Google and Random House

Random House, the world’s biggest book publisher, is considering joining a book-search project run by Google.
It came as a surprise, or not?
Google has agreements with more than 10,000 publishers, large and small, to have their books scanned in full. Google then makes them partially available — according to agreements with each publisher — for online readers.
Meaning that, at least theoretically, Google should be the arch-enemy of the paper publishing industry.
Google has so far digitised the full texts of more than 1 million books. The total number of books in the world is unknown but global library collective WorldCat has more than 91 million bibliographic records in its database, the biggest of its kind.
Google now works with 27 libraries worldwide, up from seven a year ago, and its book search is available in 11 languages Oxford University’s Bodleian Library and Japan’s Keio University library.

The company, which does not charge or pay its publisher partners, gains depth and authority for its Internet search engine by making not only Web pages but also books searchable.

At the same time, Google has been thrown into legal dispute with U.S. publishers as Google also scans works from its U.S. library partners that are still in copyright without asking the publishers first.

The alleged venture has not been confirmed by Google.

Personally I like the feeling of a paper book, the convenience of reading it before going to bed. I would consider an ebook only if I have no other choice and probably I would try to print it out as soon as possible.

Lawyers open a virtual branch office in Second Life

I’ve been reading about the virtual ‘Second Life’ for months now; starting with how addictive it is and ending with how you can spend real money into a virtual world. The last but not least, how real people made real good money in a virtual world.

The virtual ‘Second Life’ gathered a community of about 9 million people from various walk of lives and continents.

It has cops, robbers and from now on real lawyers.

According to the Vancouver lawyers, having a virtual branch will provide the opportunity to network with their clients effectively. Although set in a virtual world they will give real-life advice. Of course, getting new clients would be the bonus, right?

The truth about sites that pay you to blog

The truth is that not many sites are going to accept you into their ‘make-money-for-blogging’ program.
I was trying today to get accepted by ReviewMe. I failed. My blog does not generate enough traffic so far.
This is the reality of making money on the net: you have to be already a winner to get into the Big-Boys-Club; read ‘get lots of page impressions per month’
In some cases, the minimum accepted number is 100,000!!!
Now let’s face it: most of us like to blog for fun and why not, if we are paid for having opinions on something or writing an honest product review, it’s even better, it keeps you motivated.Being rejected is not a pleasant feeling. Damn!

Making big money on line is like getting a well paid job in Canada. You have to have a successful career before applying for the job.
My lesson today:ReviewMe, Kontera and Chitika are not for newcomers. Pooh-pooh on them.
Probably when I am going to have traffic on my site I wouldn’t choose them only because I don’t like this elitism.

The Sisyphean challenge of making money on the net

Seriously, I have no idea how a four year old is capable of developing a successful blog. Or how a teenager has a blog worth 1 million dollars. When did they gather the knowledge?
OK, I am not a good sport; I know I should be happy for their success or at least be more motivated. Instead of that I feel like Sisyphus. I spend every freaking hour off trying to understand the widgets, pings, etc.
Not really a type A personality, I tried to organize the myriad of info and suggestions. It boiled down to the following list:

Learn some basic HTML

: Work in progress

Decide on your topic

: Almost there

Choose your domain name

: Done

Register your domain name and set up your web hosting

: Done

Install weblog software

: To be done sooner then later

Find good, honest affiliate programs

: Good Luck with that!!!

Promote your site

: I still don’t know what the heck to do about it

I got burned already with an affiliate program, more about that later on.
In the mean time, another Saturday afternoon spent trying to find a nice WordPress theme.