Google Infinite Digital Bookcase
Google: We designed a digital bookcase that’s an infinite 3D helix; http://eicker.at/Google3DBookcase
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Google eBooks
Google: Google eBooks will be available in the U.S. from a new Google eBookstore; http://eicker.at/GoogleeBooks
Gerrit Eicker
Google Editions: Ready to Launch?
WSJ: Google is in final stages of launching its eBook retailing venture, Google Editions; http://eicker.at/GoogleEditions
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Gerrit Eicker
WSJ: “In recent weeks, independent booksellers, which are expected to play a big role in Google Editions, began receiving contracts from their trade group. Several publishers said they were exchanging files with Google – a sign that it is close to launch, publishers say. … Google Editions hopes to upend the existing e-book market by offering an open, ‘read anywhere’ model that is different from many competitors. … Key details of Google’s e-book project remain unanswered. Foremost is what percentage of revenue Google will share with independent bookstores and other retailers. … Google says it is on a mission to reach all Internet users, not just those with tablets, through a program in which websites refer their users to Google Editions. … The strategy of not having its own e-reader device could actually give Google a competitive advantage, says Brian Murray, CEO of News Corp.’s HarperCollins Publishers Inc. … Google’s launch, which publishers cautioned has been delayed before and could be delayed again, comes at a pivotal moment in the digital books transformation.”
TC: “So it’s no surprise that Google is jumping into the fray with the long-awaited Google Editions service, set to launch by the end of the year in the U.S. and first quarter of 2011 internationally. But between Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and independent publishing services like Amazon’s DTP and the unfortunately-named Pubit, is there room for another player? Not that that’s ever stopped anyone from trying – but I think in this case it may be that Google brings something new to the table: decentralization. … The advantages of not having to go through, for instance, Amazon, when selling your book, are hard to quantify. But the notion that an author will be able to place a widget on their own page, and have the book-buying transaction be self-contained rather than being transferred to Amazon, is significant. … The Google Editions news comes on the heels of a major announcement by Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers, to the effect that they’ve worked out their long-running issues and will be cooperating on the service.”
VB: “Google is working on an affiliate program that will let website owners earn revenue by recommending ebooks on Editions, and it’s also partnering with independent booksellers to share revenue from their websites. It’s unclear how much revenue Google will share with affiliates or booksellers, but I suspect it will have to be more than the 10 percent Amazon offers its affiliates for Kindle ebook sales. … Google is positioning the ebook store as an extension of Google Books, its plan to scan the roughly 150 million books ever published worldwide. The book scanning project is currently about 10 percent complete, according to Google executives.”
TNW: “Several things excite me about Google getting into publishing. First is that they aren’t going to be tied to a physical ereader. They are starting off from the perspective of distributing content. Which is how it should be. But that independence might come at a price: adoption. … Here is the bottom line. I’ve always seen ebooks as a boon for authors and publishers who can adapt to them. I’m not saying paper books are going anywhere (though for me they keep going in drawers), I’m saying that ebooks allow authors to offer books to a large audience while keeping costs low with lower print runs. If the ebook sells better than the paper one, well don’t print as many of the paper ones. – Yes, not everyone will be able to take advantage of this and Google Editions might wind up like Google Wave and Buzz, but I think that in the last few months we’ve seen more interest in epublishing not less and I think this interest is going to turn into success for Google.”
Gerrit Eicker
Google Editions Ante Portas?
WSJ: Google plans to begin selling digital books via Google Editions in late June/July; http://j.mp/aAyQiB
Gerrit Eicker
Google Wants in on Your Action
Dumenco: If you are in a business that is connected to information, Google wants in on your action; http://j.mp/addmGD
Gerrit Eicker
Google Book Settlement?
Katz: You can not settle a claim for copyright infringement by authorizing the miscreant to continue; http://j.mp/a4KJOz
Gerrit Eicker
Digital Book Deal
The new terms of the digital book deal pave the way for other companies to licence from Google; http://j.mp/1a1tnz
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Gerrit Eicker
SEL: “As expected, a revised Google Book Settlement has been filed today – about as late as possible. The agreement narrows the scope to the US, UK, Canada and Australia. It alters how revenue generated by ‘unclaimed works’ will be handled. It formally grants retailers who license out-of-print books covered by the settlement – including Google competitors – a 37% share of sales. It also clarifies how the book pricing algorithm will work.”
NYT: “The changes also restrict the Google catalog to books published in the United States, Britain, Australia or Canada. That move is intended to resolve objections from the French and German governments, which complained that the settlement did not abide by copyright law in those countries. – The revised settlement could make it easier for other companies to compete with Google in offering their own digitized versions of older library books because it drops a provision that was widely interpreted as ensuring that no other company could get a better deal with authors and publishers than the one Google had struck.”
