The news has been floating around for a while, but Google finally made it official on Wednesday: Google Editions, their eBook store, launched on Monday.

What’s the big deal?  Well, as many of us agree, the proprietary formats are just a pain.  You can’t read Adobe DRM on Kindle, you can’t read AMZ on anything except Kindle-compatible devices, blah blah blah.  (Although the Bluefire app, which reads Adobe-DRM books on Apple devices, just broke through a major barrier.)

Anyway, the difference with Google Editions is that their books are entirely Web-based.  This means that you would be able to read books anywhere, on any device, as long you can connect to the internet and have a Web browser.

The tech media are talking it up, saying it makes a significant difference, that it will provide true competition to the juggernauts.  And in a way it is.  Without being tied to a proprietary format, readers can read on anything.  Similar to most […]