Why is Google fighting Amazon over Books?
Of all the potential revenue streams Google has, books are one of the most appealing because – • Electronic Books are really, really convenivent to store and sell. • Movie Studios are too powerful. Ditto TV. Apple already owns music and the direct to customer channels. Video Games are also owned by direct to customer devices. • Publishers are dying out – means there is little resistance and often desperation. • There are 7 million orphan works that Google has scanned ready to sell for $10-$20 each. A huge untapped longer tail. • They already have millions of people using Google Book Search. • They have the huge pipeline of search users to channel into Google Books. It all adds up to a new revenue source that, while not as big as search, would be considerably big. Which brings us to the HUGE importance of Kindles and Kindle Apps for various platforms. The Kindle 2, Kindle for iPhone etc. are Amazon’s huge advantage over Google. It doesn’t matter how good people think Google is. If they
