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<\/p>\nThere have been plenty of attempts over the years to get e-books to go mainstream. Half a dozen companies have tried to sell electronic-book devices, and failed miserably. Sony has a new eReader available, but if it’s anything like its predecessors it will prove to be too bulky, too expensive and just too geeky for anyone but a few nerds to use with any regularity.<\/p>\n
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But that’s a hardware issue. Books as software — software you can carry around with you — makes a huge amount of sense, whether you read them on your Palm or BlackBerry or an eReader. And according to a piece<\/a> in the Sunday Times, our friend Google could give that phenomenon a big boost with the plans it is working on right now. The story says that:<\/p>\n The internet search giant is working on a system that would allow readers to download entire books to their computers in a format that they could read on screen or on mobile devices such as a Blackberry. <\/p>\n Jens Redmer, director of Google Book Search in Europe, said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are working on a platform that will let publishers give readers full access to a book online.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The proposed service would be integrated with Google\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Book Search service, which allows surfers to see a sample of a book and find places to buy it (publishers involved include Penguin, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster). I figure it should be as simple as a button that says “Click here to download this book,” but no doubt there are all kinds of DRM issues involved. Google’s Redmer said the project would likely become a reality \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sooner rather than later\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n More on the topic from David Rothman<\/a> at Tele-Read and the gang over at Slashdot<\/a> — and Webomatica (who has worked for a couple of e-book providers) has some thoughts<\/a> that are well worth reading as well.<\/p>\n