The Business And Technology Network

At the annual BookExpo convention in New York City over the weekend, Google said it plans to introduce a program that would enable writers and publishers to sell digital versions of their books directly to consumers through Google. The move would pit Google against Amazon.com, which is seeking to control the e-book market with the versions it sells for its Kindle reading device.

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The announcement is sure to be applauded by publishers who have long had problems with Amazon’s low-priced strategy for e-books. Kindle editions of most new best sellers go for $9.99, a lot less than the $25 to $35 at which publishers sell new hardcovers in bookstores. Google has said it will allow publishers to set their own prices.

In addition, Google would allow consumers to read books on any device with Internet access, including mobile phones, rather than being limited to dedicated reading devices like the Amazon Kindle. This alone could give Google a huge advantage since the company already has 1.5 million public-domain books available for reading on cellphones and the Sony Reader.

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Google says it will challenge Amazon on electronic books (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Google Promises Publishers (And Amazon) Will Sell E-Books In 2009 (paidcontent.org)
Google Plans to Sell eBooks By the End of 2009 [Google] (gizmodo.com)
E-Books: Google Versus Amazon (q-ontech.blogspot.com)
Preparing to Sell E-Books, Google Takes on Amazon (nytimes.com)
Google to Cut the E-Book Middleman (mashable.com)

At Google’s  I/O conference this week the company unveiled a new set of widgets called Web Elements that allow users to quickly integrate Google’s most popular products such as  Maps, Calendar and Search, and  into their sites with a minimal amount of work. Other widgets include ‘Presentations’, which allow users to embed presentations from Google Docs into a site, and ‘Spreadsheets’, which allow you to do the same with Google Docs spreadsheets.

Much of this functionality has been available through Google APIs, but most people don’t know how to use them. With Google Web Elements publishers can just copy and paste the code into their websites. One widget called the ‘Conversation’ Element, allows site visitors to post comments and videos. Site owners have the option of restricting these conversations to their sites, or to share them as global conversations through Google Friend Connect.

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• Widgets Everywhere! Embed Your Favorite Chunks Of Google With Web Elements (techcrunch.com)
• Google Web Elements give social media a nudge (inquisitr.com)
• Easily put Google services on your site with Web Elements (downloadsquad.com)
• Introducing Google Web Elements (google-code-updates.blogspot.com)
• Google Web Elements: Add YouTube News and Google Comments to Your Blog (mashable.com)