Freeing the Web from the Browser → blog.amitgawande.com
@amit I like they way hypothes.is handles this. I have it installed on my WordPress site, and I can also use it anywhere else on the web (Chrome extension, FF/Safari bookmarklet). User-focused, no work required for developers or site owners.
@donblanco I have tried web annotationg services over the year multiple times - Delicious, Google Sidewiki and many more. I get the lure of these, but they are just too cumbersome to setup/use. So I could never find them useful after some time.
hypothesis looks good too, way better actually. Issue is how public is public without a significant userbase.
@donblanco It looks good, works perfectly well. But my concern is how many people will install this? Or would create an account to read/annotate? I think this functionality sits best with browsers. I guess Firefox has (had?) an in-built annotation feature. Microsoft had also touted something similar with Edge. Chrome won't sit back.
@amit Well, it does work, and it's not hard to sign up. I haven't found anything else that seems to replicate the Medium/marginalia seamlessly. Just trying to spread the word. I guess something like this would almost need to be a W3C standard before we'll see widespread adoption in browsers.
@donblanco Yeah, browsers are going to take time. May be I just need to stop thinking about how many others are using it.
What has been your experience? Do you find any annotations by others? Or do you primarily use it for your reference?
@amit I liked the idea mainly for my own reference. I'm always looking for a way to highlight and/or annotate and also save things that I read. Kindle books, web pages, PDF's, etc. This seems like a way to at least handle the web pages part. If I run across a site that has already been highlighted/annotated, I just consider that a bonus