By Laura Hazard Owen
A year after its launch-slash-rebrand, Google Play contains over 5 million ebooks, 18 million songs and 700,000 apps, Google announced in a blog post Wednesday.
Google Play is a rebrand of the Android Market, intended to remind users that Google sells content besides apps. So far, success has been mixed. When it comes to ebooks, for example, Google hasn’t been able to compete with Amazon or even Apple; its share of the ebook market is likely in the single digits, and while 5 million ebooks sounds high, a lot of those are free public domain titles. And as our Erica Ogg wrote recently, while the number of Android apps has grown quickly, developers almost never choose to develop for Android before or instead of iOS.
Google is taking some steps to bring more users to the store. It started offering gift cards and a wishlist feature last year. Today it’s running sales on a bunch of content — $5 ebooks, some 99-cent movie rentals and other promotions.
Google Play is a rebrand of the Android Market, intended to remind users that Google sells content besides apps. So far, success has been mixed. When it comes to ebooks, for example, Google hasn’t been able to compete with Amazon or even Apple; its share of the ebook market is likely in the single digits, and while 5 million ebooks sounds high, a lot of those are free public domain titles. And as our Erica Ogg wrote recently, while the number of Android apps has grown quickly, developers almost never choose to develop for Android before or instead of iOS.
Google is taking some steps to bring more users to the store. It started offering gift cards and a wishlist feature last year. Today it’s running sales on a bunch of content — $5 ebooks, some 99-cent movie rentals and other promotions.
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