Shortcovers (Kobo?) adds 1.8 million scanned books from The Internet Archive

[anurag]

From their blog:

http://blog.shortcovers.com/2009/12/...rnet-archives/

No mention of the new brand/reader (if you're wondering, see https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65142)

B&N and Sony both have some sort of Google Books integration, and now Shortcovers becomes another company that can claim they have 'millions of ebooks'.

Amazon seems quite satisfied with their 360k.

[vaughnmr]

And you are trying to say "what" exactly.

[anurag]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

And you are trying to say "what" exactly.

Exactly what I said - Shortcovers.com users can now download 1.8m ebooks from IA. If they launch a reader tomorrow, they will be able to claim that their reader can access 1.8m+ ebooks, just like B&N, who partner with Google Books for 1m+ ebooks. Amazon does not seem to be interested in partnering with either IA or Google Books to make their free ebooks available through the Kindle store. I thought this was interesting, so I posted it. No hidden gems of wisdom in this one

[vaughnmr]

To be honest about it, I'm a newbie here, so maybe my comment doesn't count. I'd rather see the 1 million free/old stuff at some other place than Amazon. They (Amazon) do a pretty good job of bringing the "classics" into their fold, without diluting everything with a million books I really don't have any interest in. There are other places to get these books. My point is that some companies are using this for marketing purposes only.

[anurag]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

To be honest about it, I'm a newbie here, so maybe my comment doesn't count. I'd rather see the 1 million free/old stuff at some other place than Amazon. They (Amazon) do a pretty good job of bringing the "classics" into their fold, without diluting everything with a million books I really don't have any interest in. There are other places to get these books. My point is that some companies are using this for marketing purposes only.

You're right - the companies are indeed using this only for marketing, given the automated conversions that leave a lot to be desired unless you're reading the PDF scan itself. But Amazon is making a conscious decision not to play the numbers game this way, and that to me is interesting.

[vaughnmr]

I've got a whole lot of these "free/older/classic" books on my kindle, and these things are junk, sorry if I offended anyone. Thank you Google or whoever for scanning them, now someone needs to edit the mess.

[tubemonkey]

All your ebook are belong to us

[Donnageddon]

I, for one, welcome our new [spam link edit - moderator] Spammer" overlord!

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

I've got a whole lot of these "free/older/classic" books on my kindle, and these things are junk, sorry if I offended anyone. Thank you Google or whoever for scanning them, now someone needs to edit the mess.

Go right ahead, no one is stopping you. What do you mean by junk though? a few typos here and there? The gist is still there, which is what will be needed by the machine for understanding.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Go right ahead, no one is stopping you. What do you mean by junk though? a few typos here and there? The gist is still there, which is what will be needed by the machine for understanding.

nevermind

[taming]

Originally Posted by anurag

B&N and Sony both have some sort of Google Books integration, and now Shortcovers becomes another company that can claim they have 'millions of ebooks'.

This is from December 14, 2009. Before there was a Kobo and long before there was a Google Books initiative. I believe it was Gutenberg that the books were obtained from, back then.

[tubemonkey]

This thread was reactivated by a spammer wanting us to spend big bucks on his scanning service. That post has been removed. Everything from post 7 on is now meaningless.