Amazon launches full-text search: Amazon.com today launched its full-text search feature, “Search Inside the Book.” (Here is a rexblog flashback comment about this and another one). I don’t need to say anything more about this as Gary Wolf has done so already in an excellent story that will appear in the next issue of Wired. (Come to think of it, I have a lot more to say, but it will be later and lengthier and perhaps not first here.) I consider this Amazon feature (indeed, it is so much more than a feature) one of the most significant developments ever on the Internet, in book and magazine publishing and in academic research. Well, perhaps not ever, but in a long time. I hope it performs as hyped.
