After Rejection, a Rocky Road For Google Settlement

Insightful analysis from Albanese, PW: "In the hours after Judge Denny Chin rejected the proposed Google Book Settlement, publishers and the Authors Guild said they were open to narrowing the scope of the proposed settlement in order to get a revised deal approved, while Google said it “would consider its options.” But after more than two years debating the settlement pros and cons, one thing is clear: the visionary arrangement once on the table is history. This morning, the parties will confront what comes next, and the rest of us what that might mean for the digitization of books. ... "

Google’s Next Stop May Be in Congress

NY Times: "SAN FRANCISCO — Now that a judge has curtailed Google’s ambitions to create a giant digital bookstore and library, the company is left with few appealing options. Google and groups representing publishers and authors were assessing their options Wednesday, trying to figure out whether they would remain allies or become enemies again. ... "

Google Announces Payment System for Digital Content: Google One Pass

NYTimes: "SAN FRANCISCO — A day after Apple stirred up online publishers by announcing a digital subscription plan that some called too restrictive and financially burdensome, Google on Wednesday announced its own payment service for digital content that aims to be more publisher-friendly. ... "

Apple, Google and the Publishers: Here’s How to Make Subscriptions Work

John Squires | AllThingsD: "In recent weeks, we’ve heard growing concern from magazine and newspaper publishers regarding the challenge of providing content for mobile media while preserving their print franchises. The concern is nothing new, but it’s apparent that content providers are at risk of losing track of their customers like toddlers in a shopping mall. ... "

Digital Book World: Google Says eBook Program Off to a Good Start

PW: "How’s Google eBooks doing so far? According to Google product manager Abraham Murray, speaking at Digital Book World yesterday, so far so good. In a talk entitled 10 Fun Facts about Google eBooks, Murray offered a few general observations about the first two months of the cloud-based program, although no solid numbers and no real surprises. ... "

"Send to Kindle" Pushes Web Articles from Chrome to Your Kindle

Lifehacker: "If you prefer spending more time reading on your Kindle than in your browser, you can quickly push content from your browser to your Kindle with Chrome extension Send to Kindle. Think of it like Chrome to Phone (or Chrome to iPhone) for your Kindle, minimizing what used to be a multi-step task into a single click. Instead of relying on Instapaper as the middle-man to sync articles, Send to Kindle syncs the article of your choice immediately. ... "

Google Acquires End-to-End EBook Technology Startup

WSJ:

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)--Google Inc. (GOOG) has acquired eBook Technologies Inc. in a move the Internet search giant said was aimed at delivering richer reading experiences on tablets, electronic readers and other portable devices.

It was not immediately clear how Google intends to use eBook's technologies, which include an end-to-end electronic book platform offering a full range of ebook products and services. ...

The deal comes just over one month after Google launched Google eBooks, its long-anticipated digital bookselling enterprise. Google eBooks will enable the Web giant to challenge two of its powerful rivals, Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), in the digital books business, which is valued at close to $1 billion and is expected to grow in the coming years.

Brussels Wants 7-Year Limit on Works Digitized by Google

James Kanter, NY Times: "Companies like Google that digitize artworks and books from public bodies should allow other companies and institutions to commercialize those materials after seven years, three experts advising the European Commission said Monday. ... "

Google Digital Newsstand Aims to Muscle In on Apple

WSJ: "Google Inc. and Apple Inc. have stepped up their battle to win over publishers, as the two companies vie to become the dominant distributor of newspapers and magazines for tablet computers and other mobile devices. Google is trying to drum up publishers' support for a new Google-operated digital newsstand for users of devices that run its Android software. With the effort, it is chasing Apple, which already sells digital versions of many major magazines and newspapers through its iTunes store. ... "

Amazon Debuts Kindle for Web, While Google Brings Knife to a Gunfight

VentureBeat:

Signaling renewed competition in the e-reading space, Amazon today debuted a web-based extension to their existing Kindle platform with a new product called Kindle for the Web, which is nearly identical to a product Google announced yesterday dubbed Google eBooks, which is also a cloud-based ebookstore and reading webapp that lives within the browser.

