
The rise, and rise, of literary annotation - pmcpinto
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122678/down-rabbit-hole
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wodenokoto
In a way I consider both Reddit an HN the annotations of the web. I always
find it a little disappointing when I read an interesting article that didn't
"make it" on either site and thus doesn't have a good discussion.

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dang
Boy do we want to solve this problem! And we've been working hard on it. But
if anyone has any ideas...

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pervycreeper
>if anyone has any ideas...

The ideal scenario is such a thing gets built as free software, implemented
non-commercially. Still interested?

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dang
Of course! Why is that a question? We might also help fund it if someone knew
how to make it work. But the real question here is what "such a thing" even
is.

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bambax
This is a PR piece for genius.com; there should be adblock rules to detect
these.

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shard
My takeaway was somewhat different. To me the article was saying "Gardner was
awesome, Genius kind of sucks." It made me want to check out Gardner's book
and share it with my daughter.

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Turing_Machine
Just about everything Gardner wrote is worth reading.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner)

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danso
Since we're on the topic...I've been wanting to ask how others perceive
Genius.com since its last big investment round and its bold pivot from
RapGenius to "Annotate the World"...So skepticism of personal anecdotes
aside...I literally cannot think of a time when I've seen a (non-Rap)Genius-
annotated link passed around in the wild, i.e. via Twitter, Facebook, mailing
lists, Reddit, HN, etc -- other than in articles that are either by Genius (as
a means of promotion) or about Genius...To put it another way, I can think of
articles I've read about Genius and seen passed around on the Internet, but I
can't think of instances of Genius-annotated pages being sent around.

Again, I know that personal experience is a bad indicator...but it's not as if
I don't _want_ to see more of Genius...I think their mission is great. But
while I abhor things like Upworthy and ViralNova and their dozens of other
clones...I at least _see_ them in an average week of Internet usage.

Again, not a knock on Genius' mission or execution...Rap songs aside, I think
it's inherently hard to get the average reader -- especially today when we
seem so much more like a consumer culture than a creator culture -- to
casually use the service. I'd even argue that the value of just reading
annotations is probably lost on the average Internet user, judging by the vast
simplification of reading interfaces/web design that we've seen in all the big
content platforms (Twitter, FB, Medium, etc.).

edit: I know it's a little absurd to ask, "Has anyone seen Genius being used?"
in a comment thread about a post in which a non-Genius person extols the use
of Genius. But with all due respect, the OP is an academic and an editor of a
book review...speaking as someone who is also an academic, academics finding
something brilliant and edifying is not always an indicator of real-world use.

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pen2l
I don't see it taking off.

I think, and hope, someone will make a better product that's not owned by VCs.

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walterbell
Annotation is moving through W3C,
[http://www.w3.org/2014/04/annotation/](http://www.w3.org/2014/04/annotation/)

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pen2l
Woah, I had no clue about this. I _really_ hope they end up with something
good and this gets big.

