Implicit Marginalia

Implicit Marginalia is an approach to the future of reading that was invented and developed by Reframe It (relevant patents issued to Reframe It as US2011/0252052A1 & US7801951 B2). It is an automated, patented method for annotating any given sentence, phrase or passage in a text with comments made about that sentence, phrase or passage in a vast body of later literature (over any specified period of time), prioritized according to the user’s preferences. Every time a sentence, phrase or passage from a particular text is quoted or cited in a later text, a clip from the later text is turned into a comment inserted in the earlier text immediately next to the passage being quoted or cited. The commentaries generated by Implicit Marginalia reveal what various communities of readers have taken from any given sentence, phrase or passage over time, the uses they have made of it, and the implications they have drawn. Whenever the reader chooses to pause and ponder the meanings or resonances of any sentence, phrase or passage he or she has just read, commentary reflecting how others have interpreted or used that sentence, phrase or passage will be immediately at hand, in the book’s margin or digital margin.

This process is fundamental inter-disciplinary science but it needs more market research for each use case to be piloted and to mature.

The result is more than a fundamentally different way to read: it is also a fundamentally different way to monetize hundreds of titles in a publisher’s backlist. Reframe It’s patented method for culling Implicit Marginalia from both proprietary and public-domain works would allow a publisher to reissue new electronic editions of all of the titles on their backlist that have elicited substantial commentary over time.

The new electronic editions, annotated with as many as tens of thousands of paragraphs from tens of thousands of other books, would be sought after by students, teachers, and anyone deeply engaged by the text. Consider that most annotated editions today bring a handful of texts into the conversation on any given page. Implicit Marginalia would allow any given sentence, phrase or passage in the book to be informed by hundreds of sources in which it was cited, quoted or discussed.

Automated mechanisms to gather and prioritize the marginalia can be developed (sorting comments by their date, by the kinds of publications in which they appeared, etc.) along with crowdsourced mechanisms for social prioritization, and curated methods that prioritize comments from well-known respected sources and experts.

Application: Book Advertising and Sales

Implicit Marginalia can also directly drive book sales. Some readers might be interested in purchasing the books from which the Implicit Marginalia in the book at hand are culled. Many of the Implicit Marginalia comments can end with affiliate links to booksellers offering to sell the book from which that comment was drawn. Since a single electronic edition might quote from 10,000 later books, and perhaps 1000 of those comments would be attached to bookseller affiliate links, the potential revenue sources could add up. (Partnering with a publisher could create further opportunities for contextual advertising inside of books based on links to buy other books in the publisher's backlist that have quoted the book being read.)

Copyright and Source Material Issues:

The quotes used in Implicit Marginalia can come both from within copyrighted properties and also from public-domain texts. . The copyrighted material can be quoted within the parameters of fair use. But the arrangement of fair-use gathered quotes from many sources is itself a copyrightable arrangement of information. This means that Implicit Marginalia can mine new value from existing content.