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I recall some efforts to make a social browser, where people visiting a web page could leave comments on it and read comments from others. IIRC (and I fear I d

I recall some efforts to make a social browser, where people visiting a web page could leave comments on it and read comments from others. IIRC (and I fear I don't RC), the web industry hated this idea because they couldn't control and monetize the conversation around their content. Of course, we now do this exact thing with sites like Slash Dot, Digg, and Hacker News, only there is this step of going to the social site to see the popular links. If you go to a page and wonder what HN has to say about it, you have to do a search for the URL by yourself. (Perhaps there is a browser add-on that does this?) Taking comments to a place where you could annotate the document and not just discuss the page as a whole is the next step for sites like HN. Of course, there is the pesky problem of the sites hating this and using every legal tool in their arsenal to prevent you from presenting this as an interface.

zerker2000 11y ago
http://rbutr.com http://rbutr.com is a contradiction-focused social plugin for linking pages together, I'm not sure how widely used.
- Aegist 11y ago
  You can see in the Chrome store how many active users the plugin has (which is only one part of what rbutr does): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rbutr/ocnieghejiknjhadhngmmnbfjocbbfpm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rbutr/ocnieghejikn... So it says about 10,300 active plugin users. A more appropriate plugin for the OP's question is Hypothes.is. They're open source, non-profit and have raised over $1.5 million. They have about 7,300 users according to the chrome webstore: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hypothesis-web-pdf-annota/bjfhmglciegochdpefhhlphglcehbmek https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hypothesis-web-pdf...
jessriedel 11y ago
Now that you mention it, it would be great to have a browser plugin that would gather links to several discussion sites (HN, metafilter, the subreddits, etc.).
- qznc 11y ago
  Here is a Chrome plugin for HN discussions: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-discussion/iggcipafbcjfofibfhhelnipahhepmkd?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-discus...
steveklabnik 11y ago
One similar project was _why's mousehole: https://github.com/evaryont/mousehole https://github.com/evaryont/mousehole and hoodwink.d https://github.com/robbyrussell/hoodwinkd https://github.com/robbyrussell/hoodwinkd
- fiatjaf 11y ago
  How did this hoodwink.d worked?
  - aaronem 11y ago
    It's been a while, but as I recall, when it started it involved a proxy to inject the client code into pages, and a hosts file mapping that pointed an invalid FQDN ___._ to the backend, whose IP you had to get from someone who already knew it. Then, once you were in, there was also a karma system which limited the capabilities of low-scored users, and karma was hard to earn. All told, it gave a strong impression of being less a web annotation system, and more a secret club for soi-disant cool kids. I didn't stay in long; a couple of days, no more.
    - fiatjaf 11y ago
      That's interesting and strange. Thank you.
qznc 11y ago
There is https://hypothes.is/ https://hypothes.is/ which provides this additional layer as a browser plugin. And I vaguely remember that there were others.
- vannevar 11y ago
  There have been many such systems. I built one in the early 2000s and tried to raise money around it, to no avail. At the time there were several commercial competitors, including one well-funded venture called ThirdVoice. Wikipedia has some information on the history of the genre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_annotation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_annotation .
  - bjelkeman-again 11y ago
    There where a bunch of us trying it. We created a corporate version for web site annotation and collaboration. We lost our best chance for funding just as the market cratered. Having seen several more since then I don't think the market is there for it. People still rather print/screen capture/write an email/annotate PDF versions, about changes in websites rather than use an annotation tool on the page it seems.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      > People still rather print/screen capture/write an email/annotate PDF versions, about changes in websites rather than use an annotation tool on the page it seems. The reason seems fairly obvious - printing/screen capture/PDFs are off-line. Permanent and under user's control. Internet based annotations are inherently unstable - one way today, different tomorrow, completely gone next week. I always found the concept a great thing for sharing thoughts with people, but a terrible one for personal notes.
      - bjelkeman-again 11y ago
        I don't think I put it in the right context. Personal notes wasn't what I was aiming for, but collaboration around content.
jacquesm 11y ago
I made a very early version of something like this in 2002 using a loophole that allowed me to frame content in such a way that the original site was visible in an iframe with avatars and speech balloons for the visitors floating over the iframe. Unfortunately the next release of the major browsers closed that loophole (because it could be used in bad ways just as easily as it could be used in good ways). That was a real bummer, I really liked the idea of 'meeting' people on other websites if you both visited through the portal. Maybe with the current generation of browsers there is another way to achieve the same effect. On websites with lots of visitors this would likely not work but then you might limit the visible entries to those from some slice through the population based on certain criteria (location or other demographic data).
asadotzler 11y ago
Zotero covers a lot of this but it's designed as an individual not a social experience. https://www.zotero.org/ https://www.zotero.org/
Aegist 11y ago
There are quite a few efforts out there. Someone has already mentioned rbutr (actually my personal project) - you can view it in action without the plugin by just adding rbutr.com/ to the front of any URL, eg: http://rbutr.com/http://www.realfarmacy.com/johns-hopkins-scientist-reveals-shocking-report-flu-vaccines/ http://rbutr.com/http://www.realfarmacy.com/johns-hopkins-sc... However rbutr isn't really what you've described here. What you've described is either https://hypothes.is/ https://hypothes.is/ or http://fiskkit.com http://fiskkit.com or https://factlink.com/ https://factlink.com/ Oh, also, Hypothes.is had previously put together this spreadsheet on Google Docs which lists all of the previous efforts to make web annotation applications. It hasn't been kept up to date though so I keep a local one up to date now, just in case this is ever lost: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aujm_HldNh4WdHJrcTNIZ2tOQWhETjNDMGdkRjZEVGc#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aujm_HldNh4WdHJ...
- dwhly 11y ago
  Hey Sean, Dan Whaley from Hypothes.is here. We would absolutely love your edits and updates! Happy to collaborate on this. You can email me ... dwhaley@h...

zerker2000 11y ago

http://rbutr.com http://rbutr.com is a contradiction-focused social plugin for linking pages together, I'm not sure how widely used.

