It was perhaps the most significant news to break since the launch of the Kindle. Google rolled out its inevitable and longstanding plans to enter the digital content selling arena at BEA, which it has dubbed, Google Editions. Google Editions is cleverly named because it explains what it isn’t (ebooks), where you get it (Google), and, by putting the word Google together with an assumed possessive plural of “Editions,” there is an implied unique quality to these editions that is not found anywhere else. These are not ebooks, these are Google Editions.
Google Editions will be composed of content that is currently (or will be) found in the Google Partner Program. The Partner Program of Google Book Search is the discoverability service that Google offers to publishers in which books are voluntarily indexed and made available through Google’s search engine. Consumers can find and explore up to 20% of any book, per month, and can purchase print copies of the book from major retailing sites and the publisher. Google pairs advertising with the pages and shares the income with the publishers, however publishers can opt out of the advertising if they so wish. Google does not charge the booksellers (or publishers) for placement on the “get this book” pages, nor does it receive any portion of the sales generated.
Google Editions will enable consumers to buy instant access to 100% of the content of a single title (as opposed to a random sampling of 20%) along with the option to order the associated print book. The original thinking about a purchase model at Google was more of a pay-per-view idea. Let consumers find content they need instantly, then allow them to purchase access for a limited time, or, if they wanted, long-term ownership. Some of the thinking behind offering an online-access-only product was prompted by the then-substantiated belief that ebooks were a failure. Then the Kindle came along and created the consumer ebook market. With consumers clearly willing to buy ebooks and read them on devices, even Google’s staunchest ebook skeptics had to admit that consumers suddenly wanted ebooks.
But ebooks posed a tactical and philosophical quandary for Google. Ebooks would require Google to offer an offline product – something with which they had little or no experience – and would require DRM, the very notion of which runs counter to Google’s cultural ethos. However, at about the same time that the Kindle was launched, a new Google product was created that helped change the outcome of the ebook debate at Google – Google Gears.
Google Gears is a piece of software that enables users to use certain Google products, Gmail for example, when a user is offline. The way this works for Gmail is that Google Gears creates a “cache” file of all email activity, constantly synchronizing online activity with a cache file, enabling up-to-date access of email when offline. Consumers can read, manage, and create new emails and, when back online, send and resynchronize with the Gmail server.
So what does this have to do with ebooks? Well, Google Gears technology also powers Google Reader, Google’s popular RSS reader. Consumers who use Google Reader know that all the blogs they read on Google Reader are available to them offline, but are only as up to date as the last online synchronization. Google Gears enables email and blogs to be read offline… so the logical next step is being able to read books found on Google Book Search, offline.
The current Google Book Search reader interface contains “get this book” sidebar links to various retailers, page navigation buttons enabling single page and folio viewing, as well as zooming, and a scroll bar to navigate quickly through the pages. When Google Editions launches, one will have the option to buy access to this entire book online, and because of Google Gears, offline as well. The interface will most likely be close to what it is today (I am sure they will add features such as landscape viewing, etc., that make it better to use on a small screen device). The transition from what you see on the screen today to an offline setting will be easy, technologically.
So why do I think this is such a big deal? Because if this works, it may be the death of ebooks.
Let me clarify that statement. This may be the death of stand alone ebook platforms where consumers purchase and download products onto specific devices. Google Editions is the coming out party for “cloud publishing” where content is purchased, but never physically owned. Cloud publishing is where downloading will only be done to enable offline access, not ownership. If this works, we won’t care about epub, we wont care about Digital Editions vs. Mobipocket vs. Kindle Reader. All we will need is a device with a browser that allows us to log on to our Google Account and install Google Gears.
Amazon is currently winning the race for US ebook domination and have planted a flag on the publishing landscape with a picture of a Kindle on it. Could Google Editions and cloud publishing (where content isn’t tethered to a single device but rather to any available browser) make the ebook land grab irrelevant? I think all will depend on whether publishers accept the concept of cached content. Someone is bound to ask how the DRM works on Google Editions and find that it is pretty much an irrelevant question. The cached text sitting in a browser file somewhere on a device is indeed crackable and could be used to create pirated versions… but in reality, any version, no matter how strict the DRM, is crackable by those who want to crack it. The question is whether publishers feel comfortable that Google Editions renders casual piracy too difficult for teh average person to bother. That answer will depend on how well Google educates publishers and authors about Google Editions and how it works.
So is this really the death of the ebook? No, but it’s not the ebook the industry has been fretting about for 10 years. It’s like Rene Magritte’s famous work of art, Ceci N’est Pas une Pipe – This is not a Pipe. The title defies the image, producing a powerful debate between the power of what we see vs what we are told. Ebooks, we are told, are downloaded and held on devices and decidedly NOT read online. Google has put forward the proposition that what we see as an ebook, is not an ebook – just a way of thinking about ebooks.
It may not be an ebook in the way we see them today, but Google Editions has a chance to redefine ebooks forever.
Unbelievably – for the second time in the last 2 months Mike Shatzkin and I blogged the same thing on the same day. Check out his smart take at http://bit.ly/F1QxQ
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=222313a9-ffd9-49e8-9c58-6c253b0f9e1c)
Mike Shatzkin
on Jun 4th, 2009
@ 10:00 am:
Evan, this is a great post and a great explanation of how the tech works. In that way, at least, better than mine today on the same subject. I am going to write a comment on my blog telling people they should look at this post.
Kate
on Jun 4th, 2009
@ 11:18 am:
Perhaps this could also just bring an end to the entire question about DRM. Lets be done with DRM and let books be sold and delivered anywhere, read online, offline, on a device, whatever.
jc
on Jun 4th, 2009
@ 12:47 pm:
Great post. I think this will be a fantastic move in the right direction. In fact, I may reign in my Kindle book purchase until I get to evaluate the Google solution. As much as I like the Kindle and the reading and buying experience it offers me, the way it tethers me to one device (Amazon’s) and one retailer (Amazon) unsettles me. Google’s platform will undoubtedly be more open than that.
