Archive - May 31, 2011

At this year’s BookExpo held in New York at the Jarvis Center, I slipped into the Google Books panel discussion to “parse the significance of the e-book explosion and to explain Google Books’ position in it” as Publishers Weekly BEA Show Daily stated on Thursday, May 26, 2011. In the crowded room, four publishing execs were quizzed on the impact and importance of the e-book format. First question up was one of discovery. We know that ‘traditional’ readers find out about new books and authors by “browsing in a physical store.” What we have today is a “system that’s ‘good for hunters, but not as good for gatherers.” You can find a book, if you know what you want, one of the panelists stated. Google Book’s director of strategic partnerships, Tom Turvey, made the comment that “all book recommendation engines suck” and that there ‘isn’t an algorithm that can compete . . .