Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Google Editions: A Stronger Player in the eBook Game


With the Launch of Google Editions there is now a safe and secure, cloud-based, space to store all of your eBooks. With all of this scrambling for control of the web and digital content I believe that with the release of Google Editions, Google has now taken a huge step forward in the book market. For a bit of time Google has provided access and to the most free, online books of any source. They have digitized the contents of first rate research universities all around the world. Now they are providing cloud storage for these eBooks so you really don't have to download them but just add then to you Google account called My Google eBooks. In addition there are apps to read this content on multiple devices including Android phones, iPhones and iPads. What's more is that Google is now providing an eBook store that will rival Amazon. It is as easy to use as Gmail or Blogger for that matter and I believe will cause ripples in the eBook market.

Notice on the left they now provide the option to perform Google like searches of book content. Essentially Google is sort of functioning like an eLibrarian and searching across content. Another function that is really fascinating is Google's ability to perform instant word usage studies. Take a look:


 This function allows you to type in any two words and it graphs their usage in print since 1800 or before. I compared the usage of Christianity and Islam and it was interesting to see that while Islam has not overpassed Christianity it has all but caught up in terms how many times the words are used in print. 






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