1. A database system, comprising: a processing system; and a memory device coupled to the processing system, the memory device having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by the processing system, cause the processing system to perform operations comprising: storing, by the processing system of the database system, a plurality of subscriptions, each of the subscriptions associated with a different subscriber of a plurality of subscribers, each subscriber associated with a permission level of a plurality of permission levels; receiving first information uploaded from a first remote user system over a network, wherein the first information comprises annotation information including annotations and positioning information; determining whether to grant one of the subscribers access to the annotations; and in response to determining to grant the one of the subscribers access to the annotations, downloading second information to be used to graphically annotate content on a second remote user system without modification of said content on the second remote user system, wherein the second information that is different from the received first information and the second remote user system that is different from the first remote user system; wherein said content comprises at least one of text, an image, flash based images or video, and the content is created using at least one of a plurality of document creation applications; and wherein the second different information comprises an overlay having a transparent work area to align to an arbitrary format display corresponding to the content.