The publishing company Kadokawa is teaming up with the internet company Dwango, owners of the popular Japanese video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga, to create a new online e-book distribution platform, both the Asahi and the Yomiuri are reporting.

If you are unfamiliar with Nico Nico Douga, it is very similar to Youtube, except that comments to the video are not listed beneath the video but are programmed to be embedded into the video itself, and can be set to appear at any moment the user wants. So if there is a specific moment that a user “LOL’d” (or “w”/笑、as is the Japanese internet lingo), they can put their “lol” right at that moment in the video. Nico Nico Douga requires a login, so here’s a video on Youtube that shows what a video on Nico Nico Douga looks like.

(For the record, this strange video is a mash-up between American post-rock band Battles and Japanese enka singer Yoshi Ikuzo. Apparently it was quite the popular meme  [called IKZO] to mash-up this one enka song to basically anything else. There’s no real good explanation as to why this is my Nico Nico Douga sample. Just go with it.)

Anyway, the concept of comment overlaying is going to be applied to books and comics on Dwango’s other site  ニコニコ静画 (Nico Nico Seiga, previously just a user-posted image board), which now has access to the e-versions of the light novels and manga available on Kadokawa’s e-book site ＢＯＯＫ☆ＷＡＬＫＥＲ. Users can now read other users’ reactions, thoughts, and comments as they read something, as well as make their own.

Social reading is one of the hottest topics being bandied about in e-book discussions right now (Three Percent was just talking about it the other day here). It’s sort of a weird idea to me, as reading is a pretty solitary endeavor. I certainly love talking about my favorite (or least favorite) books with others, but I’d rather wait until I’m done actually reading something to hear what someone has to say about something, instead of being continually distracted by other people’s thoughts while I’m trying to read.

Do you want to read other people’s comments as you’re reading something? Or conversely, do you want other people to know what you think at a specific moment in a text?