Founded | July 1, 2011 |
---|---|
Founder | Dan Whaley |
Type | 501(c)(3) |
45-2677817 | |
Registration no. | C3389843 |
Location |
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Coordinates | 37°45′53″N 122°25′55″W / 37.7647°N 122.4319°W |
Revenue | $2,521,639 (2019[1]) |
Website | hypothes |
Hypothes.is is an open-source software project that aims to collect comments about statements made in any web-accessible content, and filter and rank those comments to assess each statement's credibility.[2][3][4][5][6]
It has been summarized as "a peer review layer for the entire Internet."[7]
The project is a system which allows annotation of web pages, using comments contributed by individuals and a reputation system for rating the comments. The plan is that the comments will be stored in the Internet Archive. Normal use is with a browser plug-in (Chrome) or a bookmarklet (others), and the plan is that links to specific comments will also be viewable without needing a plug-in.[3]
The project is led by Dan Whaley, co-founder of GetThere, one of the first online travel booking systems in 1995.[3][8][9] Its advisors have included John Perry Barlow, Charles Bazerman, Philip Bourne and Brewster Kahle.[2]
A Kickstarter drive to raise $100,000 to fund a working prototype narrowly reached its goal on November 13, 2011.[7][10] The effort is organized as a non-profit.[11][12] It has received financial support from the Shuttleworth Foundation,[13] the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,[14] the Helmsley Trust,[15] the Knight Foundation[16] and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.[17]
In December 2015, Hypothes.is was a founding member of a coalition of scholarly publishers, platforms, libraries, and technology organizations to create an open, interoperable annotation layer over their content.[18]
In August 2022, after noting that being a nonprofit limited the company to grants and donations and with several of the key funding sources Hypothes.is relied on no longer available, they formed "Annotation Unlimited, PBC" (Anno).[19] Anno is a public benefit corporation to house the Hypothes.is mission set up to allow investment. It attracted $14M seed round, including $2.5M from the provider of JSTOR.