Blazingpie
06-18-2006, 03:47 PM
Yep. caught me out by suprise too. Went to the Cape Town Book Fair today and saw on the schedule that there was a presentation at 3, so I decided to go along. Its a pity I didnt have paper and pen on me, i would have taken notes.
It was presented by Roland Lange, who deals with Google Books, and thats what the focus was on. I didnt really know much about this product, seeing how it didnt affect me, but it was very, very interesting.
Basically, Google Books allows you to find books and then see snippets from them - they are very careful when protecting the copyright-holders and publisher's rights - and then have links to the publisher's sites, amazon, etc.
All in all, I was pretty damn amazed that Google would send someone down to little old Cape Town to give a presentation at our first annual book show, but then I realised that they are already trying to build a rapport with the local ppl, seeing how Google is opening a centre in South Africa (http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/openingsintl.html#africa).
on the side, we all know that google makes money with Adsense and Adwords, but i didnt know that they offered hardware too - cant remember what it was called, but its basically a server that you buy and connect to your network, and it'll sort through millions and millions of your companies documents for you. kinda like having Google right in your company :)
It was presented by Roland Lange, who deals with Google Books, and thats what the focus was on. I didnt really know much about this product, seeing how it didnt affect me, but it was very, very interesting.
Basically, Google Books allows you to find books and then see snippets from them - they are very careful when protecting the copyright-holders and publisher's rights - and then have links to the publisher's sites, amazon, etc.
All in all, I was pretty damn amazed that Google would send someone down to little old Cape Town to give a presentation at our first annual book show, but then I realised that they are already trying to build a rapport with the local ppl, seeing how Google is opening a centre in South Africa (http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/openingsintl.html#africa).
on the side, we all know that google makes money with Adsense and Adwords, but i didnt know that they offered hardware too - cant remember what it was called, but its basically a server that you buy and connect to your network, and it'll sort through millions and millions of your companies documents for you. kinda like having Google right in your company :)