 In the beginning, we spoke, turning thoughts into things that others could hear. Then we wrote, sharing our thinking forward in time and outward in all directions. Knowledge began to accelerate, to accumulate. We printed, and in just 60 years, over 20 million copies of books and text were produced. An explosion spread across Europe and into the furthest corners of the world. In 1945, a scientist named Vannevar Bush dreamed of an early web and browser. He foresaw trailblazers that would connect the world's information. Almost 50 years later, in 1993, Mark Andreessen and Eric Beena built collaborative annotation into Mosaic, the first graphical web browser, so that every page could be the launch pad for discussion of its content. And then, they turned it off. Over the next 20 years, more than 50 projects tried to bring this vision back to life. But they were hindered by early technologies, short-term thinking, a lack of control over spam, and poor design. A small group of dreamers started to ask, why couldn't we do better? They imagined a revolutionary new capability, a new layer over the web. Based on open standards, controlled by internet citizens instead of website owners, with a vision of serving all of humanity. They imagined the ability to point and set anything, pages, documents, pictures, video, and even data. The ability to contribute your own thinking anywhere without restriction, even when the comments are disabled. The ability to link into and share ideas and preserve these links and connections forever. They called it open annotation. Out of this dream, a tiny non-profit called Hypothesis was formed to bring this vision forward, working with others around the world to build software and services. These dreamers envisioned a more clear and honest world where comment is free, and where peers evaluate each other, not on terms established by those in power, but on the merit of their words and deeds. A world that's edgeless, cross-disciplinary, and emergent by design. A world that listens when you have something to say. Join us in making a better world.