June 1, 2007
Web Annotation Tools For Presentation And Visual Information Sharing
Web annotation tools and services make it very simple to mark up the websites you visit, and share your commentary with an audience. As such, they can make a refreshingly different way to make a web-based presentation, or simply to share text-based or visual feedback.
Photo credit: Andres Rodriguez
In my mini-guide to ten of the best services currently available, published today over at Masternewmedia, I compared the different capabilities of these free tools. The tools under review were:
Each tool has its merits and unique abilities, but all allow you to add annotation to websites just as you might scribble notes in the margins of a book or journal article.
Here is a summary of their key features:
The criteria that the tools were compared against in the full article were as follows:
- Sticky notes - tools that use sticky notes have floating note boxes that can be dragged and dropped around the screen, containing annotation
- Text - tools capable of storing text annotations
- Images - tools capable of incorporating or manipulating images
- Highlighter - tools which allow you to highlight text or images within a webpage
- Freehand - tools which allow for freehand drawing or annotation
- Shapes - tools which allow lines or shapes to be dragged and dropped onto the website
- Footnotes - tools which create numbered notes that can be jumped to from a navigation menu
- Tag - tools that allow you to tag your annotations or web content
- Browser support - which web browsers are supported by the tools
- From URL - tools which allow you to begin annotating a website by entering its URL from the website of a service
- From bookmarklet - tools which allow you to begin annotating a page by clicking on a bookmarklet in your browser toolbar
- RSS - tools that allow users to receive updates of your comments via RSS
- Email - tools that incorporate the ability to share a URL or invite friends to your annotated website using a bulk email form
- Private, public and group - tools with the capabilities to display annotations to all users, a group of selected users, or just the person that created the annotations
Here is a comparive chart summarizing the major differences:
Be sure to check out the mini-reviews featured in the full guide for an even clearer idea about which tool might best suit your sharing or presentation needs. For myself, I think that Trailfire does a great job of creating a presentation-like experience, by threading a group of annotated websites together that can be viewed in sequence by your audience.
Nevertheless, each tool has its strengths and could well prove useful in visual collaboration, presentation or information sharing.
posted by
Michael Pick
on Friday, June 1 2007
Tuesday, January 15 2008
URL of this article:
http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com/2007/06/01/web_annotation_tools_for_presentation.htm
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