(2010-12-14) Google Editions Ebookstore Launches

Google Editions finally launched with the name Google Ebookstore. I'm just calling it Google Books.

Joe Wikert is underwhelmed.

Rob Pegararo gives a more detailed review. Most titles still have DRM, and some are still scanned-in images of pages. Other promised features didn't make the cut for the launch. The company held up support for Copy And Paste and printing, for example, after too many publishers (Book Publishing) balked. Highlighting and annotation features won't happen until later. The same goes for text-to-speech capabilities that would allow Google's reader programs to read a book aloud.

Farhad Manjoo slags their "open" framing even more. I do blame Google, though, for the way it has conscripted the word "open" for marketing purposes, rendering it meaningless in the process. Nearly every Google product release is accompanied by marketing copy about how Google's product is more "open" than everybody else's, and that this "openness" is its key virtue. Sometimes, as in EBook-s, this openness pitch is transparently false.