Kindle: Most Highlighted Passages of All Time

http://kindle.amazon.com/popular_highlights

by cosbynator • 16 years ago

27 29 16 years ago

kindle.amazon.com

rpledge• 16 years ago

Is it just me that thinks it's a little creepy that Amazon knows what I highlight? (Well, theoretically anyways, I don't own a kindle)

amalcon• 16 years ago

I was considering buying a Kindle within the next month or two. This story literally just made up my mind.

No, it's not just you.

lionhearted3• 16 years ago

> I was considering buying a Kindle within the next month or two. This story literally just made up my mind.

If you're a regular reader, get some kind of e-ink ebook reader even if not the Kindle. It's been amazing for me getting all the out of print classics for free off Gutenberg.org and taking the time to read philosophy, history, the best fiction of all time, and so on. I've got a Kindle and am very happy with it, but get something even if not the Kindle.

I'm reading different, often deeper things than I used to read, I'm reading more, and it's light - I travel so that's a huge plus for me. Also, I never finish a book mid-airplane or mid-train and get stuck looking out the window any more.

diego• 16 years ago

Buy a Kindle and disable 3G. I don't ever use 3G and the battery life is virtually infinite. I'm never buying a paper book again unless I absolutely must. Also, it's much better for reading than the iPad (especially outdoors).

docgnome• 16 years ago

Am I the only one who's kind of annoyed that Kindle has become synonymous with e-ink book readers? I wouldn't care so much if Amazon didn't have a history of removing books from Kindles. Not to beat a dead horse, but I don't see why everyone seem to, either, not care or have forgotten about it. What if they took back a physical book you had purchased from them, that you wanted to keep, without your consent and just refunded your money as compensation. It's obvious you wanted the book not the cash or you'd not have spent it. That's what made up my mind about the Kindle. Yes, I know you could get one and not buy any books from Amazon but I'd like to have the option open. </open>

WarDekar• 16 years ago

Uh.. In order for them to save your highlights and transfer them between devices, it needs to be put into their servers somewhere.

Maybe it's a little creepy they admit to 'snooping' it, but then again they're being honest and open about it so I don't have any problem with it (I'm a Kindle owner). As long as they keep it anonymous though I have no problem, it's similar to the Netflix anonymous data isn't it?

They also store your notes, and while I'm hoping those aren't snooped we really don't have any guarantee over it just as we don't have any guarantee that someone at Google doesn't read our gmail account, or any number of other sites and scenarios.

The demoralizing part for me is that a lot of the top quoted passages are from The Shack and The Lost Symbol, and the very top one is from a Malcolm Gladwell book. In fact all of the top 12 are from those 3 books, and 9 of the top 25 are from The Shack (which I had never even heard of before, then again I rarely read fiction and certainly not religious-inspired fiction).

I wish we could have a more normalized view of this- instead of just showing us the most highlighted, have an algorithm that somehow takes into account overall downloads as well. This would give us a better idea of the 'important' passages and could really help out in finding new books to read. Especially so if you could filter by genre because frankly I wish we could cut out the fiction part altogether. I don't really see much point in highlighting passages of fiction unless it's some literary classic or you're doing it for school or whatever, but really what's the point in saving some random passages from some Dan Brown book? To each their own, though...

jules• 16 years ago

They could have encrypted them on the client side.

cosbynator• 16 years ago

This seems to be one of those situations where less popular is more interesting. Logging in and browsing the highlights for books I've read brought up a lot of very good passages (that I sadly barely remember).

greyman3• 16 years ago

That was my first thought as well - how do they know? But it's logical; I am an user of Kindle for PC software, which I have installed on 3 PCs, and their state is synced (like what book I read, which page etc). So logically the info must go to their servers.

jrockway• 16 years ago

I feel the same way. Can't a company just provide a service for me without looking at the data they are servicing? Are they going through my S3 backups, too? (No, because they are encrypted. But what if they weren't?)

ktf• 16 years ago

I actually find this data interesting, as long as it's anonymous. It should probably be something you have to opt-in for though.

rwl2• 16 years ago

Perhaps they aren't publishing non-anonymized data. But the fact that they are collecting and analyzing these data without any kind of opt-in system is a little disturbing. If they're willing to do that, how willing will they be to protect these data from falling into the wrong hands, especially if the "wrong hands" are holding a warrant or a court order? I'm sure glad I don't have a highlighted e-copy of, say, the Communist Manifesto or the Anarchist's Cookbook. I wouldn't know who to expect knocking at my door.

sh1mmer• 16 years ago

I know it syncs but I'm pretty sure that I didn't agree to crowd-sourcing my highlights. I probably did, but it wasn't made clear to me that I would be.

Bad-form Amazon.

lionhearted3• 16 years ago

That's a lot of deep sounding pseudo-wisdom right there.

jf• 16 years ago

Just wait until 4chan starts highlighting things.

ashishbharthi• 16 years ago

There should be a way to disable it appearing from their website.

dpritchett• 16 years ago

How do publishers and authors feel about this? Is Amazon giving away the sizzle or the steak?

For some deeper books this might impel me to make a purchase. For collections of shallow platitudes (e.g. my predilection for self-help books) the "top highlights" view is all I'll need.

Here's an example of a book I considered buying but didn't - The Talent Code. Now I've got the high notes in a free, easily digestable format: http://kindle.amazon.com/work/talent-code-greatness-born-gro...

Edit: And here are the highlights from Hackers and Painters: http://kindle.amazon.com/work/hackers-painters-big-ideas-com...

ardit33• 16 years ago

To verybody that is complainin about privacy: You have the choice, to turn off/on, popular highlights, backup or not your anotations, etc. They are clearly marked on the "Settings".

tokenadult• 16 years ago

Now why did I know that most passages that have been highlighted by readers are from lowbrow popular books, with many of the highlighted passages being platitudes?

P.S. When you read a book that you own, do you highlight passages of the text, or do you keep a notebook (electronically or on paper) of the most important points in the book? At the risk of setting up a bogus dichotomy, I think many people who take notes from books seem not to highlight them, and perhaps the converse is true as well.

memetichazard• 16 years ago

Why is:

PRINCESS ON THE PEA (From the tale by Hans Christian Andersen)THE UGLY DUCKLING

at #19? or:

AND THE BEAN-STALK (Said to be an allegory of the Teutonic Al-fader, The tale written in French by Charles Perrault)JACK THE GIANT KILLER (From the old British legend told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, of Corineus the Trojan)LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (From the French tale by Charles Perrault)THE THREE BEARS

at #22? And it shows the number of highlights - around 700 for each. Is this a case of accidental highlighting, some people organizing to highlight random sections of text from free books to mess up the stats, or a bug?

Edit: I have no idea how to use markdown. Argh! I thought two spaces at the end of the line added a line break?

gojomo• 16 years ago

Gladwell must be so proud to be nestled between Dan Brown and William P. Young atop these charts.

Kindle: Most Highlighted Passages of All Time

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