Apple has confirmed earlier reports that it has acquired BookLamp, presumably in an effort to bolster the company's e-book sales by tapping into the technology of the startup's Book Genome Project. The latter, which is now shut down, was often described as a kind of "Pandora for books."
BookLamp's skills at breaking books into data points — examining the "DNA" of the various scenes that its system has created out of the books it analyzes — allows it to construct a "recipe" of sorts for a book's major themes.
"Say you're looking for a novel like the The Da Vinci Code. We have found that it contains 18.6% Religion and Religious Institutions, 9.4% Police & Murder Investigation, 8.2% Art and Art Galleries, and 6.7% Secret Societies & Communities, and other elements — we'll pull out a book with similar elements, provided it is in our database," said BookLamp CEO Aaron Stanton in a 2011 interview with Publishing Perspectives.
BookLamp can also assign books more general scores related to the nuances of the language found within: motion, density, pacing, dialog, and description, to name a few. So, if you're looking for a book about 1940s gangsters that's not super-dense, but comes with plenty of fun gunfighting, odds are good that BookLamp can recommend some titles you might enjoy.
If that sounds like it might be a natural fit for Apple, then you'd be echoing what tipsters previously indicated to TechCrunch — that the acquisition, estimated to cost Apple anywhere from $10 to $15 million, is designed to allow the company to "beat Amazon at its own game."
Apple, in confirming the acquisition, issued its standard comment: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
Even BookLamp itself didn't tease what the company was up to when it officially scuttled the Book Genome Project this past April.
"We would like to thank you for the support we've received over the years in our efforts to explore the exciting world of the written word through digital analysis," reads BookLamp's announcement.
"As of today, though, the BookLamp.org site — which has served as a technology demo for the Book Genome Project — will no longer be available as our company evolves its mission."
Evolves, it seems, right on over to Cupertino. TechCrunch notes that a number of BookLamp employees, though still registered as living in BookLamp's home state of Idaho on Facebook (and still indicating they're employees of the company), have been posting status updates from all around the Bay Area recently. The hint that something has been afoot with BookLamp might not be as nuanced as your favorite murder mystery, but it's intriguing nevertheless.