Search for 'the hero' inside your book...

...Search for 'the meaning' inside. Amazon's new Search Inside feature is really rather nifty, allowing you to browse books for key terms via the online book and record store's website. At the moment the number of searchable books is comparatively small, although it is such a handy feature for browsing that most publishers will probably gladly submit the bulk of their catalogue for the Search Inside treatment.
How can traditional booksellers compete with this kind of service? With great difficulty, is the short answer. That said, it is theoretically possible to add a microchip to a paper substrate such as a book cover. That chip could contain a searchable file of the book's contents that people scan for keywords with their mobile phones while shopping in a bookstore. At the moment, the cost of implementing such a system would be prohibitive, but within a few years, who knows? Certainly, over the next decade we will find more and more everyday items (books, milk cartons, etc) being drawn into the electronic domain. Cyberspace abhors a vacuum.