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That's an interesting point, though I do wonder whether it's really reasonable to care about whether the author wants their images to be discussed or annotated.
by CM30 11y ago
That's an interesting point, though I do wonder whether it's really reasonable to care about whether the author wants their images to be discussed or annotated. Is there a huge difference between doing this and doing the same thing on a site like Reddit or Hacker News? I'm sure quite a few people on these aggregators aren't on good terms with the authors of the articles, or are even banned from those source sites.
I guess you could say Reddit comments don't appear on other sites when you browse to them, but you can get extensions that show them instead of a site's original comments:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/reddit-on-youtube/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/reddit-on-you...
And linking to Twitter posts you're blocked from seeing being against the rules? That seems excessive, given how many news sites and articles will link to tweet by people with a hair trigger temper and a very low tolerance for criticism. Should all these sites now have their accounts banned from Twitter?
I see your points, but I'm not sure how something like this is particularly different from commenting about a site on an aggregator or third party blog or discussion forum. The site staff at News Genius getting involved might cross the line (I'd hope the people behind a 'service' like this would stay out of any drama), but you can't stop people discussing your work or actions on third party sites.
- hitekker 11y agoThe difference here is that Genius overlays its annotations on top of the main article. From a design, and even a business POV, this means the content of Genius and the news website are "merged", i.e. not clearly separated. Disqus Comment Threads can easily be hidden or shown and segmented from the text of an article. Reddit plugins like the one you mentioned are installed by the user's choice. News Genius however, has aspirations of being your go to site for reading the news. So this adds an additional bar for Genius to clear (i.e. make it work well without pissing people off) than your normal aggregator. Compare this: www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/jennifer-garner-minivan-majority Versus this: http://genius.com/8863764/www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/jennifer-garner-minivan-majority#.kpxXnRPGD http://genius.com/8863764/www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen... Never-minding the substance of the original article, observe how News Genius says "We’re annotating this not just to discuss Garner’s career and apparent acquiescence to the “minivan majority” but to analyze the way movie stars in general appeal to particular demographics and what that says about society." and then see the annotaters descend into snarkiness and children's fare. If I was interested in the subject matter, I know which version I would read, and which version I would warn others against reading.