Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Internet Archive's BookServer could 'dominate' Amazon | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

Another interesting development in the digital book domain.  I suspect we’re about to reach an interesting turning point, at which book-focused services will compete as much on their innovative use of hypertext as on their scope of book content coverage – i.e., in making the reading experience more productive (through the use of, e.g., reader annotations and concept linking) as well as more convenient and cost-effective.

But it seems the Internet Archive is thinking even bigger than Google.

Kahle said that he's been thinking about such a project since before the advent of the World Wide Web, but that the technology has never been ready. But that's changed over the last 20 years, he said. "We've now gotten universal access to free (content)," Kahle added. "Now it's time to get universal access to all knowledge, and not all of this will be free."

He explained that BookServer is built on the notion of a Web server, and that only a good indexing system is standing in the way of making all books digitally and easily available to consumers, whether they're using a laptop computer, an iPhone, or a Kindle.

Internet Archive's BookServer could 'dominate' Amazon | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

No comments: