Google to launch online electronic book store
Google plans to launch an online store to deliver electronic books to any device with a Web browser, threatening to upset a burgeoning market for dedicated e-readers dominated by Amazon's Kindle. — The Web search giant said on Thursday …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google has pursued an e-book strategy since its earlier e-books push, and coverage in May framed the effort as a direct challenge to Amazon. Its planned store shifts that challenge from digitizing books toward selling and delivering them.
The move follows a March report in which Sony and Google challenged Amazon, but Google’s browser-based delivery model targets readers beyond any one dedicated device. That makes access across web-enabled hardware, rather than the e-reader alone, the competitive point.
First-order effects
- Amazon’s Kindle faces a new rival storefront whose books are intended to reach any device with a web browser, reducing the advantage of tying reading and purchasing to dedicated hardware.
- Google gains a direct route into e-book retail, extending its book initiative from discovery and digitization toward delivery.
Second-order effects
- Sony and other dedicated e-reader vendors face pressure to compete on their stores’ catalog access and device experience when browser-based reading offers a cross-device alternative.
- Amazon must defend Kindle’s integrated store-and-device model against Google’s wider base of web-enabled devices.
Third-order effects
- If cross-device browser delivery gains traction, e-book retail may organize less around proprietary readers and more around bookstores that can reach readers across hardware.
- The contest points toward digital libraries becoming a retail distribution channel, where control of access and storefronts matters alongside ownership of the reading device.
The trend: E-book competition is broadening from dedicated-reader ecosystems to cross-device digital library and storefront services.