Readum links Google Books and Facebook

"Why should we divide our friends and fellow readers up by the devices they use?” the BookGlutton.com founder asked in this article in Publishers Weekly. The Readum platform builds a connection betweeen Google Books and Facebook. Readum allows readers to make comments on specific paragraphs in their Google Books. Those comments are then posted to Facebook groups or their Facebook wall. The app also creates an individual page for the comments and pulls any book listed into their Facebook profile.

While not yet as far along as other social media experiments for books environments (like Copia) the tool has the same idea at its base -- enabling communities of conversation around digital books. One aspect of the Readum approach that I like is that they are actively working to demonstrate the "proof of concept" by utilizing existing social networks rather than trying to build their own. That enables a more coherent strategy and focused development around competencies. It will be interesting to watch where this project goes.

A short video on Readum appears below:

Readum from Travis Alber on Vimeo.

Google and the e-book/e-reader market

Expectations that Google will soon enter the tablet and e-reader space continue. The company's recent acquisition of EBook Technologies fuels this speculation, as noted in one article that details the acquisition. Google's ebookstore, their recent partnership with the ABA, and other initiatives to help make local book retailers more visible in searches, suggest that Google could be a friend to book retailers in a way other large online sources for books are not. There is an opportunity here for retailers to capitalize on what Google could do for them to both retain and regain market share.

The question will be, perhaps, whether booksellers enamored of older print technologies will be nimble and open enough to take advantage of some of the opportunities presented by new technologies -- or if they will buy into the conventional wisdom that the local bookseller will go the way of the local music store. As one of my colleagues in the bookstore industry is fond of saying, "Some folks will drown because when you throw them a life preserver they want one that is square or blue, rather than the one that you are throwing them that happens to be round or yellow."

Google eBooks launches

Today Google launched its online bookstore called Google eBooks. Up until this point, the program has been referred to as Google Editions. According to an article from Wired, the e-book store will have about 2.8 million books that are no longer under copyright and were scanned through the Google Books project. The store will have another 200,000 books that have been licensed from publishers. Users will be able to read the books on Apple devices, Barnes & Noble Nooks, Sony E-readers, and computers. The books will not be accessible on the Amazon Kindle because of compatibility issues.

In addition, Google has partnered with some independent bookstores to allow them to sell e-books on their websites and share the revenue. Google also plans to add social networking features and says it has the infrastructure in place to let consumers purchase digital and paper copies in a bundle.

James Crawford, an engineer for Google eBooks, noted, “The idea is that you buy where you are and read on devices you already own. We are committed to open structure, and building up a wider and wider retailer network.”

The Google ebookstore can be found here.