The wait is finally over. Google Editions, now dubbed Google eBooks, launched yesterday after months (years?) of anticipation, boasting agreements with over 4,000 publishers—offering about 3 million free and for-sale titles—the venture is very likely to give Amazon and the Kindle a run for leadership in the fast-growing, fast changing, e-book market.
Google eBooks launched offering a free Google Books app for iPhone/iPod, iPad and Android operating systems as well as access through web browsers and PDF downloads for Desktops and laptop computers. While the app for the iPhone/iPod was not immediately available at launch—much to the annoyance of this reporter—the app showed up by the early afternoon and the results are impressive, though certainly not flawless.
Google e-books is offering access to more than 2 million free public domain digital titles and hundreds of thousands of for-pay e-books—the exact figure is hard to pinpoint—giving the service an inventory of e-book content equal or at least potentially equal to Amazon.com’s more than 700,000 e-book titles. In addition, Google eBooks is partnering with independent bookstores and consumers can buy e-books through local stores that have signed on to offer titles through Google eBooks.
Anyone with a gmail account—roughly about 200 million people—has immediate access to buying and downloading books through Google eBooks.
Here’s an introduction from Google:
