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.

but i think the courts will clear a path for them by that time,
and more libraries will come on-board, and their focus will
expand from books into the wide variety of _other_ content
commonly found in libraries, including much of the local stuff
found in libraries nationwide, so that by december 14, 2012,
they will have scanned a grand total of some 100 million items,
at a cost of $10 billion.  (all the local stuff will jack up the cost,
from $1 billion to $10 billion.  but by this time, the google boys
will be worth $25 billion each, and google itself $75 billion, so
this will just be a cost of doing business written off their taxes.)

see, when you've got a ton of money, moore's law becomes
your _bottom_ bound, not your top one.  need to go faster?
all you need to do is buy more scanners and hire more people.


>   My own projections show it taking about twice that long,

so what if it does take "twice as long"?  or 3 or 4 times as long?

really, so what?

your own e-library took 35 years to get to 20,000 items,
and i think it's one of the best things in all of cyberspace...

well, except for some of those videos over on youtube.
people are really funny and creative, know what i mean?     ;+)

-bowerbird