Google: “The changes we’ve made in our amended agreement address many of the concerns we’ve heard (particularly in limiting its international scope), while at the same time preserving the core benefits of the original agreement: opening access to millions of books while providing rightsholders with ways to sell and control their work online. … We’re disappointed that we won’t be able to provide access to as many books from as many countries through the settlement as a result of our modifications, but we look forward to continuing to work with rightsholders from around the world to fulfill our longstanding mission of increasing access to all the world’s books.”
Brantley, Open Book Alliance: “Our initial review of the new proposal tells us that Google and its partners are performing a sleight of hand; fundamentally, this settlement remains a set-piece designed to serve the private commercial interests of Google and its partners. None of the proposed changes appear to address the fundamental flaws illuminated by the Department of Justice and other critics that impact public interest. By performing surgical nip and tuck, Google, the AAP, and the AG are attempting to distract people from their continued efforts to establish a monopoly over digital content access and distribution; usurp Congress’s role in setting copyright policy; lock writers into their unsought registry, stripping them of their individual contract rights; put library budgets and patron privacy at risk; and establish a dangerous precedent by abusing the class action process.”
Gerrit Eicker
Google Editions
Google plans to launch an online store to deliver eBooks to any Web browser: Google Editions; http://j.mp/3uzQJu
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Gerrit Eicker
Yahoo/Reuters: “The Web search giant said on Thursday it would launch Google Editions in the first half of next year, initially offering about half a million e-books in partnership with publishers with whom it already cooperates, where they have digital rights. – Readers will be able to buy e-books either from Google directly or from other online stores such as Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com. Google will host the e-books and make them searchable.”
TC: “No wonder Jeff Bezos is trying to block Google’s book settlement. Google wants to loosen his grip on the digital book industry through his Amazon-only Kindle. … If Google can turn any browser into a digital book reader and it can offer as good a catalog as Amazon can on the Kindle, then that is one less reason to buy a Kindle.”
SEL: “Google will share e-book revenue with publishers and, if the e-book is bought somewhere other than Google’s store, with the retailer that sells it. When Google sells the e-book directly, publishers will get 63% of revenue and Google will keep the rest. When a third-party retailer sells the e-book, the publisher will get 45%, and the retailer will get ‘most of the remaining 55%,’ Google said.”
Mashable: “To the consumer, Google’s entry into the electronic books market is most certainly a good thing. It means more customer choice, more widespread support for eBook open standards, and better access to the books they buy online. You’ll be able to use your Gmail login to access your Google eBook ‘library’ from almost any device, whether it be desktop, laptop, netbook, phone, or anything else able to access the web.”
Gerrit Eicker
Fighting Against Google Books
Authors, academics, librarians are fighting against Google creating a digital library and bookstore; http://j.mp/1Y4jnV
Gerrit Eicker
Google Orphans
Schonfeld: “Google needs to free the orphans … a deal between authors and any book digitizer”; http://tr.im/k57n
Gerrit Eicker 07:33 on 19. October 2011 Permalink |
Google: “As digital designers, we often think about how to translate traditional media into a virtual space. Recently, we thought about the bookcase. What would it look like if it was designed to hold digital books? – A digital interface needs to be familiar enough to be intuitive, while simultaneously taking advantage of the lack of constraints in a virtual space. In this case, we imagined something that looks like the shelves in your living room, but is also capable of showcasing the huge number of titles available online – many more than fit on a traditional shelf. With this in mind, we designed a digital bookcase that’s an infinite 3D helix. You can spin it side-to-side and up and down with your mouse. It holds 3D models of more than 10,000 titles from Google Books. – The books are organized into 28 subjects. To choose a subject, click the subject button near the top of your screen when viewing the bookcase. The camera then flies to that subject. Clicking on a book pulls it off the shelf and brings it to the front and center of the screen. Click on the high-resolution cover and the book will open to a page with title and author information as well as a short synopsis, provided by the Google Books API. All of the visuals are rendered with WebGL, a technology in Google Chrome and other modern browsers that enables fast, hardware-accelerated 3D graphics right in the browser, without the need for a plug-in.”
TC: “I wrote a while back about the eventual necessity for the internet to become beautiful. The trouble is that the things in the world we consider beautiful in an informational context – magazine and book layouts, typography, etc. – are necessarily limited in the information they have to present. It’s this limitation, the known quantity aspect, that lets designers work effectively. – How should you design something, then, that presents effectively limitless information (say, all the world’s books) through a fairly limited medium (say, a web browser)? Google has one idea. Put them on a gigantic helix. … But is this really something people will want to navigate? Probably not. People like analogs in their digital catalogs, and this one seems a little bit too off the wall. … Anyway, it’s a fun little experiment you can try out here. Note to Mac Laptop users: be careful how you swipe or you may accidentally navigate off the page or invoke some arcane gesture.”
VB: “With tablets and eReaders offering a number of new ways to experience books, the browser has been relatively ignored. However, not a lot of people consider getting into a bubble bath with their nice glass of wine and a laptop book to wind down the day, but you never know. To that end, the virtual bookcase may not be a competitor to the Kindle, but rather to the book discovery service overall. It could also simply be a way to funnel people toward purchasing Google Books, but it’s still pretty cool.“