On Tue, 23 May 2006 Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
michael said:
I wonder how great a percentage of Google's six year plan will have to expire before Mr. Bowerbird will admit that it doesn't look as if Google is even trying to make it to 10 million in 6 years.
michael, it certainly isn't necessary to call me "mr." bowerbird. but hey, it sounds kinda funny and cute, so please, be my guest.
as for google's plan, i laid out my prediction last december: december 14, 2004 -- 0 books december 14, 2005 -- 10,000 books december 14, 2006 -- 100,000 books december 14, 2007 -- 1,000,000 books december 14, 2008 -- 10,000,000 books
so not only do i think they are still on-track, and doing well, i actually think they'll wrap it up by the end of 2008, michael, _if_ they stop at the 10.5 million unique titles they have now.
Of course a lot of this depends on what you think and eBook is. The Library Of Congress set their own standard a decade ago as a 99.95% accurate full text. I don't think Google is even trying to get close to this. Then again, some people think pictures of pages are as good as full text, but that would entail a different definition. 1. Making scans is trivial 2. Making raw OCR is trivial 3. Making a 99.95% accurate full text eBook from those is not. 1 and 2 are quick and dirty to most people, and the results make that all too obvious, with so many errors and missing pages. Not to mention that the "books reading each other" requires full text at a reasonable level of accuracy. Google is just getting to 1% of their goal, and they seem to be heading in directions other than these systems and standards would require to be defined as eBooks. Of course, as you mention, when you have over 100 billion dollars, some people are willing to fudge things for you. "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." Rene Magritte "Don't confuse the map with the territory." However, if Google manages to put 10 million books online, even if just searchable in snippets, by December 14, 2010, I will be glad to buy you dinner. And it's a bet that would help the world at large! Thanks!!! Give the world eBooks in 2006!!! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg Blog at http://hart.pglaf.org