Digital Home Thoughts: Google announces eBookstore

"We expected Google to launch its upcoming e-book store before the end of the year, and the company announced Monday that the new Google eBookstore is now open for business in the US. Google is touting the "open" nature of its e-books by making them accessible to the widest array of popular e-reader devices, including the iPad, Nook, and Sony Reader. Google's new eBookstore works a little differently than other stores-at least when it comes to reading via computer. All purchased titles are kept in Google's cloud-based storage and accessed via a browser. When reading via an iOS or Android-based device, a dedicated app can download and cache titles for reading offline. And for devices compatible with Adobe's DRM-protected e-book formats-including Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble Nook-PDF or EPUB files can be downloaded and transferred to your device using Adobe Editions software."

Googles move in to ebook market to compete with the likes of Kindle is no surprise. With the increasing market share of Android phones, and the new growth of Android tablets, this was a move that many expected Google to make. At the moment it isn't compatible with Kindle books, but Google do say they are open to doing this.