Monday, January 16th, 2006
Announcing Wizlite: Collaborative Page Highlighting
Category: Showcase
Announcing Wizlite by Alex Kirk (BandNews and Blummy creator). Wizlite is a fantastic use of Ajax for highlighting and annotating any web page. Using either a bookmarklet or a Firefox extension, you’ll see highlights and annotations from other people, each with their own colour.
The FAQ explains how publishers can make their pages “Wizlite-able” with a one-liner On-Demand Javascript script tag. “It’s like there’s a wiki in my homepage and everyone’s invited” :-)
It’s not the first tool for annotating web pages, but others require a browser plugin, which is one massive barrier to widespread adoption. Using various Ajax technologies, Wizlite is able to work anonymously, without a plugin, and on all browsers; the Firefox extension is only an optional extra.
[Scrawling on any old web page]
[...] So I’m not the first to write about my project? [...]
[...] From Ajaxian: Announcing Wizlite by Alex Kirk (BandNews and Blummy creator). Wizlite is a fantastic use of Ajax for highlighting and annotating any web page. Using either a bookmarklet or a Firefox extension, you’ll see highlights and annotations from other people, each with their own colour. [...]
I’d be interested to know what kind of other annotation tools there are, except diigo, which is more like delicious?
Just tried Wizlite, I think it has got potential - annotating and highlighting tool is soredly needed, IMHO. I do not think the ajax script for annotation is too useful though - how many publishers would want to incorporate that?
I have been using another annotation service called Diigo (www.diigo.com), which I think is a lot more mature and user-friendly. See a very detailed review here http://www.solutionwatch.com/303/diigo-social-bookmarking-and-annotation/
no publisher needs to integrate the Javascript code.
Registered users can wizlite any page they want.
It’s just an optional way for publishers to show interesting selections when a user comes to the site.
Thanks for clearing that up. it’s cool, but the firefox extension is still easier to use. both firefox extension and bookmarlet do not work too reliably right now , and it does not do tagging- a must-have for me.- will stick with diigo for now. but i think it’s on the right track.
Thank you!