4 ms·

The rise, and rise, of literary annotation

46 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

bambax 11y ago
This is a PR piece for genius.com; there should be adblock rules to detect these.
- chillydawg 11y ago
  That is a fantastic idea. Have a crowdsourced list driven by users of an extension clicking "this is 100% shill". Once enough distinct people click it, the url goes on The List and is distributed to everyone who wants to use it in their adblocker of choice.
- shard 11y ago
  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.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    Just about everything Gardner wrote is worth reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner
- wjnc 11y ago
  I actually had fun both reading the piece and the way the article doubles-up on itself (going "Down the Rabbit Hole" by practicing annotation in an article on annotation). Refreshing. Not something that fits in any article and perhaps only for annotating pieces of special significance. Still, nice try NR.
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  I thought it was fairly critical of it - it basically said the idea is great, but the content sucked. Moreover I quite enjoyed the review of the annotated Alice and think I might buy it.
danso 11y ago
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.
- pervycreeper 11y ago
  I discovered the annotations for Moby-Dick through a web search, and have been consulting their notes as I make my way through it. I find them to be rather helpful. I wish there was a simple (not involving too much work) way to get them on my kindle. I think the problem is that people are interested more in individual texts than the platform used for giving them annotations, so it's not really sticky for the typical user.
- akuchling 11y ago
  Annotations are specialized, explaining references that are now archaic, and concentrating on longer things like novels or entire bodies of work. Not recent and not short: that's two strikes against anything going viral. Also, Genius is a for-profit company that will surely dump literary annotations if they aren't profitable, at which time all of the contributed work will disappear. I expect this contributes to the shallowness/plagiarism of the material: serious users may prefer something like http://hypothes.is/ http://hypothes.is/ or a Wikimedia project such as Wikisource, which will care more about preserving information even if it shuts down. (Or their own Word document...)
wodenokoto 11y ago
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.
- mjklin 11y ago
  Agreed, I always look in those two places for the best discussion of news and advice on projects.
- dang 11y ago
  Boy do we want to solve this problem! And we've been working hard on it. But if anyone has any ideas...
  - pervycreeper 11y ago
    >if anyone has any ideas... The ideal scenario is such a thing gets built as free software, implemented non-commercially. Still interested?
    - dang 11y ago
      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.

46 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

bambax 11y ago

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

chillydawg 11y ago
That is a fantastic idea. Have a crowdsourced list driven by users of an extension clicking "this is 100% shill". Once enough distinct people click it, the url goes on The List and is distributed to everyone who wants to use it in their adblocker of choice.
shard 11y ago
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.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  Just about everything Gardner wrote is worth reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner
wjnc 11y ago
I actually had fun both reading the piece and the way the article doubles-up on itself (going "Down the Rabbit Hole" by practicing annotation in an article on annotation). Refreshing. Not something that fits in any article and perhaps only for annotating pieces of special significance. Still, nice try NR.
wodenokoto 11y ago
I thought it was fairly critical of it - it basically said the idea is great, but the content sucked. Moreover I quite enjoyed the review of the annotated Alice and think I might buy it.

danso 11y ago

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.

pervycreeper 11y ago
I discovered the annotations for Moby-Dick through a web search, and have been consulting their notes as I make my way through it. I find them to be rather helpful. I wish there was a simple (not involving too much work) way to get them on my kindle. I think the problem is that people are interested more in individual texts than the platform used for giving them annotations, so it's not really sticky for the typical user.
akuchling 11y ago
Annotations are specialized, explaining references that are now archaic, and concentrating on longer things like novels or entire bodies of work. Not recent and not short: that's two strikes against anything going viral. Also, Genius is a for-profit company that will surely dump literary annotations if they aren't profitable, at which time all of the contributed work will disappear. I expect this contributes to the shallowness/plagiarism of the material: serious users may prefer something like http://hypothes.is/ http://hypothes.is/ or a Wikimedia project such as Wikisource, which will care more about preserving information even if it shuts down. (Or their own Word document...)

wodenokoto 11y ago

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.

mjklin 11y ago
Agreed, I always look in those two places for the best discussion of news and advice on projects.
dang 11y ago
Boy do we want to solve this problem! And we've been working hard on it. But if anyone has any ideas...
- pervycreeper 11y ago
  >if anyone has any ideas... The ideal scenario is such a thing gets built as free software, implemented non-commercially. Still interested?
  - dang 11y ago
    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.