Crowd-Sourcing With Amazon’s Kindle
The other night lying in bed, I put down my Kindle for a few minutes. I saw it flash and automatically start updating itself over 3G. That was cool enough, but the next morning as I continued to read my e-book , I began to notice sections that were softly underlined with a number next to it. At first I was confused? What is that? I did not highlight any sections in this book yet. I quickly learned that Amazon had added a very cool feature - ‘Popular Highlights‘. It tracks what sections are being highlighted, and displays those sections with the highest number of highlights and the number of times it has been highlighted.
This an excellent example of crowd-sourcing. Those reading e-books might already be highlighting important sections, but now Kindle is publishing this and ranking the most ‘Popular’ highlights of a book. Its almost like creating Coles Notes by the crowd. This is obviously not possible with an ‘ordinary’ book. It doesn’t matter how many times a section is highlighted, there is no way to know what are the most popular highlighted sections.
I can see great value with this tool, when researching books for school, business or other types of research. What do you think? Do you see this as a valuable tool?
People that highlight sections will do so for different reasons. I am not sure how useful it might be. But then again, if enough people highlight it, it might be of interest to the general public.
Its a very Amazon-like feature, letting you know what everyone else likes.
Does it distract from the reading?
I do not find it distracting at all. In fact, when reading business/information type books, I find it helps me focus in on these sections which probably are more critical/important than others (not for everybody I realize, but still likely of interest). Also, somehow they only seem to highlight the truly most popular sections (not sure what criteria is used though?), so there are not so many highlighted sections that it becomes meaningless.
Hey Rick,
I think these products e.g. Kindle, IPad will be fantastic resources for educational institutions - especially in cutting down the weight of a student’s backpack :). I tend to highlight important or interesting items when I read, however I’m wondering if I was reading a book that already had highlighted sections would it be my inclination to skip down to those sections and only focus on them? Would readers be missing parts of the book that were deemed not as relevant as the highlighted sections? Were the highlighted sections considered important or “highlight-worthy” because of the information read beforehand? Would this highlighting actually help or hinder students? I remember Coles notes as a way to understand what an author was trying to say, not necessarily a substitute for the book (does my memory fail me???)
I think as a society as a whole, we tend to look for shortcuts or easier ways to get from point A to point B. I don’t know if this highlighting function will just be adding to our general fast paced life or really help us understand the point of the writing? Personally I’m for slowing things down and highlighting what is relevant to me.
Is there a way to turn off this function?
Thanks for this blog posting. Electronic reading devices such as Kindle, Kobo and IPads are new learning curves for me.
CIndy,
Thanks again for your insightful comments. I would disagree that this would either distract or take away from the reading. I think the power of crowd-sourcing is such that the many usually outweighs the individual. If you and others are an expert in a certain area, that I am not, then having many of you highlight a certain section should definitely be helpful to me, the lay person. This should enhance the overall reading experience not detract from it, IMO of course.
Hey Rick,
You are absolutely correct in that ebook readers represent many advantages over their physical predecessors. The ability to see what is of interest to others can add valuable insight in business as well as other areas. In addition the ability to search for relevant content across multiple books in ones library could be very useful when researching a topic. We are only at the beginning of exploring the possible advantages. Of course, there will always be those that will want the satisfaction of holding the physical book and actually turning the pages.