Home Microsoft Continues on Google’s Path – Launches Live Search Books

Microsoft Continues on Google’s Path – Launches Live Search Books

Today Microsoft released a beta of Live Search
Books
, its competitor to Google Book Search.
The content inside Live Search Books isn’t that modern – it basically only includes
out-of-copyright books. As the Live Search team noted, this release “makes tens of
thousands of out-of-copyright books available from our library scanning initiative,
including books from the University of California, the University of Toronto, and the
British Library.”

What’s of most interest is that it’s yet another example of Microsoft matching blow
for blow
whatever online product Google comes out with. Books isn’t something you’d
normally expect Microsoft to bother with, except perhaps by making it easier to read
eBooks on their Tablet PCs. But books is a very strategically important area for Google
to enter into, because Google’s main remit is to organize the world’s information.
As books are still probably the main form of in-depth information delivery, it makes
perfect sense for Google to try and cover that. And indeed they’ve been going to great lengths in recent months
to do that. But for Microsoft, a book search service seems almost irrelevant for them –
except as a way to copy and cover whatever Google does.

For the reason why, read John
Milan’s provocative R/WW article
about the changing climates for Google and
Microsoft:

“For all the apps Google puts out, very few can be considered ‘sticky’, and even fewer
can be monetized outside of advertising – it’s too easy to go to Yahoo or MSN for the
same free service.

Indeed, Microsoft is already encroaching at each potential feeding ground. Google
offers Earth, Microsoft offers Virtual Earth. Google offers AdWords, Microsoft offers
AdCenter. Google offers documents and spreadsheets, Microsoft offers Office Live. Google
invests heavily in Firefox, Microsoft shakes the dust off Internet Explorer.”

John’s goes on to say that Microsoft is capable of playing much more than just defence
with Google… they are in a position to raise the stakes and change the playing field.
So in that sense, this news about Live Search Books is relatively unimportant in the
grand scheme of things.

Verdict: Both Live Search Books and Google Book Search Suck

In any case I tested out Live Search Books and to be frank, didn’t find it of much
value. I’m interested more in what current books are saying – e.g. the latest Michael
Lewis book, or Freakonomics. What’s more, I’m really interested in what people are
saying about those books – the conversations, what else they’re reading that may interest
me, what inspires people about the books, etc. For those things, I’m more likely to go to
AllConsuming.net rather than Live Search Books or
Google Book Search.

For example, a search for “the blind side” (Michael Lewis’
latest book
) brings me zilch searching on Google and Microsoft. On A9, Amazon’s
inside-the-book search, there is sadly no preview content (no doubt because they couldn’t
get the publisher’s permission).
On AllConsuming
, although there isn’t yet any commentary from people who’ve read the
book (which kind of defeats the point I was going to make), you can at least see what
other books people are ‘consuming’ as well as The Blind Side. Freakonomics is actually a
better example to use, as there is a decent amount of user content around this book on
AllConsuming.

So it’s the social and sharing aspects which would really make a book search
product compelling – and so far neither Google or Microsoft provides that. Even
considering that copyright woes prevent Google and Microsoft from having modern
books in their index, I’d still like to see more community and (you guessed it) read/write
Web features in their book search products.

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The ReadWrite Editorial policy involves closely monitoring the tech industry for major developments, new product launches, AI breakthroughs, video game releases and other newsworthy events. Editors assign relevant stories to staff writers or freelance contributors with expertise in each particular topic area. Before publication, articles go through a rigorous round of editing for accuracy, clarity, and to ensure adherence to ReadWrite's style guidelines.

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