Diigo, known for its social annotation, finally went public yesterday. The service aims to turn the web writable allowing users to privately or publicly annotate any website they visit, in turn making a “participatory and interactive media” for its users. I must say that even though I have had an account for Diigo’s private beta since I last reviewed it late December, I have been anticipating its launch. So much has changed since my last review including social bookmarking enhancements, new annotation tools, tools built for bloggers, and more.
It’s only been one day since the public launch and I have already seen mixed comments about the service ranging from extremely happy to down right brutal, but both sides with some strong points. My say? I think it’s a great service because once you start using it, you will realize that it is much more then just bookmarking. Diigo has features that can please just about anyone. You can bookmark a site, take notes, save snippets of text and graphics, highlight sentences on a site, and even share notes on a site with others. If you are a writer, Diigo will allow you to keep your notes and highlights organized and allow you to write a blog post and publish it, all within the service. Diigo also makes it easier for users to bookmark and annotate by providing them with a browser extension (Firefox, Flock, and IE), or if you prefer, a bookmarklet (Diigolet) so you do not have to install anything. The hard part though is standing out as the unique and powerful service that Diigo is and not appearing like it’s just another Del.icio.us clone.
To further illustrate my point of Diigo being more than just bookmarking, let me give you an example scenario. Currently, I’m working on making an online store for my company and I’m beginning to research shipping and handling for our products. I searched around the web and found an article with helpful information so I bookmarked it with Diigo. Being that I bookmarked it, I was then able to highlight the strong points of the article and add notes to the areas that I wanted to add input to. Now, the next time I visit the site, all my notes and highlights will appear (
assuming I have the Diigo toolbar enabled
). But lets take this a step further. I’m not saving these notes just for myself. I made the notes to share with my partners and that is just what Diigo allows me to do. I locate my bookmark in Diigo and forward the bookmark to my friend which provides them with my notes in the email along with a link to the article I annotated. Now, this link that they receive in the email is special because it allows them to view all my highlighted text and notes on the page without being a Diigo user. Even more so, if they do have an account with Diigo, they can add notes in reply to my notes and highlight text themselves on the article! Now that’s teamwork ;-).
I have decided that because Diigo has such a wide range of features and, from what I can tell, most people feel it is simply a bookmarking service, the best way to describe Diigo is by showing how it differentiates from the crop. So, I am going to go over the main features of Diigo one by one to show what exactly Diigo is capable of. Be sure to also check out the Demo Tours and Features Overview at Diigo’s website.
New highlight colors - 234 views
highlight: icon, notes or contextual menu are missing/invisible or disconnected, can no... - 129 views
started by Graham Perrin on 08 Oct 09
60 follow-ups, last by Graham Perrin on 15 Sep 10
Graham Perrin liked it
highlights/annotations lost and/or failing to appear and/or duplicated as a result of f... - 336 views
started by Graham Perrin on 08 Jul 09
31 follow-ups, last by sandy_diigo on 16 Dec 10
Graham Perrin liked it
Why my sticky note can only be private.? - 229 views
Selection cannot be highlighted Error - 151 views
Opera diigolet - highlight problems - 577 views
Tools for Google Chrome? - 1520 views
highlights and stuck notes: contextual menus are less streamlined, more fiddly in Diigo... - 14 views
started by Graham Perrin on 28 Sep 09
9 follow-ups, last by Graham Perrin on 19 Jun 10
Graham Perrin liked it
8More
Diigo Launches - More Than Just Bookmarking - 2 views
a persistent Diigolet, or something like it - 68 views
highlights and stickies disappearing - 69 views
Next phase Diigo - the future - 462 views
Option for Private as Default for Annotations needed - 165 views
started by Bob Chauvin on 05 Dec 08
7 follow-ups, last by Graham Perrin on 09 Jun 09
Graham Perrin liked it
Frustrated by privacy issues - 151 views
started by Osbert Lancaster on 23 Nov 09
4 follow-ups, last by Graham Perrin on 10 Mar 10
Graham Perrin and Thomas GL liked it