Evan Reply:
June 4th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
While I understand your sentiment – I am not sure that sitting and not buying ebooks for a device you have made an investment is the way to go. There is a long path ahead for Google Editions and by the time you are ready to upgrade your Kindle, this world will have changed 20 more times… so keep buying and reading and let the market come to you.
Corey Podolsky
on Jun 4th, 2009
@ 2:22 pm:
It’s one thing to read a book on a computer or laptop, but a quite different experience reading books on a Kindle. The logical next step will be the development of e-ink/e-book devices that support Google Gears and Google Editions content. I would not be surprised if announcements were forthcoming…
Roger Sperberg
on Jun 5th, 2009
@ 8:09 am:
I’m just wondering … What device would not have a browser based on webkit or gecko? (Or to which a port could not be made?)
So, disregarding cellphones with screens smaller than the iPhone (and possibly too-limited OSes), I’d expect Google Gears and Google Editions to run on any handheld device used for reading, even those like Cybook, Cool-er and Be Book, which lack not only 3G but also WiFi and Bluetooth.
The Kindle OS is Linux underneath and readily hacked, so people will definitely be reading Google Editions on a Kindle, even if non-officially.
The instantaneity of access when interest in a book is roused does indeed generate warm thoughts about the goodness of e-books, Kindle and Amazon. We always speak of Apple’s success in its interface and how it didn’t stop until it made it easy to buy, listen to and navigate your collection of music. Amazon’s device-to-store interface is not in the same class, but Kindle’s success rests chiefly in how minimal the effort is that one must make to buy a book. (Including, of course, the effort to overcome paying uncomfortably high prices; also tackled successfully by Apple.)
Bjorn Jonasson
on Jun 5th, 2009
@ 8:50 am:
This does not address the need for a personal copy, to annotate in. This applies well to leisure reading (at least when the Pixel Qi people hit the market), but will not answer the need for interactive textbooks. Maybe we are to fixated on “copying” the “book” instead of inventing a new medium for conveying information.
Evan Reply:
June 5th, 2009 at 9:30 am
I agree that this is not for textbooks and yes, the Pixel Qi is certainly one of several new or forthcoming devices taht will do so… but that is an apples v oranges discussion. Google Editions by its very nature and collection of content primarily about trade, academic, and other non-textbooks.
Google Enters the Ebook Market | Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary
on Jun 7th, 2009
@ 3:00 am:
[...] or the life of the computer I used to authenticate the ebook reading software). Google stretches the concept of ownership of ebooks even thinner with its upcoming Google [...]
Links for 6th June 2009 | Velcro City Tourist Board
on Jun 7th, 2009
@ 9:03 am:
[...] Ceci n’est pas un ebook [...]
Cloud Publishing: O que o Google Faria se Fosse uma Editora? | PONTOLIT
on Jun 9th, 2009
@ 4:40 pm:
[...] este ano, no mercado de venda de livros digitais. Com o lançamento do Google Editions (este é o nome previsto da iniciativa), é bem provável que tenhamos que repensar tanto o conceito de ebooks quanto o de [...]
trav
on Jun 10th, 2009
@ 3:32 pm:
I think this is where Google has been going since day one of the Android platform. It has supported in app purchases since then. It wouldn’t be hard to roll out your proposed access/payment system there.
I don’t see why this wouldn’t work for text books though?
Services like BookGlutton.com are already allowing people to make their own notes and share with self-selected other users.
I could see a class all dialing into their accts and viewing the same text and making notes, a notes-stream which could even be viewable by all in real-time.
If publishers would tie in some of the gps-specific features they could even serve up reader/demographic specific ads, such as wowio.com has done with pdf’s.
So many options for publishers in the near term! (Great post, btw.)
Karen Carter
on Jun 21st, 2009
@ 8:16 pm:
Evan, I learned a great deal from this post and link to it in a lengthy article on e-books. I’d appreciate it if (in your spare time, of course) you’d read E-Books: Where Literature and Technology Meet on The Know Something Project (http://www.knowsomethingproject.com) and let me know what you think of it. Thanks so much!
Karen Carter
Denver CO
Google’s Cloud Publishing Plans | Find eBook Readers Blog
on Oct 18th, 2009
@ 2:43 pm:
[...] Recommended Reading: For an interesting and in-depth article about cloud publishing and Google see Blackplasticglasses.com’s post. [...]
Carmen
on Oct 23rd, 2009
@ 6:20 pm:
Es ist eine Sache, ein Buch über einen Computer oder Laptop zu lesen, aber eine ganz andere Erfahrung Bücher zu lesen auf einem Kindle. Der logische nächste Schritt wird die Entwicklung der e-ink/e-book Geräte, die Google Gears und das Google-Content-Editionen. Ich würde mich nicht wundern, wenn Mitteilungen nicht zum Vorschein gekommen …
Chris Eastvedt : Google Editions Wants to Cloud Stream your eBooks
on Nov 10th, 2009
@ 4:26 pm:
[...] good to see publishing technology is still moving forward. The latest hipster on the scene is cloud streaming (cloud publishing, cloud computing), where content is stored in a central server on the net rather than saved to a device. The [...]
Bonjour, je m’appelle… « teXtes
on Feb 12th, 2010
@ 11:22 pm:
[...] Il est prévu que les sites de leurs membres vont travailler en partenariat avec Google, dans le cadre du programme Google Editions, ce qui leur permettra de vendre des livres numériques “on the cloud“. [...]