2 ms·

Annotation systems don't have to be public. The default should be private with an option to make parts public as necessary. Comments in some sense are annotatio

by memexy 6y ago

Annotation systems don't have to be public. The default should be private with an option to make parts public as necessary. Comments in some sense are annotations that are anchored at the wrong place and with the wrong visibility (public instead of private). The main value of annotations is as a personal knowledge system anchored on top of public knowledge. As one's private knowledge grows it eventually reaches a point where it needs to be summarized. A good annotation system helps with this summarization process (which mostly comes down to having a good search and navigation system). I think annotations can be made to work but the starting point has to be about personal use and not public use.

jerf 6y ago
The person I was responding to specifically mentioned "collaborative annotation" and startups. Non-collaborative annotation has different tradeoffs. It may be useful to you, but I can't imagine there's any money there for a startup. It avoids the anti-network effects that kill annotations, and it avoids publisher objections too, but it also doesn't have a very compelling value proposition for very many people. It's like trying to make money off of people who like mind maps, literate programming, or who use personal wikis.... it's non-zero amounts of people, often very passionate people, but it's not much of a market.
- memexy 6y ago
  Why is there no money in a personal annotation system? I'd think any large organization would be willing to pay a lot of money to use a tool that would make its members more productive and effective. In fact, Coda and Notion.so are very successful products and they're basically personal/private annotation systems (modulo storing everything in the cloud). I can imagine extending Coda and Notion.so with programmatic capabilities and adding offline storage and turning them into pretty successful personal annotation systems with premium features for supporting organizational work and collaboration. There is plenty of money in this market when viewed from the right angle.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

by memexy 6y ago

jerf 6y ago

The person I was responding to specifically mentioned "collaborative annotation" and startups. Non-collaborative annotation has different tradeoffs. It may be useful to you, but I can't imagine there's any money there for a startup. It avoids the anti-network effects that kill annotations, and it avoids publisher objections too, but it also doesn't have a very compelling value proposition for very many people. It's like trying to make money off of people who like mind maps, literate programming, or who use personal wikis.... it's non-zero amounts of people, often very passionate people, but it's not much of a market.

memexy 6y ago
Why is there no money in a personal annotation system? I'd think any large organization would be willing to pay a lot of money to use a tool that would make its members more productive and effective. In fact, Coda and Notion.so are very successful products and they're basically personal/private annotation systems (modulo storing everything in the cloud). I can imagine extending Coda and Notion.so with programmatic capabilities and adding offline storage and turning them into pretty successful personal annotation systems with premium features for supporting organizational work and collaboration. There is plenty of money in this market when viewed from the right angle.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]