Nickname: shazmil

Review: In my view, this is a great thing these guys are trying to introduce. This strategy of search should work out, because the issues that they are facing don't seem that big. The question is whether there is a market for this book search. I feel the answer is yes. As time goes on they will and can improve the quality of the product.

Date reviewed: Jan 20, 2006 12:37 PM

Nickname: Jill Hurst-Wahl

Review: I blogged about Google's lack of quality on Dec. 5 and give some additional information. You can read the posting at http://hurstassociates.blogspot.com/2005/11/how-is-googles-digitization-quality.html

Date reviewed: Jan 9, 2006 2:30 PM

Nickname: Seaclear

Review: In my opinion, the fundamental flaw is very clear: They're using a manual and operator dependent system to undertake a massive project that requires a very high level of quality and consistency. Unless they switch to an automated process, they'll never be able to fix their problems. They'll only get worse, a lot worse!

Date reviewed: Dec 24, 2005 4:02 AM

Nickname: Digiright

Review: Smartest company around!? Give me a break! I think they've been as stupid as it gets about this whole book project! Whether it's the frontal assault on copyright laws, the quality flaws, the execution, the shrouds of sercrecy; They got it all wrong! They've got lots of "fixing" on their hands. It also reflects poorly on the judgement of their library partners. I wouldn't be surprised if some of their partners started breaking away from this ill-fated alliance.

Date reviewed: Dec 23, 2005 10:46 PM

Nickname: Not impressed

Review: Just because Google had a homerun on search technology and made tons of money on it doesn't mean they're the best at anything. The real smart companies have learned that a long time ago. Amazon too has digitized millions of pages, and I never saw a single page that's off. Perhaps "smart Google" should learn how to spell the word "outsourcing."

Date reviewed: Dec 23, 2005 10:17 PM

Nickname: Scantron

Review: Nothing is perfect. Google is the smartest company out there right now. Who would we rather have take on this enormous task that we think could do a better job? Go Google, go! -scantron

Date reviewed: Dec 23, 2005 5:20 PM

Nickname: Book lover

Review: Since I read this article, I've been looking through some of the public domain books on Google. It's pretty awful and very widespread! In fact, I didn't find a single book that was clean cover to cover. Each and every one I clicked through, had either missing pages (and that happens a lot), blurry text, fingers around the page, cut-off text, and some other crap. Why are they doing this to our books? I was so happy to see Google starting this project, and now I want to cry. Hey, Google: Do this right, or back off!

Date reviewed: Dec 23, 2005 4:03 PM

Nickname: Jeff

Review: I don't understand the negative comments about this effort. Sure, some pages are unreadable - but millions upon millions are. Plus is it better to have nothing? Google is smart, they will put the power of the Internet to help them. They will let users identify the bad pages and re-scan the problem ones. This will take a long time. In 10 years this thing will be very powerful.

Date reviewed: Dec 23, 2005 3:51 PM

Nickname: Koonie

Review: I agree with Summit and Q-matters. Somebody at Google should teach them about sticking with their core competencies, and outsource the rest. I love the fact that they're digitizing those millions of books, but it doesn't have to be this way. How dumb is it to think they can make their own book scanner, and how dumber is it to try to run their own digitization. Amazon is doing it right; why can't they?

Date reviewed: Dec 23, 2005 2:48 PM

Nickname: Brad

Review: Those who say that Google is only good at search should try Gmail. Gmail is the best email service I have used. I, for one, think Google Books will also be a winner.

Date reviewed: Dec 23, 2005 10:59 AM