Web Search--Google Another Day and More Google News
It looks like Google has launched a beta of its book search program to compete with Amazon's "Search Inside the Book." Early word of Google's venture "leaked" out just a few hours after Amazon launched SITB in October.
Google's mission is to provide access to all the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible. It turns out that not all the world's information is already on the Internet, so Google has been experimenting with a number of publishers to test their content online. During this trial, publishers' content is hosted by Google and is ranked in our search results according to the same technology we use to evaluate websites.
The FAQ also solicits the participation of publishers to provide content and explains that Google Print pages are surrounded with context sensitive advertising via Google's AdSense program.
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You can browse a bunch of Google Print titles by running this search. You'll notice that unlike Amazon's SITB where you actually see an image of the page, here you only get ASCII text. Presently, you can print the excerpts but it will be interesting to see if they disable printing if/when the excerpts become longer so the company can avoid problems with the writing community. The length of excerpts varies from just a short blurb to a portion of a chapter.
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This means that at least for the time being, the primary Google database grows larger and larger. Without the proper techniques to create more advanced queries or limit a search (skills most searchers don't have but we can teach them), competition for those first 10 spots on a results page becomes even more intense. In other words, we're getting increased recall and lowered precision. We know that an average searcher only looks at the first few results and submits queries containing around 3 terms. As the database grows, determining relevance and sharing it in the first few results becomes an even greater challenge, even for Google. All of this new cotent once again illustrates that the information professional should have solid understanding of Google's advanced features as well as those from other web engines. Thanks to S.C. for the news tip. See Also: Search Day Offers Commentary
See Also: "Google Experiment Provides Internet With Book Excerpts" (via NY Times)
From the article, "Google executives have also discussed with university librarians the possibility of converting library collections into a digital format but they have declined to comment on any plans."
-------- PublishersLunch is a free subscription newsletter aimed at members of the publishing industry. Today, the newsletter ran a lengthy story about Google Print. ResourceShelf has been granted permission to reprint the full text of the article. You can find it here. I've also prepared a summary.
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* What we now see at Google Prints is a "shadow" of what's being "sold" to the publishing industry.
* A Google spokesperson told PublishersLunch that the program is open to self-publishers. "They want to be as comprehensive as possible."
* Google has been holding "formal" conversations with publishers for months.
* Adam Smith, "a key player" at Random House in electronic publishing, has left the company and taken a position at Google.
* The article also reports that this is part of a larger plan by Google. "The goal seems to be to truly "Google" book content, or as much as they can get their hands on. Launching in the first q of 2004 the program would allow registered users to access up to 10% of the full text of an available within a month.
* They are offering publishers a revenue arrangement.
* Finally, the article cites a recent post on PaidContent.Org that Google is considering taking on Factiva, LN, etc. by providing access to fee-based content in an arrangement that appears similar to what Google is doing with IEEE.
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