When looking at the article on BI, I feel the annotations take away from the flow of the article, rather than adding to it. I find myself constantly re-reading entire paragraphs to get back to the story.

I find the annotations interesting, but agree that they break up the flow. I think I prefer the style you see on some blogs where users can comment on specific paragraphs, and it will then show a little comment icon in the margin. However, that does restrict the specificity of the annotations.

Hm, interesting! I think this might be a function of the annotation size—we try to keep single annotations short to maximize readability, but the author of the article seems to be breaking this rule, and having 3 page+ annotations definitely ends up detracting from the original text. (The one that stands out to me is the one that explains the background of the founders, and then just keeps going... And going... And going...) Its important to remember that this was probably the BI author's first time using the platform though, and I found the annotations from Tom, Ilan and Marc much more readable and concise.

Agreed with OP. Wish you guys could come up with a different way to show text is annotated. The highlight just grabs my attention way too much and it tells my brain that "this is important" which isn't necessarily true with Genius annotations. It works well for lyrics on rapgenius, but for content on news and other websites not so much. I hope website owners will be able to pick their own style.