After reading Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs and Ready Player One,  I realized that Amazon invented a behavior that I will simply call “Collaboreading.”  As you read an eBook, you will bump into lines highlighted by other readers including a count to measure popularity.

Reading an eBook is now a shared experience.

But I’m not certain that I care to read other people’s notes.  Buying a used textbook with some highlighting in college wasn’t really helpful…it’s the personal connection with the material, the action of applying the highlight, that really helped the material stick.

I finished the biography of Steve Jobs, and wandered over to Amazon’s Recommendations for my next read.  More books on Jobs were suggested, in addition to a few on Legos from a previous purchase.

And that’s when I realized what Amazon can’t do…yet.

I didn’t want to read another book on Steve Jobs.  I was curious about a few books mentioned in the biography itself, such as Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Suzuki.  Or in actually seeing the famous “1984” ad that announced the Macintosh.  And about a week later I decided to watch a biography of Eames on Netflix.  In terms of content, I purchased  the book on Zen (from Amazon) and rented the Eames film.  You can see the “1984” ad for free on YouTube.

Contextual Recommendations are just another form of buyer intent.  It’s the bundle of content you want to buy because of something you learned in the book…which may not be evident from everyone who purchased the book…and which you want to explore now to keep the mental stream flowing.