The BookLover iPhone App for Book Lovers

If you love to read, you probably squeeze it anytime you can. On your lunch break, during your commute, and when you're waiting for an appointment. But summer is just around the corner and that means vacation time, or for book lovers, even more time to read. If you've been too busy to keep up with new books or old titles you ran across and thought sounded good, you're in luck. There's now, as they say, an app for that.

The new iPhone app, appropriate named "BookLover," will help you build your own personal reading list. You can keep track of books you want to read, make notes on them, and even share your lists with others. If you already know what books you want to read, add them to your virtual bookshelf by simply typing in the title. The shelves show your books by cover picture.

Once you've set up your bookshelf, you can create categories for your books, such as genre, book type, and even books you want to read and books you want to give to someone else. Simply drag and drop your book covers into any category you want.

You can also touch any book in your collection to add notes. Maybe a friend told you the book is on sale at Borders, just pull out your iPhone and make a note of it so you'll have the information handy for later. You can even share those notes via iPhone email or Facebook.

The app could have more features but it's cute with its little bookshelves and its inexpensive. You can purchase BookLover at the iTunes store for $0.99.

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Google to Sell eBooks This Summer

Google is going to be throwing its hat into yet another race this summer: the eBook market. Google's new eBook store, called "Editions," is expected to be open in June or July and the company hopes it will become a big competitor for Apple and Amazon.

Apple, of course, sells digital books for its new iPad device and Amazon for the device synonymous with eBooks, the Kindle. Amazon has sold over three million Kindles while the iPad, which has only been on the market for a month, has sold over a million.

Editions will sell over 12 million books, which will be available to read from any computer or mobile gadget, or anywhere you can access a full web browser. Publishers will be allowed to set the prices for their books and the eBooks will also be available for bookstores to sell. The stores will keep a majority of the revenue.

Google is also working on Google Book Search, which allows authors and publishers to sell "orphan books," which would allow people to search for those books and pay to use them. Authors and publishers who scan and sell the books would make 63% of the profit, while Google makes the remaining 37%. That effort is currently in limbo, due to legal opposition encouraged by the United States Department of Justice.

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Barnes & Noble Introduces Nook

Yesterday, book-selling giant Barnes & Noble introduced "Nook," a new e-reader that experts say will give Amazon's Kindle a run for its money this holiday season. The e-reader market is expected to see a lot of business with a projected three million devices being sold by the end of 2009 and six million are expected to sell by the end of 2010. This particular device will be available in Barnes and Noble's 800 American stores by late November, however the store is already taking pre-orders.

Barnes and Noble says Nook will allow users to share most books, a function that puts it a step ahead of Kindle. For wireless, Nook will use AT&T and Google's Android Mobile platform. It also features a unique dual use of display and color. A small color display, located below the main display, allows users to browse titles at the bookstore. It also uses e-Ink technology for easier reading. It can hold up to 1,500 books (the same as Kindle) but it does lack a web browser.

Nook books can also be viewed on Blackberries, iPhones, PC, Macs and other personal electronic devices. This publishing standard is called the ePub format. It also acts as antipiracy protection from Adobe. Barnes and Noble is well prepared for the release, with a newly opened bookstore of over 700,000 titles, over twice of what the Amazon store has to offer. Another advantage is that users can connect the device to free Wi-Fi when shopping inside an actual Barnes & Noble store, something Amazon/Kindle users can't do.

Several other e-readers are expected to hit the market soon, but none with the relationship Barnes and Noble has with publishers, which offers another advantage. Upon announcing the Nook, yesterday, Barnes and Noble stock shares rose 10 cents on New York Stock Exchange.