I bet many people's first reaction to this story is something along the lines of "Look what we're losing if print dies!" or "This is why print will never die!"
But, think about Kindle's bookmarks. You can see highlights and notes from everyone who has ever read the book. That's insane! That's Lettvin's hack, scaled to the max. The problem is obviously filtering all that data, but look how much larger the pool gets: now the professor doesn't just have the pool from MIT to choose from, he might have the whole world to choose from.
It's Lettvin's hack scaled to the point of meaninglessness. The whole point was to get them physically in his office and talking to him, and I'm pretty sure he was only interested in students to begin with. If he wanted to talk to everyone who had ever read the book, he may as well just put an ad somewhere.
Maybe I wasn't very clear: the post made it sound like the point of the "hack" was to identify and recruit talent (i.e. if you were interested in the book you were probably talented). Dealing with physical books, on campus, obviously limits the pool of potential talent. Something like Kindle's notes (or its next, more refined, version) could not only identify who might be talented (i.e. who had read the book), but the notes/bookmarks/highlights could also provide insight into just how talented someone was, whether that person was on MIT's campus or was some kid living in a village in India.
But, think about Kindle's bookmarks. You can see highlights and notes from everyone who has ever read the book. That's insane! That's Lettvin's hack, scaled to the max. The problem is obviously filtering all that data, but look how much larger the pool gets: now the professor doesn't just have the pool from MIT to choose from, he might have the whole world to choose from.
What an awesome time we live in.