Futuríveis
quinta-feira, dezembro 16, 2004
Perspectiva interessante sobre a inclusão no Google de algumas das melhores bibliotecas públicas e universitárias do mundo
Google writes its place in world’s history books
...
The dust would be blown off volumes accumulated over hundreds of years and their contents scanned and compressed into online data accessible in thousandths of a second.
Stacks of cloistered books reserved for students and professors would be turned into racks of clustered servers distributing the sum total of human knowledge to anyone with a web connection.
The Google project, which aims to make many of the greatest literary treasures available at the click of a mouse, includes four other top libraries - Oxford's Bodleian Library, the New York Public Library and those of Michigan and Stanford universities.
...
While no one doubts the nerdy librarian credentials of Google's chiefs nor their altruism, there is also some smart business thinking behind the move.
"Books are structured information that might inform [online] services yet to be created, such as question-answering," says John Battelle, author of an internet blog on the search industry.
Such services would mean revenues for Google. And, in the meantime, the quality of its results would be improved by the digitisation of millions of books, giving it an advantage over rivals such as Microsoft and Yahoo in a fiercely competitive sector. Google will also share revenues from relevant advertising displayed next to the books' contents.
The project can be viewed as Google making its first serious move as a content provider, bringing structured information assets into its database.
...
Much of Google Print's scanned output is likely to be books that are out of copyright and published before 1900 rather than the latest research work.
But John Battelle argues that Google can still make money from obscure titles. Fulfilling just one request for a copy of an out-of-print book at $10-$15 a time would cover its scanning costs.
"Media companies have always focused on the head - the big hits and bestseller lists - but recently digital music has shown there's a lot of power in the [back-catalogue] tail and there's no cost there in sales or marketing. There's a ludicrously large backlist in books and this could mean a massive new revenue stream."
The social networking power of the internet should also mean some unlikely titles being discovered and creating their own buzz.
"You are going to see some interesting new hits that haven't sold a copy since 1782," says Mr Battelle. "This really does fulfil a model of enlightened capitalism and it's going to do a lot of good in the world."
FT.com
...
The dust would be blown off volumes accumulated over hundreds of years and their contents scanned and compressed into online data accessible in thousandths of a second.
Stacks of cloistered books reserved for students and professors would be turned into racks of clustered servers distributing the sum total of human knowledge to anyone with a web connection.
The Google project, which aims to make many of the greatest literary treasures available at the click of a mouse, includes four other top libraries - Oxford's Bodleian Library, the New York Public Library and those of Michigan and Stanford universities.
...
While no one doubts the nerdy librarian credentials of Google's chiefs nor their altruism, there is also some smart business thinking behind the move.
"Books are structured information that might inform [online] services yet to be created, such as question-answering," says John Battelle, author of an internet blog on the search industry.
Such services would mean revenues for Google. And, in the meantime, the quality of its results would be improved by the digitisation of millions of books, giving it an advantage over rivals such as Microsoft and Yahoo in a fiercely competitive sector. Google will also share revenues from relevant advertising displayed next to the books' contents.
The project can be viewed as Google making its first serious move as a content provider, bringing structured information assets into its database.
...
Much of Google Print's scanned output is likely to be books that are out of copyright and published before 1900 rather than the latest research work.
But John Battelle argues that Google can still make money from obscure titles. Fulfilling just one request for a copy of an out-of-print book at $10-$15 a time would cover its scanning costs.
"Media companies have always focused on the head - the big hits and bestseller lists - but recently digital music has shown there's a lot of power in the [back-catalogue] tail and there's no cost there in sales or marketing. There's a ludicrously large backlist in books and this could mean a massive new revenue stream."
The social networking power of the internet should also mean some unlikely titles being discovered and creating their own buzz.
"You are going to see some interesting new hits that haven't sold a copy since 1782," says Mr Battelle. "This really does fulfil a model of enlightened capitalism and it's going to do a lot of good in the world."
FT.com
posted by CMT, 10:25 da tarde
