NEW YORK - It's barely worth mocking Larry Page and Sergey Brin anymore: The wunderkind founders of Google had once vowed to "do no evil." Then the search-engine firm's plan to put the world's libraries online outraged publishers and authors of much of those libraries, leading too many pundits to paraphrase the billionaires' high-minded oath.
Amazon.com Chief Executive Jeffrey Bezos might have found a way to avoid both the mockery and the ire: Don't claim to be saints--just charge the users.
The company that paralleled eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) blazing the e-commerce trail has two new ways to sell books online. Amazon Pages will dole out the data in increments--by chapter, section or even a single page. Thus, one needn't buy an entire book--although that option will exist, too--if all one desires is, say, a recipe or other chunk of how-to info. One wistfully imagines the racier excerpts of "art" novels might be a draw, as well.
Amazon Upgrade, the slightly less amazing stepsister of Amazon Pages, furnishes Web access to a book already purchased. A company statement offers a serving suggestion: A programmer buying a guide to Sun Microsystems' (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) Java could then access the presumably massive tome from elsewhere--perhaps at a client site.
"Amazon Pages and Amazon Upgrade leverage Amazon's existing 'Search Inside the Book' technology to give customers unusual flexibility in how they buy and read books," declared Bezos in the statement. "In collaboration with our publishing partners, we're working hard to make the world's books instantly accessible anytime and anywhere."
Reports say that Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people )--which tagged along after Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) and Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) MSN in creating e-mail services and social groups--has hatched a similar plan to sell rather than merely provide books online. Looking to lease but not own? Keep your public library card.
http://www.forbes.com/2005/11/04/amazon...s-google-cx_gl_1104autofacescan05.html
Amazon.com Chief Executive Jeffrey Bezos might have found a way to avoid both the mockery and the ire: Don't claim to be saints--just charge the users.
The company that paralleled eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) blazing the e-commerce trail has two new ways to sell books online. Amazon Pages will dole out the data in increments--by chapter, section or even a single page. Thus, one needn't buy an entire book--although that option will exist, too--if all one desires is, say, a recipe or other chunk of how-to info. One wistfully imagines the racier excerpts of "art" novels might be a draw, as well.
Amazon Upgrade, the slightly less amazing stepsister of Amazon Pages, furnishes Web access to a book already purchased. A company statement offers a serving suggestion: A programmer buying a guide to Sun Microsystems' (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) Java could then access the presumably massive tome from elsewhere--perhaps at a client site.
"Amazon Pages and Amazon Upgrade leverage Amazon's existing 'Search Inside the Book' technology to give customers unusual flexibility in how they buy and read books," declared Bezos in the statement. "In collaboration with our publishing partners, we're working hard to make the world's books instantly accessible anytime and anywhere."
Reports say that Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people )--which tagged along after Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) and Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) MSN in creating e-mail services and social groups--has hatched a similar plan to sell rather than merely provide books online. Looking to lease but not own? Keep your public library card.
http://www.forbes.com/2005/11/04/amazon...s-google-cx_gl_1104autofacescan05.html