<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">There's a new post on the Web of Language:<div><br></div><div><span>Don’t read this: What Kindle’s most-highlighted passages tell us
about popular taste</span></div><div><br></div><div><span></span>The New York Times reports that the Amazon Kindle is turning reading
from an isolating activity into a social one. <br>
<br>
Here’s how: Kindle users are annotating what they read. Amazon then
collects these annotations and reprints “the passages that are most
highlighted by the millions of Kindle customers” on its “Popular
Highlights” website. <br>
<br>
Those who fear that computers are putting an end to “real” reading can
relax. For the born-digital generation, it’s just a hop, skip, and click
from Facebook to “The Brothers Karamazov.”<br>
<br>
But don't start the party just yet, at least not till you read the whole
post on the Web of Language:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://bit.ly/weblan" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/weblan</a></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://bit.ly/weblan" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; font-size: 12px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; 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font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>____________________</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; ">Dennis Baron</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; 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