Reframe It Raises $2.3 Million For Web Annotation Product

Reframe It, a web annotation startup, has just raised $2.3 million in funding according to an SEC filing. Investors include The Sacramento Angels, the Sierra Angels, the North Bay Angels, the Silicon Valley Angels, Esther Dyson, Mark Walsh, John Schirer, Allen Miner and Daniel Zumino (Sierra and Sacramento led the round). Reframe It previously raised $700,000 from AD Gilhart & Co., and boasts an impressive advisory board which includes Dyson, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Howard Rheingold.

Reframe It is a browser plug-in and bookmarklet that lets you highlight passages of text on a Web page and add your own comments in a side pane. Reframe It also offers publishers branded, community that allows websites to enable white label web annotation integrated into the site. Comment can be private, public, or visible only to certain groups. Anyone with the Reframe It plug-in can then see those comments in their side pane as they browse the Web. Reframe It also has a Twitter-like social feature that lets you follow other people’s comments, as well as comments within groups. And you can follow these comments in an RSS feed, which you can track in your blog reader or other services such as FriendFeed. To help get you started, Reframe It allows you to import your contacts from Gmail, Facebook, and (soon) LinkedIn and other services.

The startup recently made waves when it claimed that Google’s recently launched web annotation product, Sidewiki, copied Reframe It’s model. Google denied the accusation and eWeek reported that Reframe It’s CEO Bobby Fishkin didn’t want to take legal action against Google, as the startup readies a new version of its product. Version 2.0 includes the ability to see a social, real-time feed (vs. a RSS feed) of your friends comments on a particular page. The new version is compatible with all browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.