[15858] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Is Google Print Real?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Hart)
Tue Jun 14 20:39:06 2005
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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0506140751380.22402@pglaf.org>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:54:09 -0700
Reply-To: "Michael S. Hart" <hart@pobox.com>
From: Michael Hart <hart@PGLAF.ORG>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Is Google Print Real?
Today is the six month anniversary of the huge multi-million dollar
media blitz announcing Google Print, the most important event since
Gutenberg's invention of the printing press.
To commemorate this event I have been interviewing people from wide
ranges of the Internet about their Google Print experiences, but it
seems to be harder than either I or they expected.
Several problems are being reported, both in terms of the usage for
the user and some apparent changes of horses in midstream, in terms
of the actual purpose of Google Print.
One of the MAJOR CHANGES in Google Print seems to be that they have
decided they're NOT GOING TO PROMOTE READING of those 10-15 million
books they mentioned in their worldwide press releases. Instead it
seems their first recommendation is going to be to click on some of
the online bookstores they are promoting, and secondly they send us
off to search in libraries.
From: Google Print Help
"Google Print helps you discover books, not read them online."
"To read the whole book, we encourage you to use the
`Buy this book' link to purchase it online. . . ."
http://print.google.com/googleprint/help.html
[These comments are neatly buried in the very middle of the
help section, just about exactly half way through. #5 & #7]
Six months ago, we all heard that Google was going to revolutionize
the entire concept of libraries with their new project at a rate of
of 10,000 to 15,000 books per week which would yield over a quarter
of a million books in their first 26 weeks at the lower rate, and a
figure nearer half a million at the higher rate, even presuming the
total was zero on December 14th.
However, now it appears that Google has changed horses in midstream
and replaced much of the actual "library" qualities of Google Print
with "catalog" properties. . .they are now actually saying in their
offical publications to "discover books, not read them online."
