[godkira]

Interesting. FTA "And would users choose to go to Google for this service, rather than some of the other e-book publishers and providers out there?"

Personally I have had nothing but good experiences with Google, and depending on the prices and books available I would have no problem renting books from Google.

[hugh3]

And since they've already got damn near every book ever written scanned and indexed I can see big... uhhh, synergies. Or whatever the non-wanky synonym for "synergies" is.

I google for "obscure topic X" and I find a few crappy websites combined with what looks like a great discussion in the book "An Advanced Course In Obscure Topic X". It tells me I can find a hardcopy in the library three miles away, or for 99 cents I can rent an e-copy from Google for four weeks. Why the hell not? Everybody wins -- me, Google, and the publisher.