Via Bits, Paul Lamere notes that, if it chose to do so, Amazon.com could derive and publish metrics of how people actually read, page by page, their Kindle-powered e-books, leveraging the data collected by Whispersync. He suggests some useful categories:
Most Abandoned – the books and/or authors that are most frequently left unfinished. What book is the most abandoned book of all time? (My money is on A Brief History of Time)
and similarly:
Dishonest rater – books that most frequently rated highly by readers who never actually finished reading the book…
Most attempts – which books are restarted most frequently? (It took me 4 attempts to get through Cryptonomicon, but when I did I really enjoyed it).
I dunno: is the world ready to learn that hardly anybody actually reads John Galt’s enormous monologue, the one towards the end of Atlas Shrugged?