Now it's Amazon's turn
Close on the heels of Microsoft's announcement (covered earlier) to digitize the world's books and make them available for online searches, Amazon plans to introduce two programs next year that will allow consumers to buy online access to entire books, and to individual pages or chapters. As opposed to the Google Print program, where they are scanning copyrighted books, in some cases without the permission of publishers or authors, Amazon plans to work with the publishers and essentially provide them with another way to generate revenue.
This is very similar in many ways to Apple's ITMS where individual songs are available for purchase for $0.99. Judging by the success of that program, this seems like a good move, and would especially appeal to students and researchers. I can't however imagine people wanting to buy entire books to read online. Earlier efforts in this direction have failed miserably.