Re: Social impact of annotations?

>>>>> "Misha" == Misha Glouberman <misha@web.net> writes:

    > Rolf, You might want to have a look at my "Adding Comments to
    > the Web" paper, which talks a lot about social impact of
    > annotations technologies. It's not exactly a cautious study of
    > possibilities. (Okay- it's a foaming-at-the-mouth rant) But it
    > might be of use.

    > I'd be really interested in hearing what conclusions you come to
    > about the related-link feature. It sounds really interesting
    > from what little I've read, but I haven't had a chance to find
    > out much about it.



    > 			- Misha

I think the ability to have a third party indicate related links, and
then have that ability built into a popular browser, can have some
strong positive social impact in terms of allowing people to comment
or even start discussions about the material that someone puts on a
Web site, as you indicate in your paper.  It can also make it easier
for people to collaborate.  There is some negative social impact in
potential loss of privacy, especially if the service is deployed
without proper notice to users.  Overall though, I think third party
annotation is a positive development.

 

-- 
| Rolf Nelson (rolf@w3.org), Project Manager, W3C at MIT
|   "Try to learn something about everything
|             and everything about something."  --Huxley

Received on Thursday, 5 November 1998 15:39:07 UTC