[Infowarrior] - Fwd: Your E-Book Is Reading You

[Richard Forno]

> From: Monty Solomon 
> 
> Your E-Book Is Reading You
> 
> Digital-book publishers and retailers now know more about their 
> readers than ever before. How that's changing the experience of 
> reading.
> 
> By ALEXANDRA ALTER
> June 29, 2012
> 
> It takes the average reader just seven hours to read the final book 
> in Suzanne Collins's "Hunger Games" trilogy on the Kobo 
> e-reader-about 57 pages an hour. Nearly 18,000 Kindle readers have 
> highlighted the same line from the second book in the series: 
> "Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped 
> to deal with them." And on Barnes & Noble's Nook, the first thing 
> that most readers do upon finishing the first "Hunger Games" book is 
> to download the next one.
> 
> In the past, publishers and authors had no way of knowing what 
> happens when a reader sits down with a book. Does the reader quit 
> after three pages, or finish it in a single sitting? Do most readers 
> skip over the introduction, or read it closely, underlining passages 
> and scrawling notes in the margins? Now, e-books are providing a 
> glimpse into the story behind the sales figures, revealing not only 
> how many people buy particular books, but how intensely they read 
> them.
> 
> For centuries, reading has largely been a solitary and private act, 
> an intimate exchange between the reader and the words on the page. 
> But the rise of digital books has prompted a profound shift in the 
> way we read, transforming the activity into something measurable and 
> quasi-public.
> 
> The major new players in e-book publishing-Amazon, Apple and 
> Google-can easily track how far readers are getting in books, how 
> long they spend reading them and which search terms they use to find 
> books. Book apps for tablets like the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook 
> record how many times readers open the app and how much time they 
> spend reading. Retailers and some publishers are beginning to sift 
> through the data, gaining unprecedented insight into how people 
> engage with books   <snip>
> 
> ...
> 
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304870304577490950051438304.html


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Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.