Google Editions eBook service incoming

The Gadget Show  Thursday 02 December 2010

Google's eBook service should be here in Q1 next year

Never one to leave a technology pie unpawed, Google is reportedly close to launching the long-awaited Google Editions, the company’s ereading service.

After being delayed by various technical and legal issues, Editions now looks set for a launch in the first couple of months next year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Like many of Google’s other services, it will be cloud-based, allowing users to access digital titles on any device with a web browser. eBooks will be able to be purchased either through Google itself or from a variety of online retailers, and will be accessible when logging into your Google account.

As such, Google is hoping that Editions being non-device-specific will give it an advantage over the likes of Amazon’s Kindle, which despite launching software-only spinoffs is still primarily linked to the Kindle hardware device.

Editions may have suffered a delay or two, but Google has reportedly not been idle in that time, and is said to have already secured deals with a wide range of major publishers, meaning its range of titles should be able to compete with its leading rivals from day one.

Of course, its success will depend largely on how much those titles will cost, but we’ll have to wait closer to launch for those kind of details to be finalised.