Amazon Pages and Amazon Upgrade Announced

Amazon's Search Inside the Book was launched two years ago, allowing customers to find and discover books by searching the text inside them. Incredibly, the program has become so popular that today that one out of two books sold in the U.S. by Amazon.com are in Amazon's Search Inside the Book program. Now Amazon has announced Amazon Pages and Amazon Upgrade, two new programs that will enable customers to purchase online access to any page, section, or chapter of a book, as well as the book in its entirety.

The first program, Amazon Pages, will "un-bundle" the physical-world experience of buying and reading a book so that customers can simply and inexpensively purchase and read online just the pages they need. For example, an entrepreneur interested in marketing his or her business could purchase the relevant chapters from several best-selling business books.

The second program, Amazon Upgrade, will allow customers to "upgrade" their purchase of a physical book on Amazon.com to include complete online access. For example, a software developer who buys a Java programming book will not only get the physical book delivered to his or her home, but will also get 24x7 Web access to the complete interior text of the book. Buy a cookbook and you will not only have it on your shelf, but also be able to access it anywhere via the Web.

"Amazon Pages and Amazon Upgrade leverage Amazon's existing Search Inside the Book technology to give customers unusual flexibility in how they buy and read books," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO, Amazon.com. "In collaboration with our publishing partners, we're working hard to make the world's books instantly accessible anytime and anywhere."

Amazon plans to launch the services in 2006.

With Google Print beta launched (reactions to Google Print) and competitors Open Content Alliance arriving, digital books are becoming a hot topic.