Google Opens its Own Bookstore-- Google eBooks

From Yahoo News:

Internet giant Google opened an online electronic bookstore on Monday in a heavyweight entry into a booming market long dominated by Kindle-maker Amazon. The site can be found at http://books.google.com/ebooks.

Google eBookstore was being rolled out in the United States featuring the Mountain View, California-based company's massive library of digitized works online at books.google.com.

"We believe it will be the world's largest e-books library," said Google spokeswoman Jeannie Hornung. "Including the free books, there are more than three million."

Hundreds of thousands of digital books from leading publishers such as Macmillan, Random House and Simon & Schuster will be for sale in the eBookstore, which Google said will expand internationally next year.

Google e-books will be kept online in the Internet "cloud" and be available for reading from any Web-linked computer or using free applications on gadgets such as Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch or on smartphones running Google's Android software.

Digital books sold through the eBookstore can be read on the Sony Reader, the "Nook" from Barnes & Noble and other dedicated e-readers but not on the popular Kindle from Amazon.

Google believes that most people will prefer to log in and read their books online from whichever gadget is most convenient at a given moment, in a manner similar to the way people check Web-based Gmail accounts.

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Grouch: The more competition, the better for consumers. I'll have to check out this service and see how it works. They do support Linux with their web reader :-)/