Google Positions Itself to Profit from Scanned Books

(MoneyWatch)  The debate rages on over the proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit between Google and some authors over the effort by the search giant to scan and sell out-of-print books and other print publications (including magazines).

The U.S. Justice Department recently announced that it is looking into the matter, and throughout the traditional book publishing industry, as near as I can tell, there are as many opinions about this case as their are people expressing them.

It is not expected that the judge overseeing the proposed settlement will act anytime soon. Meanwhile, Google has been working to improve its books service. Brandon Badger, Product Manager of Google Books, announced the following feature upgrades this morning on the company's blog:

• Embeds and links. "This new toolbar option allows you to embed a preview of a full view or partner book in any of your websites or blogs--all with a simple html snippet." Basically, this will be familiar to anyone who has used the embed tag at YouTube to share videos.
• Better search inside books. Now you can get a sort of "snapshot" of your where your search term appears inside a book, the kind of context that allows you to better zoom in on what you are looking for.
• Drop-down menu of the contents. This allows you to quickly jump to various chapters in the book or articles in the magazine.
• Plain Text Mode. Badger indicates that this is mainly intended to help visually impaired readers, but is the case with "curb-cuts" on city sidewalks, it will no doubt end up being convenient for a wide variety of people and purposes.
• Thumbnail view. This is very cool, as it allows you to display all of the pages in a magazine or book (above).
• Page Turn Button and Animation. This kind of makes it feel (gasp) like you actually reading a real book!
• Overview Page. Here Google has aggregated reviews, ratings, summaries, etc.

All of these improvements help position Google Books as the library/book store of choice going forward, with multiple potential revenue streams available -- advertising, affiliate marketing, keyword search, direct sales, licensing fees, subscription fees, e-reader device sales, and on and on.

Regardless of how the class-action lawsuit is decided, therefore, Google seems well-positioned to profit from the Gutenberg Age far into the era that is succeeding it.