Google is noot the only player on the scene. For everyone’s info, we at Bookyards ( http://www.bookyards.com ) have compiled a good collection of free digital libraries with books available for downloading for free. Just go to Bookyards “Library Collections - E Books” at http://www.bookyards.com/links.html?type=links&category_id=1780
There are approximately 550 digital libraries separated alphabetically and by category, with over 500,000 unique ebooks

Bookyards is a free online library located at http://www.bookyards.com

Same here but unfortunately, Blackberry only represents an insignificant percentage of mobile devices out there - there are not even close to 10 million blackberries but there are 2 BILLION mobile phones.

We at Wattpad (www.wattpad.com) are trying to bridge that gap by provide a free service that allows users to discover, read, share and request stories (e.g. e-texts but more) on virtually any mobile phones. With more and more digitized texts available, we are very happy to be able to make all these contents available on the most ubiquitous e-reader - mobile phones – so that people can read anytime, anywhere.

I want reliable and durable interbook links and annotations and other amenities that will serve the causes of scholarship and curiosity.

Standards and reliable preservation are the key to making this and more happen.

Other issues abound, such as the needs of disabled people.

As unhappy as I am with the implementation and enforcement of OpenReader, I haven’t the slightest problem with the goals.

If the IDPF can achieve the same objectives—in fact, I’d rather that standards happen there than within OR—then so much the better.

I know market forces need to be considered, but let’s also think of long-term social and academic goals that standards can serve. Must everything—e-book-related or not—happen in the name of “markets” and “efficiency”?

Anyway, thanks for your opinions. It’s great to expose readers to the different sides here.

David

P.S. Google is familiar with the OpenReader standard—that I can say for sure. It would be entirely in character for the company to pick up some aspects of it while coming up with Google specs.

Or maybe even be influenced by the superior OpenReader specs?”

I never really cared for e-book “standards”. They are typically the work of vapourware kings who have little else to do than try and tell others how they should live their lives. I know this to be true, because now and then these vapourware kings come and bother Project Gutenberg volunteers with their “ideas”. Also, whatever small e-book market we may have seems already able to sustain a number of formats which seem to be doing just fine. So I am guessing: the market will decide.

However. Since talk here drifts towards e-book standards now and again (for obvious reasons), I got to think about them a little more. And here’s what I feel now: standards are a non-issue. The issue is rights, and how to secure them against readers. In other words: DRM.

Here’s why: imagine for a sec that you were a major publisher, and you were thinking about e-books because every market, however small, is a new source of income, and also because you have this uneasy feeling that e-books, no matter how often they have failed so far, are the way of the future.

Now what would worry you more: choosing between formats (and presumably taking Adobe and a bunch of little known organisations who roll around fighting in the dust like a bunch of small boys seriously), or choosing between DRM schemes? I am sure the major publishers are going to look at how they can make money out of this e-book thing first, and at how they are going to get these e-books to readers second.

Google is (mostly) a smart company. They may not come up with something that fills the Rothman household with joy, but they will figure out the format that is going to keep both lots of readers and the publishers involved happy enough to start an e-book market. I sincerely doubt the secret formula is going to be OpenReader, unless the Google Labs are working on the accompagnying software now. (It’s happened before: Google Video for instance is based on the FOSS Videolan library.)

To be honest, in this instance (of Google doing e-books) I find it difficult to look into the future, because it’s a new thing for Google, and because publishers seem to have relaxed a little about rights lately. Whatever it’s going to be, though, it’s going to be market-driven, not committee-steered.