Google launched its ebookstore on December 6, 2010.
Unlike the ebooks meant for the Barnes and Noble's Nook, Amazon.com's Kindle or Apple's iPad, Google's ebooks were not downloaded but instead accessed by the reader from a "cloud." This meant a single ebook purchase from Google is theoretically accessible from the buyer's ereader, tablet, computer and/or smartphone. Google ebooks even saved the reader's place when he or she is accessing the book across several platforms.
The Google ebookstore site offered a short explanatory video as well as an eBooks tab that contained helpful, information about the eBooks offered, their features and the exceptions to their promoted services. The store was simply designed and, in addition to "hundreds of thousands" of books from publishers, Google claimed to offer nearly 3 million free, public-domain books, perhaps partially as a result of their Google Library Project.
The Google ebookstore partnered with independent, bricks-and-mortar bookstores (such as Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon), giving those booksellers the ability to offer their customers an ebook-buying option with broad choices. While Google ebooks reportedly made up only a small fraction of store revenue, independent booksellers partook of the program for the percieved competitive advantage the program offered.
In late February of 2012, a number of independent booksellers were suddenly "deactivated" from the Google ebook program, in what Google later claimed was an error. The booksellers were quickly reinstated; however, just weeks later, in early April of 2012, Google announced the suspension of the program altogether by January 2013, citing that poor results as evidence "that the reseller program has not met the needs of many readers or booksellers."