Unlike Google’s dearth of reading devices, Amazon’s new service snaps into the same “buy once, read everywhere” experience that the existing line-up has successfully offered: last-page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights synced and automatically archived across all Kindle hardware and applications for third-party platforms such as iOS, Android, Blackberry and the like.

Kindle for the Web affords a few extra features too: since whole books can now be read in an embeddable reader applet, independent third-party publishers and authors can now preview and sell content directly on their own sites, earning them referral fees through Amazon’s Associates Program.

These fees are in fact the only thing that really separate Kindle for the Web from Google eBooks, which has not yet developed a third-party seller model in their product.

It’s actually hard to see why Google would enter the e-reading market without disruptive new distribution and revenue models, facing up against entrenched competition from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, which can clearly afford to experiment. ...

Big Hiccups in Google eBooks

The Washington Post notes numerous problems:

Google's Web-based reader application will be able to show a book's original fonts and graphics, but it won't support offline reading at the start.

Other promised features didn't make the cut for the launch. The company held up support for copy-and-paste and printing, for example, after too many publishers balked. Highlighting and annotation features won't happen until later. The same goes for text-to-speech capabilities that would allow Google's reader programs to read a book aloud. ...

It's important to remember that although this is the seemingly unstoppable Google we're talking about, the Mountain View, Calif., company doesn't have that much experience selling directly to consumers. One of its few earlier ventures in that category - an online video store it launched in 2006 - lasted about a year and a half before Google shuttered it.

After trying out Google eBooks in two Web browsers, three mobile devices (an iPad 3G, an iPhone 4 and a Samsung Galaxy Tab) and one e-book reader (Barnes & Noble's NookColor), I can only think this store could use another run through the typewriter.

Browsing and searching through Google's e-book store is no problem, and it seems to stock the same new titles at the same prices as elsewhere. But its pricing and selection didn't beat the Kindle store's in a search for three older, Washington-related books.

Christopher Buckley's "Thank You for Smoking" costs $9.99 from Google but $8.69 on Amazon. My friend Robert Schlesinger's "White House Ghosts" goes for $13.99, the same as Amazon's Kindle price - and $1.30 more than what Amazon charges for a hardcover copy. Zachary Schrag's excellent history of the Washington Metro, "The Great Society Subway," is overpriced for the Kindle at $16.50, but Google asks $17.60 for a version, optimistically labeled "Better for larger screens," that offers only scanned-in images of pages.

When I switched to Google's iOS and Android apps, I was puzzled to see that the former offer more features. The Android program offered fewer font choices (four, compared with seven) than the iPad and iPhone apps and - of all the things for Google to leave out - lacked the iOS release's search function.

Finally, I downloaded PDF and ePub-format copies of "Alice in Wonderland," one of the three public-domain titles that every Google Books buyer gets for free, to inspect on a Barnes & Noble NookColor. The PDF was unreadable - I couldn't even flip from page to page, and its illustrations were replaced by empty red squares - but the ePub looked fine, aside from too-large images.

Had I bought a title off Google to move to the B&N device, I would have been subjected to a fussy file-transfer procedure, required by Google's Adobe-supplied DRM, that involves installing a copy of Adobe Digital Editions, opening the book in that free program, then employing that program to sideload the book on the Nook.

No, thanks. If I wanted to be reminded about why users justifiably resent DRM, I'd rather read a book about the record labels' failed adoption of it. And, given the issues I see in Google eBooks, I might be happier getting that book at a library.

Adobe's eBook DRM Adopted By Google

RTTnews: "Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE: News ), Monday said Google (GOOG: News ) would use Adobe's Content Server 4 software Google eBooks' content protection, joining over 200 other publishers and distributors who use the Adobe's Digital Rights Management, or DRM, solution."

Alibris and Google Set Up eBook Deal

San Francisco Business Times: "Book search site Alibris made a deal with giant Google Inc. to sell electronic books. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been scanning and digitizing books for years, and offers many for free and for sale on its site. Now users at Alibris, an Emeryville business that started as a rare and out-of-print book search engine, will be able to peruse and purchase ebooks from the Google system."

