ZDNet Education

Christopher Dawson
Home / News & Blogs / ZDNet Education

Access and smart DRM will make Google Editions a key player in Ed

By | October 15, 2009, 8:46pm PDT

Summary: Bingo! A subscription-based service easily adapted to the needs of schools without forcing educational institutions to buy one more electronic device when we’re already pushing towards 1:1 computing as fast as our little budgets will allow. Really, folks, I’m not a Google fanboy. They just do cool stuff.

Almost 6 months ago I wrote a post about ways to push the e-textbook market forward, making the limitations of the then e-reader of choice (the Kindle) irrelevant. Screw the Kindle, I said…just give me an e-book App to use on a variety of devices and it won’t matter that a Kindle isn’t in color or that e-books can’t readily be shared in a school setting like paper books can be.

Not surprisingly, Google agreed with me and announced its Book Project about a month later. As I reported then, quoting the Wall Street Journal,

A key difference [from Kindle] would be that the search giant aims to let Google Book Search users “buy access” to copyrighted books with any Web-enabled computer, e-reader or mobile phone.

Bingo! A subscription-based service easily adapted to the needs of schools without forcing educational institutions to buy one more electronic device when we’re already pushing towards 1:1 computing as fast as our little budgets will allow. Really, folks, I’m not a Google fanboy. They just do cool stuff.

Today, Google announced further details about its Book Search, rebranded as Google Editions. According to Ars Technica,

The books will be accessible on the Web, says Google, meaning that any computer or gadget that has a browser will be able to get to the site. The way Google Editions is being pitched, it sounds as if there won’t be strict DRM on the offerings—Google says that it’s meant to make books accessible from anywhere and that they can be read offline after being downloaded.

Eschewing the proprietary format used in the Kindle makes Editions even more attractive to textbook publishers who have largely been dragging their feet in the e-book movement. Ars again notes,

If anything, it means that publishers that are reluctant to commit to certain proprietary formats (cough Kindle cough) will be able to make money on e-books now without waiting to see who wins the war.

Textbook publishers who have long sought to protect their multi-billion dollar industry will also have the potential to safeguard their profits more effectively with Editions. According to the New York Times,

Many publishers have been unhappy that Amazon and others have been charging just $10 for most e-books, a price that could hurt sales the more expensive hardcover. Google said publishers will get to set prices under its system.

Publishers will get nearly two-thirds of revenue for direct sales by Google.

While textbooks clearly wouldn’t be selling for $10 on Amazon, the ability to set their prices, when so many textbook publishers sell directly to schools, should further encourage movement towards more widespread electronic publishing.

Between the free and open source textbook references that are becoming widely available and a solid shove in the right direction from Editions, we’re getting much closer to the libraries of electronic textbooks that students will be able to access anytime, anywhere.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

More from “ZDNet Education”

Topics

Google Inc., Microsoft Access, Digital-rights Management, Kindle, Textbook Publisher, E-books, Personal Technology, Christopher Dawson

Chris Dawson is a freelance writer and consultant with years of experience in educational technology and web-based systems. In 2011, he became the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network SaaS provider.

Disclosure

Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson is the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., by day and a freelance writer and educational technology consultant by night. Well, most of his colleagues at WizIQ are based in India, so really he's working with them whenever he can stay awake. He has worked for his local school district as a teacher and technology director, for the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and for Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen-IDEC, Inc.). He has also consulted with STATNet and Cytyc Corporation and retains close ties with X2 Development Corporation (now owned by Follett Software, the supplier of the student information system he administered for several years). Follett is paying him a monthly honorarium to act as a presenter for their "SIS Voices for Student Achievement" community (he produces occasional blog posts and hosts a monthly webinar on the use of student information systems to inform data-driven instruction and school-wide change. He regularly purchases and/or recommends Dell hardware. This is because Dell makes good hardware and has truly committed itself to education in innovative ways, particularly with their "Connected Classroom" initiative. It isn't because he has dealings with the company through his role at WizIQ (which he does) or because they have provided him with long-term loans of a variety of equipment for in-depth testing (which they have). Intel (reference designer for the Classmate PCs he has implemented in his local schools) has provided him with long-term loans of Classmate PCs for testing, as have Dell and Lenovo with their educational offerings. He may report on any of these companies as his experiences with them have direct bearing on educational technology; positive reports are not necessarily an endorsement and he receives no direct financial compensation from these companies or any others. Intel paid all expenses for his attendance at the 2009 Intel Classmate PC Ecosystem Summit which he attended as the sole representative of the technology press. He was invited to attend in 2010 but his wife would have killed him if he spent 3 days in Vegas geeking out and left her home alone with a new baby. Acer provided him with a 50% discount on an Aspire One netbook in early 2009 after he tested it for 30 days through their educational seed program. He liked the netbook at the time but it has since broken and sits unused in his office. Canonical sent him Ubuntu lanyards, t-shirts, and mousepads for his kids. He stole one of the lanyards and proudly hangs his keys from it and occasionally features his 8-year old wearing an oversized Ubuntu t-shirt on his Facebook profile. Gunnar Optiks sent him a pair of computer glasses to evaluate for a holiday gift guide. He is wearing them now as he types this because they never asked for them back and they rock out loud. Seriously - they work brilliantly and make it much easier to spend 20 hours a day staring at an LCD. If they ever asked for them back, he would fork over the $99 and buy a pair. Microsoft gave him 2 free copies of Office 2010 professional, a desktop clock, and a useless book on Office 2010 when he attended the launch of Office/Sharepoint 2010. He occasionally uses the SharePoint lanyard they gave him instead of the Ubuntu lanyard for his keys, but feels dirty afterwards. Adobe provided him with a pre-release version of the CS5 Master Collection for evaluation and ultimately provided a full, licensed copy for ongoing testing of educational applications of this admittedly expensive software. Like the Gunnars, if the license expires or they come out with CS6, he'd actually go out and buy it himself. Which is saying something, because he's actually pretty cheap. Any other companies wishing to send him cool things to evaluate, wear, or otherwise adorn his kids are more than welcome to; he promises to disclose it here if he keeps any of the stuff. Finally, because WizIQ is a virtual classroom and learning network provider, Chris, as VP of Marketing, frequently interacts with, seeks out deals with, and directly or indirectly competes with a whole lot of LMS, SIS, and other Education 2.0 companies. In general, he'll limit his reporting about these companies to news that does not impact his relationship with them or with WizIQ. If he reports on them, it's because what they are doing is newsworthy or worth the attention of his readers and not because he's trying to broker some deal, damage competition, or otherwise advance his position in his day job. LMS and SIS companies, along with other online learning communities, are a pretty important part of Ed Tech. If he stops reporting on them completely, there won't be a whole lot left. He'll be sure to call out any overt conflicts of interest if they are unavoidable. Finally, Follett Software Company pays him a little tiny honorarium every month to present on their SIS Voices webinars and to write the occasional blog or discussion thread for them. Since Follett recently bought X2 (maker of an awesome web-based SIS that Chris just happened to have used, served in advisory groups for, and frequently reported on), this is probably also worth disclosing.

