> So this is my recommended framework for proceeding. Tim, I'm afraid you'll actually have to do the hard work yourself.

No, I don't. Because the work isn't fundamentally that hard. A complex
standard might be, but I never for a moment considered anything like
that. We have *512 bytes*, and it needs to be usable by anyone.
Library technology is usually fatally over-engineered, but this is a
case where that approach isn't even possible.

> You aren't going to get something good just by getting some listserv to vote.

My suggestion was to have people interested in actually using it vote.

> Many of us involved in this discussion may find this intellectually interesting, but may have no actual use _ourselves_ for such a format anyway.

Oh, I bet half of you guys have sharing buttons on your OPAC or
elsewhere. And many of you are on Twitter and, at least occasionally,
discuss a book.

> If Amazon or someone like that comes up with something, it will end up becoming the 'de facto' standard, so I recommend trying to talk to Amazon to see if they're thinking about this -- or just wait to see if/what Amazon comes up with, and use that.

You're right. It's a thankless task to get even a subset of library
technologists to agree on something like this. It'd be less important
if I didn't know the Amazon solution will leave off key pieces
libraries need.

Then, three years from now, we can all conference-tweet about a CIL
talk, about all the cool ways libraries are using Twitter, and how
it's such a shame that the annotations standard wasn't designed with
libraries in mind.

Best,
Tim