Google expands its book search
By Michael Liedtke
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Online search engine leader Google Inc. is becoming more bookish.
Expanding a program introduced last year, Google Inc. is inviting publishers to include entire books in its search engine index, enabling people to peek at the content before making a decision on whether to buy the title.
Although the entire books will be scanned into the index, the new feature introduced yesterday won't allow people to read the entire books online unless publishers unlock all the content.
Participating publishers must allow people to read at least 20 percent of the books through Google's search engine, said Susan Wojcicki, Google director of product development.
Google plans to list books related to specific search requests at the top of its main results page. The book listings will include the title, author and number of pages.
Wojcicki declined to discuss how many books are in Google's search engine, although she said the Mountain View-based company eventually hopes to scan billions of books. Initially, only English-language books will be indexed, but selections in other languages are expected to added during the next few months.
Books already have been submitted by more than a dozen publishers, including Penguin, Wiley, Hyperion, Pearson, Taylor & Francis, Cambridge, Chicago, Oxford, Princeton and Scholastic.
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are expected to provide more details about the new feature today at a major book fair in Frankfurt, Germany.
As it broadens its book-search capabilities, Google may become more of a competitive threat to online retail giant Amazon.com Inc., which offers a similar service.
Google began scanning the first chapters of selected books nearly a year ago.
The expanded program is designed to give Web surfers another reason to use Google while also helping publishers sell more books, Wojcicki said.
When someone views a book through Google's search engine, the company will provide a link directing traffic to where the title can be bought online.
Google won't receive a commission from book sales generated by its search engine, Wojcicki said.
But the book program could still help boost Google's profit because the company plans to post text-based advertising links related to the books' content. Text-based ads account for almost all of Google's revenue — a dependency that industry analysts would like the company to lessen by developing other moneymaking opportunities.
