store in the same sentence?
Doesn’t Kindle steal books? Uh I wouldnt want to buy anything that the merchant can track or delete off my billion dollar kindle! oh you can read that…delete!
agree.. i don’t like the fact that amazon will just delete a book like Animal Farm and 1984 because they messed up. Also to pay 500 for a dx, because I need something that supports pdf , a format that has been around forever, is just ridiculous.
very strange the device says its operating system is LINUX and it also says that its only compatible with PC and MAC… wht happened to linux?? someone should ask them.
It doesn’t say it’s only ONLY compatible with Mac or Windows – it says it IS compatible with Mac and Windows and since the OS IS Linux, shouldn’t that make it automatically compatible? :L
It will be hard to keep the average consumer interested with Google’s books out of the ‘800s. And when she will check out the for-sale book categories, finding that most of them are for the Microsoft Reader format only, the disappointment will be unavoidable.
All books must be in all formats. Or all readers have to settle on one open format. Until then consumers will keep waiting for viable alternatives to the Kindle.
I thought prison libraries had a *bad* reputation, so why choose that name?
Um, do only three people in the world know that Google’s eBooks are utter crap? Doesn’t anyone else bother to check?
Google’s One Million eBooks Of Crap!
http://ebooktes...ks-of-crap.html
Seems interesting but i m thinking far ahead. Can i demand more, i mean all things assorted on one platform (PDA or something new) coz it’ll so difficult to carry phone, ipod, coolerbooks,notebook together. I can’t wait to use them but i really want something more handy and affordable.
I have the complete Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Homer, and Shakespeare on my iPhone so I don’t really see how Google and Amazon can compete.
In the “future” I see this: a writer will just need to open a web browser, his favorite on line editor and type his novel… then when ready to “publish” just click on something like “Send to Google Books” or “Amazon Books” and, upon approval, his new (e)book will be “published” in minutes. .. Wait, isn’t that just how a Blog works ?? so, here’s an idea: create a new ‘Blog’ web site and add a button “Text-To-eBook”
))) . what do you think ?
Michael,
It will be easy for the readers if you open all external site links into a new window so we do not have to leave the techcrunch.com site. It is annoying to go away from the site each time we click on a link!
Thank you
Tom V
http://www.SocialPulse.com
Those look a lot like iPod Nanos!
…competition?…what competition?…a little program called “Savory” can convert epub and pdf files to mobi files that can be read on either Kindle 2 or Kindle DX…Kindle DX already has a converter onboard that works with pdf files; I’m not sure about epub…regardless, I don’t think there’s a file out there that I can’t read on my Kindles…and if you want a variety of books, I suggest going to archive.org and looking at their collections…and I can read them ALL on my Kindles…and Googlebooks?…based on my experience, most of Google’s library is offered as PDF’s as well as ePub — so, again, no problem for my Kindles…”cooler-ER reader”?…well, they do come in pretty colors but otherwise — so what?…no wireless…they don’t keep a backup of your library online so if you lose it, then you’re just out of luck…and did you see the prices of “coolerbooks”?…Clive Cussler’s “Medusa” — Kindle’s $9.99 versus coolerbooks $22.36…wow — that’s some REAL tough competition there, buddy…so much for “TechCrunch” credibility…