Group items tagged

I Dig (not Digg) Diigo (not Digg-o) I think I finally found the Web 2.0 social tool I love. It has captured my heart. It's put a spring in my cerebral step. Its made my life easier because it is sooooo easy to use and so many people who I've invited to this particular dance have come. This is a dance that has a bit of hip hop, a little paso doble, a bit of the ballroom and some jazz. This is easily the best social bookmarking and research tool that I've run across on the web and given that I'm in a geeked out frenzy most of the time trying out zillions of tools that's saying something big time. Most of them are tried, not bought if they cost, and discarded within about 2 days which is my ADD-tested and approved patience limit.

That would be Diigo. Spelling D-i-i-g-o. Two eyes? Two 'i's"? Whatever. Spell it right and then go get it. Diigo is one of the few Web 2.0 tools that I find both useful and utterly cool. It actually has value and purpose, because it best represents social bookmarking - which has value and purpose. Lots of it to someone who lives on research -feasts on knowledge and spits out judgments which may be questionable at times (many times) but at least are raising information-soaked questions, not judgments devoid of content.

Permanently highlight and annotate text on any webpage with Diigo Have you ever bookmarked a web page, but upon returning had to re-read it to find what it was that you found interesting ? Have you ever wished you could add your notes and thoughts to web pages, the same way you would on paper ? Do you want to save, tag and share only the highlights of a web page ? Enter Diigo. Diigo lets you permanently highlight, annotate, tag and manage text from any website. When you view your bookmarks you can also view the sections you highlighted and the notes you wrote. It is much more useful than a mere “social bookmarking” service such as del.icio.us, Furl, or Digg. Diigo is my current “killer application”. Read detailed reviews at CNET and TechCrunch, or go ahead and install it.

Diigo @ DEMOfall 07 - A True 3D Information App?

Diigo.com announced their re-launch today with an information network unlike any we have seen in  scope or capability. The new Diigo network being unveiled at DEMOfall 07 creates global communities around data, information, interests and knowledge. These new communities engage and connect people around the content they collect and use. Diigo is already one of the most useful bookmarking and research sites on the Web. The integration of Webslides and the power of "writing the Web" makes Diigo perhaps the Web's first truly 3 dimensional tool. I spoke with Diigo Co-Founder Maggie Tsai on Friday about their deep and groundbreaking vison. I covered Webslides a couple of weeks ago, but honestly did not envision the depth or scope of Diigo's potential. Maggie demonstrated the capability of a development nearly as complex and difficult to encapsulate as the semantic search engine's technology. The simple truth of Diigo combined with Webslides is that with continued refinements Diigo could well be the mega site imagined by many for Web 3.0. Diigo Plus Webslides Diigo users can create groups, lists, collaborative forums, do research, annotate or comment on pages and essentially build layers of data and knowledge atop any Web page. The concept of a multi-layered Web is difficult to grasp, but Maggie's team have begun to capture the power of what content-centric (their word my understanding) collaboration can do. "Writing" to the Web via sticky notes, annotations and highlighted elements combined with various collaborative elements is power for more than doing a research project. With the addition of Webslides - essentially an interactive, selective browser/player within a browser - Diigo provides a multifaceted platform for unbelievable collaboration and monetization potential. Diigo also unveiled another crucial element for "directing" data at users with their Webslides embeddable widget. This tool allows users to embed Webslides bookmark or RSS shows inside pages and blogs. These shows can be customized to express any number of topical or thematic blog posts, topical articles, product reviews, real estate offerings or just about anything one can imagine.

A Tall Order Diigo is certainly a fantastic individual or collaborative research tool, but inserting a platform like this into what we might call "the hub" (the center of what people do) of the Web has deeper implications. Bookmarking and social networking has seen massive appeal. The idea of wrapping users up in this core of data and knowledge has been touched upon by sites like Wikia, Digg, Stumble Upon, Facebook and many others in the various venues. All of these great sites gather content that is acted on and sometimes enhanced by users, but the data remains rather static or 2 dimensional for the user. Stumbled Upon comes closest to letting users "filter" the Web and its data but even there the great volume of information is lost or scattered with time. Diigo's methodology effectively turns Diigo into a Web within a Web of filtered, searchable and dynamic information.

Diigo refuses to be categorized as neither just another social bookmarking site nor a social network. And I would have to agree with them.

Its cool sounding and web 2.0ish enough without the need to know what it stands for.

One, you can use Diigo as a browser add-on very much similar to other social bookmarking sites such as Digg (sounds like eh?). But unlike Digg, Diigo lets you highlight a portion of a particular site that are of interest to you, attach a sticky note into the highlighted portion of the site, and when you return to the site, you can still your sticky notes. Sounds cool, right? It’s as if you were highlighting a book. Everything that you highlight, you can also search, access, sort and share from any PC or even on your iPhone.

I received an email the other week asking me to take part in and review a  new service which finally launched outright this week called "Diigo".It's nice to know that people read my blog, enjoy what I ramble on about and would like me to comment on it, but anyway, on with the review.Diigo is a not your usual social bookmarking site like del.icio.us or social commentary site like Reddit or Digg, they call it a "Social Annotation website".They have a toolbar that integrates with Firefox, Flock and Internet Explorer that allows you to add "Sticky notes" to pages, post the pages to a del.icio.us-type bookmarking service (and del.icio.us itself plus others), forward highlighted text via email to a friend and, most importantly, add comments to webpages which other users can then view (or you could choose to make them private but that's hardly the point of a social annotation site now is it?!).After you have your Diigo account, you'll be prompted to install the relevant toolbar for your browser (Sorry Safari fans, I don't think you're supported yet), once that's installed and you've restarted your browser the fun begins!The annotation system is accessed via a your context menu (right-click on the webpage):

  Top 5 Bookmarking Applications – Jots tops the group Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Jots won the race for the top bookmarking site, followed closely by Simpy, Diigo, Del.icio.us and digg.

per the views registered here at NEO Binaries.

It is refreshing to see another fan of this often overlooked Social Bookmarking Tool. I've been using Diigo since its earliest version and it is beginning to hit full stride with auto suggesting tags, public or private, Twitter feed check and a tremendous amount of flexibility.