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Two Book Pubs Test the Online Waters

By Ed Oswald | Published February 27, 2007, 5:50 PM

Book publishers are slowly warming up to the idea of putting their content online, with two companies announcing separate plans to offer web-based methods to search through their catalogs.

Random House said Tuesday that it planned to offer a service called "Insight" that would allow the consumer to browser through more than 5,000 titles from its archives. The company's authors include the popular Danielle Steele among others.

HarperCollins Publishers on Monday launched the "Browse Inside widget" that would allow consumers to take sample pages of their favorite books and embed them into social networking sites and blogs.

"The Browse Inside widget is the most recent marketing tool we have developed using the capabilities of our digital warehouse to market our titles to the MySpace generation online," said Brian Murray, Group President, HarperCollins.

Similarly, Random House has announced a program that would allow material to be added to web sites, it said.

Until recently, book publishers have shunned the Internet out of a fear of piracy and loss of revenue. However, with society increasingly turning to digital methods of content delivery, publishers are begrudgingly changing their business models.

Comments

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dhjdhj
Feb 28, 2007 - 9:28 AM

I have to say I've been using the Safari (O'Reilly) online book system and for anyone in the technology field, it's really worth the price of admission.

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Silentmaster101
Feb 28, 2007 - 1:21 PM edited

online books are great for referance or short stints in learning, but has anyone here tried to read a novel online? it starts to hurt my eyes after about an hour of reading, whether on a crappy crt or a high quality 21 inch dell ultrasharp. just something about looking at a electronically projected screen reading small characters that makes my head and eyes hurt.

although i have to admit, for kids that need to take quotes for reports or even college level kids, this could be a very good thing.

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dhjdhj
Feb 28, 2007 - 3:02 PM

I agree with you completely - I've certainly found that the main benefit of Safari is not so much for reading entire books online, but being able to search a large (and RELEVENT) book collection for a specific issue and then quickly read a particular chapter on the topic.

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TheSlasher
Feb 28, 2007 - 12:08 AM

"Begrudgingly" is right. They're just after as much cash as they can get.

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dhjdhj
Feb 28, 2007 - 9:28 AM

And what's wrong with being after as much cash as they can get? That's called "business"

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