Aegist 11y ago
You can see in the Chrome store how many active users the plugin has (which is only one part of what rbutr does): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rbutr/ocnieghejiknjhadhngmmnbfjocbbfpm?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rbutr/ocnieghejikn... So it says about 10,300 active plugin users. A more appropriate plugin for the OP's question is Hypothes.is. They're open source, non-profit and have raised over $1.5 million. They have about 7,300 users according to the chrome webstore: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hypothesis-web-pdf-annota/bjfhmglciegochdpefhhlphglcehbmek https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hypothesis-web-pdf...

jessriedel 11y ago

Now that you mention it, it would be great to have a browser plugin that would gather links to several discussion sites (HN, metafilter, the subreddits, etc.).

qznc 11y ago
Here is a Chrome plugin for HN discussions: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-discussion/iggcipafbcjfofibfhhelnipahhepmkd?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-discus...

steveklabnik 11y ago

One similar project was _why's mousehole: https://github.com/evaryont/mousehole https://github.com/evaryont/mousehole and hoodwink.d https://github.com/robbyrussell/hoodwinkd https://github.com/robbyrussell/hoodwinkd

fiatjaf 11y ago
How did this hoodwink.d worked?
- aaronem 11y ago
  It's been a while, but as I recall, when it started it involved a proxy to inject the client code into pages, and a hosts file mapping that pointed an invalid FQDN ___._ to the backend, whose IP you had to get from someone who already knew it. Then, once you were in, there was also a karma system which limited the capabilities of low-scored users, and karma was hard to earn. All told, it gave a strong impression of being less a web annotation system, and more a secret club for soi-disant cool kids. I didn't stay in long; a couple of days, no more.
  - fiatjaf 11y ago
    That's interesting and strange. Thank you.

qznc 11y ago

There is https://hypothes.is/ https://hypothes.is/ which provides this additional layer as a browser plugin. And I vaguely remember that there were others.

vannevar 11y ago
There have been many such systems. I built one in the early 2000s and tried to raise money around it, to no avail. At the time there were several commercial competitors, including one well-funded venture called ThirdVoice. Wikipedia has some information on the history of the genre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_annotation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_annotation .
- bjelkeman-again 11y ago
  There where a bunch of us trying it. We created a corporate version for web site annotation and collaboration. We lost our best chance for funding just as the market cratered. Having seen several more since then I don't think the market is there for it. People still rather print/screen capture/write an email/annotate PDF versions, about changes in websites rather than use an annotation tool on the page it seems.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    > People still rather print/screen capture/write an email/annotate PDF versions, about changes in websites rather than use an annotation tool on the page it seems. The reason seems fairly obvious - printing/screen capture/PDFs are off-line. Permanent and under user's control. Internet based annotations are inherently unstable - one way today, different tomorrow, completely gone next week. I always found the concept a great thing for sharing thoughts with people, but a terrible one for personal notes.
    - bjelkeman-again 11y ago
      I don't think I put it in the right context. Personal notes wasn't what I was aiming for, but collaboration around content.

jacquesm 11y ago

I made a very early version of something like this in 2002 using a loophole that allowed me to frame content in such a way that the original site was visible in an iframe with avatars and speech balloons for the visitors floating over the iframe. Unfortunately the next release of the major browsers closed that loophole (because it could be used in bad ways just as easily as it could be used in good ways). That was a real bummer, I really liked the idea of 'meeting' people on other websites if you both visited through the portal. Maybe with the current generation of browsers there is another way to achieve the same effect. On websites with lots of visitors this would likely not work but then you might limit the visible entries to those from some slice through the population based on certain criteria (location or other demographic data).

asadotzler 11y ago

Zotero covers a lot of this but it's designed as an individual not a social experience. https://www.zotero.org/ https://www.zotero.org/

Aegist 11y ago

There are quite a few efforts out there. Someone has already mentioned rbutr (actually my personal project) - you can view it in action without the plugin by just adding rbutr.com/ to the front of any URL, eg: http://rbutr.com/http://www.realfarmacy.com/johns-hopkins-scientist-reveals-shocking-report-flu-vaccines/ http://rbutr.com/http://www.realfarmacy.com/johns-hopkins-sc... However rbutr isn't really what you've described here. What you've described is either https://hypothes.is/ https://hypothes.is/ or http://fiskkit.com http://fiskkit.com or https://factlink.com/ https://factlink.com/ Oh, also, Hypothes.is had previously put together this spreadsheet on Google Docs which lists all of the previous efforts to make web annotation applications. It hasn't been kept up to date though so I keep a local one up to date now, just in case this is ever lost: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aujm_HldNh4WdHJrcTNIZ2tOQWhETjNDMGdkRjZEVGc#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aujm_HldNh4WdHJ...

dwhly 11y ago
Hey Sean, Dan Whaley from Hypothes.is here. We would absolutely love your edits and updates! Happy to collaborate on this. You can email me ... dwhaley@h...