An open letter to Marc Andreessen and Rap Genius

I guess the question on my mind is- does it benefit rapgenius at all to contribute to any kind of open annotation? As we can see with twitter, if you're going to bet millions of dollars on a content distribution and consumption network, you're going to have to display ads at some point. In twitter's case, they have slowly and surely begun to limit things that do not contribute to the display of twitter's ads (third party apps and open api access).

With 15 million and more to pay back, rapgenius will need to focus on things that contribute to the display of rapgenius's ads. Rap music is pretty popular, but I think they're aiming higher and broader (I'm guessing there might be a non rap specific product called "genius" out there in a year or so).

I'm hoping that they find it beneficial to their goals to contribute to the open annotation effort as they move forward.

+1. The folks at hypothes.is certainly have the hacker ethos of openness and transparency at their core.

It would like to see Marc and Rap Genius engaged in the open Annotation effort.

I agree all perspectives are a plus - It would be great to have Marc and Rap Genius engaged in the open Annotation effort.

Agree 100%! Disclaimer: co-editor/co-chair for the Open Annotation W3C Community Group

Great points all around.

Agree with this completely