With yesterday’s launch of Google Play, the poor old Google (NSDQ: GOOG) eBookstore has a new name and is part of a portal that also offers movies, music and Android apps — and an emphasis on curation and discounts.
The message is clear: Books are just one type of content that Google sells, and the company wants to offer them as part of an iTunes-like ecosystem rather than as a separate storefront.
Google is kicking off the change with a week of content sales: “We’ll be offering a different album, book, video rental and Android app at a special price each day for the next week in our ‘7 Days to Play’ sale.” Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is on sale for the super-low price of $0.25.
A shifting banner at the top of the page leads to other book promotions that are reminiscent of Amazon’s “100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less” promotion: Google’s own “100 Books for $3.99 or Less,” “Play Detective: Featured Reads in Mystery & Crime” starting at $2.99, and “Play Our Favorites: Staff Picks in Books” starting at $3.99.
Expect Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) to move quickly to match any discounts it’s not already offering — it’s already dropped the price of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to $0.25, while the Nook edition is still $7.03.

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