e-Reader market to be boosted by Google eBooks

Internet giant Google has entered the online books market with its new web-based bookstore eBooks, through which users can download free and paid for books. The move will be another boost to the growing e-Reader gadget market and will see Google attempt to challenge Amazon’s dominance in the marketplace for online literature.

One of Google’s mission statements has always been to ‘organise the world’s information’ and users of the new eBooks service will be able to access all their stored and purchased material via the cloud, meaning they can access it 24/7 no matter what location they are in, provided they can get online of course.

In addition to Amazon, the other big players in the online books market in the West are Apple and Borders, and although eBooks will at first be available in the U.S. only it is sure to be rolled out across multiple territories before long. Google says the eBooks archive will at first contain close to 3 million free books and hundreds of thousands of titles to be purchased, including New York Times bestsellers.

The move marks Google’s first major step into the retail market beyond Android apps and users will access the system via their Google account. The software engineering behind the service will mean online books acquired via eBooks will make it easy to consume literature on a wide variety of devices.

Any desktop, laptop or tablet device with JavaScript enabled browsers, iPhones, iPads, Android-based devices, Sony’s E Reader and several other devices will be able to display eBooks easily, though interestingly not Amazon’s Kindle device, due copyright issues.

It is expected that Google will partner with numerous retailers online in order to boost sales, perhaps reaching highly profitable relationships with media owners, meaning banner space to promote eBooks might be displayed on websites in a similar manner to Adsense adverts.