A Direct Competitor to OverDrive
5 January 2012
From eBookNewser:
Back in May of this year 3M announced the Cloud Library, their new digital library platform. The 3M Cloud Library was conceived as a direct competitor to OverDrive, one of the biggest digital library distributor, and it was going to offer many of the same services, including reading apps and one thing OverDrive doesn’t offer: an eReader.
3M is still planning to release an integrated eReader, but it’s not ready yet. Today I learned that their apps are now available. Like OverDrive, 3M has released apps for Android and iOS. You can download the apps and then browse a participating library’s eBook selection (library card required).
Link to the rest at eBookNewser
The problem here is that I am unlikely to buy another reader just to borrow books. My phone is not my prefered reading platform. But if they can get it into my kindle down the road, let me know.
Big deal. Public libraries are very limited to their budgets. If you’re in Boston then you are lucky, maybe there are lots of books to choose from. My local Backwaterville Library can’t/doesn’t offer many books thru Overdrive.
We need a Netflix for books where you don’t need a library card. Or Hulu. I love watching TV shows I don’t get on my satellite there and all I “pay” for the privilege is to sit there and watch a Geico commercial. I wouldn’t object to a couple ads at the back of the book for natural dog food from an entity that doesn’t require their reader.
[...] OF course, just after I uploaded this post, I saw an article on The Passive Voice about 3M and how they are positioning themselves to be a distributor of ebooks to libraries. And a direct [...]