In a bid to rival Amazon, Google has today launched its new eBooks. eBooks is an internet book store and claims to make 3 million books available to readers.
And it seems that Google has the backing of the reading community. With four thousand publishers on board including, Simon & Schuster, Random House and Penguin Group, all allowing Google to carry many of their recently released books. This new development is set to challenge Amazon as a source of electronic books.
The Google store, currently only available in the US allows consumers to buy books and read them on any machine with a Web browser. Free applications are also available and can be installed on Apple Inc.’s iPad and iPhone, as well as other devices powered by Google’s own mobile operating system, Android.
However, Google's eBooks can't be loaded on to the Kindle, Amazon's electronic reader.
Google’s new venture is set to generate nearly $1 billion in US sales this year and climb to $1.7 billion by 2012 as more people buy electronic readers and computer tablets such as the iPad, according to Forrester Research.
The research group expects a total of 15 million e-readers and tablets to have been sold in the U.S. by the end of the year.
Google claims to be offering the broadest selection of digital titles in the world with the new eBooks, and has plans to expand the inventory if the necessary copyright clearances can be gained.
The company, based in Mountain View, California, believes it eventually will be able to make electronic copies of the estimated 130 million books in the world.
It's also planning to start selling books outside the U.S. next year.
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