The best way to do that is to allow what every book buyer has been doing since the printing press was invented: after they read a book, they lend it, or give it, to a friend. With a small investment, Audible & friends could add some functionality to their infrastructure which would turn their current customers into a marketing gold mine. The new features would be similar to how the big newspapers currently enable sharing of their content.

Suppose that I just finished reading/listening to a book I know my friend Sam would really love. I want to lend it to Sam, just like I would if I had spent my hard-earned cash on a bound paper copy of the book instead. Only it’s even easier with an eBook: I login to my Audible account, and click on “My Library”, which lists the books I’ve purchased. Beside each book is a “Share this book” button. I click it, and a form pops up into which I can enter a friend’s name and email address, and a personal message from me. I can also select the amount of time that I want to lend it for: 30, 60, 90 days – or indefinite.

Sam receives an email which appears to come from me (so it avoids spam filters), but is actually a professionally formatted message from Audible, which includes my personal note and link to the audio book. Here’s the revolutionary part: Sam can click the link to download the audio book for free. I’ve already paid for it, after all. My friend just needs to click the link, which automatically creates a new Audible account using his name and email address, and he is taken to his own “My Library” page, which lists the book that I have lent him.

I should point out that it would be a blunder to attempt to force Sam to enter his credit card before he’s ready to buy something. At this point, his trusted relationship is only with his friend, me, not entirely with Audible, yet.

When I “shared” the book, I authorized my friend to download and listen to the book for the specified period of time. During that time, like a paper book, I can no longer access the book on my devices. I’m “deauthorized” until my friend returns the book. When my friend is done with the book, he can click a link in his new account to return it to me, or he can just wait for the lending time to expire, after which the book will automatically be reauthorized for me & my devices again.

Chances are pretty high that my friend Sam could be enticed to buy some new Audio books of his own, using his new account. Especially knowing that like a real book, he can give it, or lend it, to friends when he’s done with it, without the need to resort to DRM removal software, which can be a major hassle.

There are a lot of possibilities with this scheme, and I leave it as an exercise for the reader to fill them out. Comments welcome!

The confrontational announcement was posted on Google’s Blog at the end of the day, Jan 12th. By the morning, their stock had dipped 2%, but its already on the rebound.

There are 300 million Internet users in China, and three quarters of their population is not yet online. A sizable market indeed. However, as Businessweek points out, Google China was set to make only $600 million in 2010, a fraction of Google’s overall $26 billion yearly revenue. The loss is not a big one, and they reap the benefits of increased “brand equity” as Internet users everywhere revel in Google’s famous corporate motto, Don’t be Evil.

How this so-called brand equity will translate into real dollars is impossible to predict. Nevertheless, I’m sure that it was part of Google’s calculation. Many observers in the IT industry are predicting that cloud computing is positioning to become a de-facto standard for both personal and enterprise IT in the coming years. Google is probably the biggest player in cloud computing.

If I were an IT manager who is considering moving services into the cloud instead of upgrading in-house servers, which I am — even though I know that Google’s leaving China may be financially justifiable — the fact that they seem to take their security and their founding principles seriously enough to make such a bold move stands out. It makes them seem more trustworthy. Some people are even calling them heroic.

Can any amount of marketing achieve that kind of respect for a company?

In the end, decisions to move enterprise IT services to the cloud will be made by people, and Google’s China move has earned them a lot of credibility. Hearts & minds, as they say.