Google, Microsoft Live, and Porfolio

Interesting blog from Michael Cairns of Personanondata. Like the rest of you I have been paying a lot more attention to Google Book Search than to Microsoft Live Search Books. But if Microsoft are developing systems which work for publishers interests and also for end users, then they have taken an important step forward. [Yes I know there were two 'ifs' in that sentence!]. Google Book Search is making such rapid progress that it is certainly going to work. But Cairns is right, having more than one digital avenue is really important for publishers and authors.

Portfolio, mentioned the other day, has been getting some ecstatic reviews from Samir Husni, several of them, and a more cautious one from the Printisdead blog. I am not so sure about the printisdead idea. When you think about it, Google and Microsoft would not be investing so much in Print Search and digital editions if they thought it was dead or dieing. So you might expect Conde Nast to do a digital edition? So far nothing there but a repurposed magazine (most of it) and a repurposed, but not permalinked, table of contents.