The Google eBookstore is Not a Serious Threat to Kindle (and Why I’m Not Shopping There) - Nate the Great

As usual, the Digital Reader gets it right: "I decided to get a head start on all the pundits that tomorrow are going to post stories with titles like “GE will Kill the Kindle”. I’m not going to discuss the obvious format issue (I don’t think it’s that important). But I did find a problem. I’ve been looking over GE since it launched this morning, and I think it’s missing a critical component. Customer service. ... "

Google Finally Opens Its E-Bookstore

NYTimes: "The Google eBookstore could be a significant benefit to independent bookstores like Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore., that have signed on to sell Google e-books on their Web sites through Google — the first significant entry for independents into the e-book business." Could be? No. Won't be. Mark my words.

DRM ala Google

The Guardian: "A greater concern may be over how the content is protected: publishers are fearful that widespread adoption of ebooks could lead to spiraling piracy mirroring that seen in the music business. But Google says in the page about security for Editions that 'once a Google Edition is purchased and is added to a consumer's bookshelf, it can only be accessed when the consumer logs into his or her Google account. When Google Editions are purchased on our site, a Google account is needed to access the content, reducing the likelihood that consumers will share their login information with others'. It adds: 'Each consumer's Google Edition has a unique coding that caches the book when it is accessed through a browser (as opposed to a digital download) ... This means that the Google Edition is broken down into fragments and temporarily stored in – and accessed through – the browser window. The Google Editions web experience, therefore, is not that of a file download – it is an experience that is optimized for reading in the browser. This allows Google to detect and protect against abuse of each Google Edition.'"

Google Set to Launch E-Book Venture

Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal:

Google Inc. is in the final stages of launching its long-awaited e-book retailing venture, Google Editions, a move that could shake up the way digital books are sold.

The long-delayed venture—Google executives had said they hoped to launch this summer—recently has cleared several technical and legal hurdles, people close to the company say. It is set to debut in the U.S. by the end of the year and internationally in the first quarter of next year, said Scott Dougall, a Google product management director.

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. "Because of the complexity of this project, we didn't want to come out with something that wasn't thorough," Mr. Dougall said.

Google Editions hopes to upend the existing e-book market by offering an open, "read anywhere" model that is different from many competitors. Users will be able to buy books directly from Google or from multiple online retailers—including independent bookstores—and add them to an online library tied to a Google account. They will be able to access their Google accounts on most devices with a Web browser, including personal computers, smartphones and tablets.

... 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. It also isn't clear how many bookselling partners it has lined up and who they are. More than 200 independent booksellers in the U.S. could sign up, according to the American Booksellers Association. ...

How Google Can Save America’s Books

Robert Darnton, The New York Review of Books: "Google represents the ultimate in business plans. By controlling access to information, it has made billions, which it is now investing in the control of the information itself. What began as Google Book Search is therefore becoming the largest library and book business in the world. Like all commercial enterprises, Google’s primary responsibility is to make money for its shareholders. Libraries exist to get books to readers—books and other forms of knowledge and entertainment, provided for free. The fundamental incompatibility of purpose between libraries and Google Book Search could be mitigated if Google were willing to contribute some of its data and expertise to the creation of a Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). ... "

Art by Félix Vallotton

French Government Dubious of Hachette Livre/Google Deal

The Bookseller: "French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand has reacted extremely cautiously to the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed yesterday for Google to scan French-language out-of-print books for Hachette Livre. The minister said he regrets that France's largest publisher acted unilaterally before the French book business adopts a common strategy on the issue."

Google in 'Notional' Talks with UK Publishers After French Deal

The Bookseller: "Google is in 'notional' talks with UK publishers about a digitisation deal, the internet company has said. Speaking at the press conference to announce its agreement with Hachette Livre over book digitisation, the business also reiterated its view that its e-book platform would launch 'shortly' with hopes it would be up and running across Europe by Easter. Google said Hachette had already signed up with Google Editions for the US."