No one should be surprised, but Google finally made a big entrance into the eBook space with the Google eBookstore. They launched yesterday and are promoting the largest selection of eBooks in the world.
Not only are they leveraging their large collection of free books they have been scanning for years, they are also selling popular new releases. They are taking a different strategy from other companies in that they are selling hardware (at least not yet), and are making content available on all devices, with one obvious platform missing - the Amazon Kindle. Users of the Google eBookstore will be able to use read purchased books on any other device (computer, the Nook, Sony Reader, iPhone, and iPad).
Once again, Google is supporting the open format (the ePub standard, which all other platforms have adopted except the Kindle). It will be interesting if this puts any more pressure on Amazon to support this standard, or if they will use their #1 position to maintain a closed device.
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