Re: Backlash vs. Third-Party Annotations from MS Smart Tags

At 12:44 AM 7/2/2001 -0500, Charles P LaHaye wrote:
>image001.gif
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>Having followed this ahmmm& debate on a few other lists and seeming that 
>Smart Tags are out (for now in IE) a few thoughts:
>    * I have been waiting for some type of annotation system for some 
> time. If the web is truly the future of human information presentation 
> and entertainment, some type of personal marking is inevitable. Having 
> used many early e-book readers such as the Rocket and Softbook, my 
> biggest concern was the lack of ability to save notes and annotations.
>    * I can see how some would object to annotations; it seems many site 
> builders feel any change in presentation as a slap in the face. However, 
> once the anti-Microsoft bias is filtered, the only people hurt by this 
> don t touch my content attitude are the very readers site builders want 
> to attract.
Many of the objections are not so much for annotations but how much control 
the users have for using/not using them, defining with whom to share them 
and how to present them and selecting where to store them.

We should try to keep in mind that there are many possibilities if the 
implementations are done right.
>    * I easily foresee a home and office annotation server for all the 
> local markings done by a person or group. In fact the local server of web 
> services such as preferences and bookmarks and other personal things 
> could be ultimately stored there. I think more people would accept that 
> rather than some centralized authority keeping such personal data. With 
> ubiquity of networks and IPv6, such individual, openly accessible servers 
> are doable. In fact, that may be a driving force for there introduction.
And that kind of a personal/group server is possible with the Annotea 
(http://www.w3.org/2001/Annotea) server developed by Eric Prud'hommeaux. 
There is probably still work to make it easy enough to set up for any user, 
but the capabilities are there. The users can help by providing feedback on 
instructions and/or the code itself to this list.

Marja


>Charles lahaye
>
>cplmd@asbank.com