Networked Optimization By Silvio Lorusso, Sebastian Schmieg and Amazon Kindle Users
"Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions." The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Pos. 952 Networked Optimization is a series of three crowdsourced versions of popular self-help books. Each book contains the full text, which is however invisible because it is set in white on a white background. The only text that remains readable consists of the so-called "popular highlights" -- the passages that were underlined by many Kindle users -- together with the amount of highlighters. Each time a passage is underlined, it is automatically stored in Amazon's data centers. Among the books with the most popular highlights, there is a striking number of self-help books. This points to a multi-layered, algorithmic optimization: from readers and authors to Amazon itself. Harvesting its customers micro-labour, the act of reading becomes a data-mining process. The series consists of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The 5 Love Languages of Love, and How to Win Friends & Influence People. http://silviolorusso.com/work/networked-optimization _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
