More Books Are Coming Online in Ad Supported Format

In this video Brewster Kahle highlighted the importance of open and redundant access to information.

Project Gutenberg makes over 20,000 full books accessible online. Additional public domain books are available online via sites like Google Book Search, Creative Commons, and the Open Content Alliance.

Many published books created after 1922 are still under copyright and are inaccessible other than samples provided by services such as Amazon’s search inside this book service and Google’s Book Search. Many more books will soon come online in an ad supported format. John Wiley & Sons recently made a vast array of content avail Frommer’s, For Dummies, and Cliff Notes available online in an ad supported format. The WSJ reported that the sites make about $5 million dollars each.

Making content open and accessible is one of the quickest ways to gain relevancy and steal marketshare from older players, many of whom will start moving their catalogs online in an ad supported format in an attempt to stay relevant. As more content becomes freely available online the value of creating more content drops unless it garners significant attention or is associated with a trusted brand.