Biography

Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson grew up in Seattle, back in the days of pre-antitrust Microsoft, coffeeshops owned by something other than Starbucks, and really loud, inarticulate music. He escaped to the right coast in the early 90's and received a degree in Information Systems from Johns Hopkins University. While there, he began a career in health and educational information systems, with a focus on clinical trials and related statistical programming and database modeling. This focus led him to several positions at Johns Hopkins, a couple-year stint in private industry, teaching high school math and technology, and 2 years as the technology director for his local school district. Most recently, he started his own consulting business and is now the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network provider. He lives with his wife, five kids (yes, 5), 2 dogs, and a hateful cat in a small town in north-central Massachusetts. Although he is no longer teaching, his roles with WizIQ and ZDNet allow him to continue helping students and teachers add value to education with technology rather than merely adding to the bottom line.

Talkback Most Recent of 5 Talkback(s)

  • ZDNet Blogger

    Epub format is winning
    Just about every reader except the Kindle can display books in the .epub format. Unlike pdf, text in epub can be easily reflowed for different screen sizes and font sizes. Do you see any serious challengers to epub?

    Of course reflowing does give rise to a problem - what do you do when your teacher says "Turn to page 56"? Is there any standard to solve that? Maybe numbering all paragraphs? Or "Search for 'p56'" with tags for the start of every page in the printed version. Or how about bar codes that could be scanned, or book-local tinyurls that could be remembered and typed.

    To a lesser degree, different editions of printed books already suffer this problem and it's never been solved satisfactorily.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Ed Burnette
    16th Oct 2009
  • Reinventing the wheel
    Of course reflowing does give rise to a problem - what do you do when your teacher says "Turn to page 56"? Is there any standard to solve that? Maybe numbering all paragraphs? Or "Search for 'p56'" with tags for the start of every page in the printed version. Or how about bar codes that could be scanned, or book-local tinyurls that could be remembered and typed.

    Or how about the same tags that HTML has been using from the beginning. file://home/yagotta/the_old_man_and_the_sea#chapter_5

    To a lesser degree, different editions of printed books already suffer this problem and it's never been solved satisfactorily.

    I call BS. HTML solves it beautifully -- and all of my e-books use HTML exactly that way. Non-issue unless you insist on reinventing the wheel.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Yagotta B. Kidding
    16th Oct 2009
  • RE: Access and smart DRM will make Google Editions a key player in Ed
    Let's hear it for open standards, and then, give us availability of a "purchased" (leased?) object across multiple personally-owned screens/devices.

    Maybe, here's where text-to-voice takes off. I can see the kids now, listening to the chapter for today's class on the bus on their way to campus...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    mplkn
    16th Oct 2009
  • Is the book publishing business going the way of the music business
    The availability of inexpensive mp3 player hardware, the standardized mp3 file format and p2p file sharing was a disruptive force that fundamentally changed the music business.

    The availability of inexpensive eBook reader hardware, the standardized ePub file format and p2p file sharing will fundamentally change the book publishing business.

    DRM is irrelevant. All DRM is always cracked.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    gmeader
    16th Oct 2009
  • RE: Access and smart DRM will make Google Editions a key player in Ed
    "They just do cool stuff." I wouldn't quite put it that way, but Google does seem to
    have an uncanny knack of supplying something that satisfies a lot of different
    customer needs in some very unique and creative ways.

    But I think if any company addresses itself to the question "what does the customer
    want and need?" and "how can I supply that?" if they do it successfully the money
    will just keep rolling in. But if they address the question "how can I be devious and
    control and screw the customer" the income will eventually head in a different
    direction.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bigpicture
    16th Oct 2009

Talkback - Tell Us What You Think

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

Blog Roll

Blog Archive

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources