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Saturday, December 01, 2012

eBook Search is great, but dangerous

When I was a student, I used to fantasize how powerful it would be to have online, searchable texts, especially when doing literature essays or term papers. You know: instead of spending 10 minutes hunting for that quote that you can remember in your mind's eye--just search for it.

Online books arrived too late for the above use case to apply to me, but I have been enjoying a small version of that. When reading a novel, sometimes I will forget some detail--most often, who the heck some minor character is. In such cases, it is very nice to be able to search, and usually go back to the first mention of said character.

My son, however, just encountered a glitch with that approach--his search inadvertently revealed key upcoming plot information. So I think the Kindle, etc, need a "no spoiler" option: a checkbox "don't show me any search results beyond my current place in the book".

(In general, I think everything about content needs to give thought to the "no spoiler" factor...)

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