WSJ: Your E-Book Is Reading You

[menevets]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...90950051438304

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.

Not that I'm endorsing the practice, but I thought they did this in far greater degree a long time ago.

[Nate the great]

That article is over two years old.

[rdjack21]

Yea and it still bugs me and is one of the prime reasons I fee my books then use a third party reader application. Preferably open source reader application because they are less likely to pull these kinds of things.

[Lemurion]

Ummm how else can they synchronize across platforms? I have multiple devices and it really helps to pick up where I left off with the book on the last device. The customer does gain a tangible benefit.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Ummm how else can they synchronize across platforms? I have multiple devices and it really helps to pick up where I left off with the book on the last device. The customer does gain a tangible benefit.

Actually, it can be achieved with account-specific tokens and hashed markers.
The kind of meta-data vaccuming and page by page tracking ADE 4 has been doing in not in any way necessary. It is totally unwarranted intrusion.

[Yolina]

I don't use book apps, all my reading is done on the Kindle, and as I sideload all my books from Calibre after purchase, I never connect the Kindle to the web... Amazon are going to have a hard time knowing much

[menevets]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

That article is over two years old.

My bad - it was in one of my feeds, didn't look at the date, thought it was recent.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

That article is over two years old.

Ah. That would explain the claim of increased sales for Nook devices and books.

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by Yolina

I don't use book apps, all my reading is done on the Kindle, and as I sideload all my books from Calibre after purchase, I never connect the Kindle to the web... Amazon are going to have a hard time knowing much

Yes, that's true. But you know what .. they don't care. Contrary to what some people seem to think, Amazon is not interested in tracking Yolina or Mike or any other individual (at least, not in this context).

What they are looking for is general trends. If a certain percentage of readers stop reading a given book before half-way through, or if many people skip certain chapters, or if a large number read the book at one sitting ... that's the sort of useful data that they are going to be interested in. (How they actually use that data is another question.)

Mike

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Mike L

(How they actually use that data is another question.)

Mike

They use it to identify books worth promoting and authors worth offering contracts to. And individualized data is useless there.

For most other things, where identifying us might be relevant, they have browsing and sales data.

[Barty]

What bugs me is they don't give me this data. I want to see my reading metrics. That'd be fun.

[ShellShock]

Originally Posted by Mike L

But you know what .. they don't care. Contrary to what some people seem to think, Amazon is not interested in tracking Yolina or Mike or any other individual (at least, not in this context).

What they are looking for is general trends. If a certain percentage of readers stop reading a given book before half-way through, or if many people skip certain chapters, or if a large number read the book at one sitting ... that's the sort of useful data that they are going to be interested in. (How they actually use that data is another question.)

But you know what...I care. I generate the data, on my device, when reading a book that I have purchased with my hard earned money, and I do not want some faceless corporate entity rummaging around in my stuff, thanks very much. And I do not think that some get out clause buried away in a lengthy EULA or T&C gives them any excuse.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Barty

What bugs me is they don't give me this data. I want to see my reading metrics. That'd be fun.

Have you asked?
They're adding software features to Kindle regularly so they might let you see it.
Or toggle it off.

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

But you know what...I care. I generate the data, on my device, when reading a book that I have purchased with my hard earned money, and I do not want some faceless corporate entity rummaging around in my stuff, thanks very much.

To be fair, Amazon only collects the data if you send it to their servers, via Whispersync. You can shut this feature off.

As for Apple and Google, I don't know.

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

But you know what...I care. I generate the data, on my device, when reading a book that I have purchased with my hard earned money, and I do not want some faceless corporate entity rummaging around in my stuff, thanks very much. .

I think you mis-read my post. I was replying to Yolina who pointed out that Amazon cannot track him/her in this way if you never connect your Kindle. I'm not justifying or defending Amazon in any way.

Mike