Full-Text Indexing of Books at Amazon
November 6, 2003
Amazon.com has rolled out a new feature, where the full text of about 100,000 books is indexed. I did some basic testing with the DRM book I co-wrote, and am pleased with the results. The idea of so much “finished” text being available on the Web is an intriguing one. This does bring the Web (a small step) closer to being an interconnected network of essential human knowledge, and it will be interesting to see how people end up using the search.
Posted by Bill Trippe at November 6, 2003 3:29 PM
Comments
Great point. The full text is not accessible by other search engines, which puts users in the position of having to specifically visit Amazon. However, affiliates of Amazon (called Associates in their terminology) can build search boxes, from their own Web sites, that can then search Amazon. I know some Amazon functionality is accessible via Web Services; I don't know if that is true of the full-text search.
Thanks for your thoughtful post.
Posted by Bill Trippe at November 7, 2003 8:03 AMPost a comment
Comments for this entry have been closed.
I agree that this is an amazing development, but surely not one that, strictly speaking, brings "the Web" closer to being an interconnected network of essential human knowledge. The text isn't indexable by search engines, for obvious copyright reasons (among others), so it remains closed off from the Web itself to a certain extent. Amazon becomes an interesting research tool, though - as well as a very canny shopfront!
Posted by Gyrus at November 7, 2003 6:07 AM