Annotating Content

• Comments (0)

Apr 14

The other day I was using the search tool, Bing. It's important to note that the attraction of Bing (at least for me) is not necessarily the actual search results returned. Those are fine, but not necessarily superior to those from Yahoo or Google. The attraction of Bing for me is the compelling user experience. Invariably the site has some beautiful photographic image as the wallpaper which, when one's mouse is moved across the screen, displays clever annotations tied to the featured image. Each annotation has a link which dynamically generates a search query. Clicking on that link may take the user to a set of images of Mandarin Ducks from Bing's image gallery, maps of Ross Island, or videos of the incredible balancing stupa of Kyaiktiyo in Myanmar -- truly a wealth of information beyond mere text. Annotations in such instances truly do present, explain and amplify information as they create engagement.

Annotation has tremendous value to researchers and scholars. It is therefore worthwhile to monitor the activity of the Open Annotation Collaboration project; the Spring 2010 meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) featured a presentation from that group (link to video) and the progress they are making in this area is most intriguing.