Let's say you want to share an article you read online with a friend. The article is long, and therefore there is a chance that your busy friend will skip the parts of the article that you really want them to read. How can you focus their attention on the most highlighted parts of the page?
The web apps Genius and TLDRify let you mark up sections of web pages. They’re very similar to the yellow highlighter pen you use on a printed page to highlight a paragraph or word. These apps let you highlight any word or specific sentence on a web page and create direct links to the highlighted text. When users click on your shared link, they’ll see the entire original web page, but with the highlighted text in yellow.
Genius is a website that deals with song lyrics, but it also provides a web annotator with which you can add comments to any web page. The best part about Genius is that you don't need to install any browser extension to use the annotator. Simply type genius.it/ in your browser's address bar before the page's URL. Then highlight the text you want and click the black icon that will appear above the highlighted text.
Then connect to the Genius website via Twitter, Facebook, Google or directly by email, and you will be able to add a comment about the current page. Genius will provide you with a link that will immediately open the page with the point you have highlighted highlighted in yellow.
The next useful app in this category is TLDRify. Here you will need to install a browser extension, but you don’t need to sign up for any account to comment on web pages. Also, unlike Genius where you can display comments left by other users on the same page, TLDRify links will only display your own highlights.
While on a web page, select any text you want and click on the TLDRify bookmarklet. A link will be created to the highlighted text. When users click on the link, the browser will automatically jump to the annotated text.
Internally, these services create an exact copy of web pages on their own servers, so even if the home page goes down or changes, your links still work.
