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Diigo v3 places more emphasis on the social aspect of social bookmarking through merging ideas from several different sites together. For example, it takes annotating from Clipmarks, bookmarking from del.icio.us and a facility which suggests websites you may like based on your annotations from StumbleUpon.

Diigo v3 has some unique features which I like. When you are on websites, you can view what other users have highlighted and annotated which is useful for group projects where collaboration is necessary. You can also join groups and communities and send private messages to other users. Another interesting feature is WebSlides which lets you view your bookmarks as a slideshow which is useful if you can’t always remember the name of the site but you can remember the way it looks!

In the fall, I ran across a new social bookmarking site–Diigo. I started using Diigo with a paper that I was writing and loved it for several reasons. First, it’s a social bookmarking site which meant that I could peruse the links of other people on the site. Second, Diigo gave me the Furl functionality of highlighting and annotating, but the format seemed easier and the interface was more aesthetically speaking (in my opinion).  While I was in this stage of tinkering, I met with one of my dissertation committee members and I was talking about the focus of my dissertation–blogging. He very bluntly reminded me that my entire dissertation could not focus only on blogging, but needed to be focused on more features. I was in a bind–I wanted to focus on the advantages to writing that came from blogs, not all medias. But the more I played around with Diigo, the more a little grain of an idea began to grow. My dissertation should note about the advantages to writing–but about collaboration through Web 2.0

So, this semester, I went out on a limb and offered my students the option of collaborating on their research this semester. They were already not looking forward to the research, but the idea of using each other to further their research sounded like a good idea. Still, they weren’t jumping at the idea. Then, I gave them a quick walkthrough of Diigo. Their eyes lit up like they had just been given a present–and it wasn’t even their birthday. One student looked dumbfounded and asked: “Is it really that easy?” “It sure is.” I replied.

Students Use Social Bookmarking Just like I learned with blogging in the classroom, I know that students get more out of methods of learning that they use in their free time. So, social bookmarking was a way for me to engage my students not only in the research, but in conversations with the research. Social bookmarking, regardless of the site used, creates a conversation among members interested in the same tag. Each time a member marks a bookmark, they are speaking to their networks and saying “Read this.”

Diigo's Enhanced Linkrolls let you have your latest Diigo bookmarks displayed as part of your site.

NeoArch July 25, 2006 Diigo Criticism Filed under: diigo — NeoArch @ 8:52 am Diigo Launches, Nobody Cares - Mashable* Diigo is being criticized over on Mashable for being just one more social bookmarking site. That’s all well and good. I guess when you create a new social tool you should expect that–unless, of course, you create a good one. And that, my friends, is what Diigo is. So in answer to the who cares question, I offer the following: Who cares? Bloggers. Trust me. I am one. On several blogs. A large part of blogging is just countering other bloggers. It’s sorta like what I am doing now. Who am I kidding? It is what I am doing now. The advantage to bloggers is twofold. First, Diigo allows you to store your notes right on the page of the blog with which you disagree. Second, Diigo has blog functionality that lets you blog right from Diigo. Which is what I am doing now. Tagging and blogging can occur seamlessly. And it allows you to have multiple blogs. Try doing that with the Performancing plugin (which I love.) Who cares? Researchers. They have wanted a tool like this for years. I don’t know how many times I have wanted to put marginalia on a blog like I do my books. Now I can. Others can as well. I am a librarian in an academic institution. Trust me. Researchers will use this. Who cares? Anyone who uses the web. This is the type of tool that has a wide appeal, especially for those who do not already use a social bookmarking service. This one IS better than others. This one DOES offer something others don’t. This one DOESN’T just clip text. This one puts your notes right where you want them. Hey, I realize there is some truth to the Web 2.x hype. Who wants another social site that has a name that sounds like a Star Wars character. Put if you’re going to fault Diigo for anything, fault it for having a stupid name. Don’t fault it for competing in crowded space. It fills a need for many people, just like all the mom and pop Linux distros out there do. It is marketable, as is evidenced by the fact that over 10,000 people signed up for the Diigo Beta test.

You should know about Diigo! Filed under: Uncategorized, Technology, folksonomy, diigo — NeoArch @ 9:09 am To those of you who read this blog on a regular basis, I want to apologize for posting infrequently lately. I have had a couple other projects that I have been working on, plus my Church had vacation Bible school last week. You don’t get much done during VBS week. I just wanted to take the time to inform you about a new social bookmarking service. For those of you who already have one, you’re probably groaning, “Not another one!” I know. I know. I have been using Del.icio.us for…well…forever. I can’t remember life before Del.icio.us. In fact, I have no intentions on ceasing from using Del.icio.us. (With Diigo and its toolbar, I don’t have to, but more on that in another post.) For those of you who don’t have a social bookmarking service…well…you need one. Social bookmarking is a way to keep track of all of the websites that you visit. It allows you to describe the page using several one word “tags.” For example, if you visited the page for “Talladega Nights,” you might tag it as “movie,” “Will_Ferrell,” “stupid,” and “NASCAR.” This may seem like a useless service until you cannot find that page with the thing that you needed for your job and now you’re gonna get fired cause you can’t produce what you said you could. Or perhaps you can’t find that online add for that ring for your wife that you saw that would save you $1000 so now you can’t get a new johnboat because you don’t have the extra $$$$ you would have saved. Trust me. You need one. There are several out there. Diigo is different, though. The service is only in beta testing at this point, so you have to actually request an invitation to participate. Diigo not only lets you save a bookmark to the page, but it also allows you to highlight content. It lets you add virtual sticky notes to the page. This really is the ideal tool for research and blogs. You can access your thoughts about a certain web page from anywhere in the world, right on the web page. How many times have you wished that blogs and webpages worked like books. You wish that you could add marginalia. You wish that the marginalia could be either public or private. It’s all possible with Diigo.

Don’t just take my word for it. Go try out Diigo’s playground for yourself. If you don’t think the service is the coolest thing since Cocoa Pebbles (it’s like cereal, only chocolaty), then walk away from your keyboard, go get in your 1973 Ford Maverick, throw in your favorite Captain and Tenille 8-track, and …well… you get the picture. I have just started using Diigo in the past few days, so I will have more to say about it later. However, I do think that this is one of the best social bookmarking sites that I have used. Long live Diigo!

Ever-since we got a sneak peak at Diigo, I've been playing around with it and marveling at the latest feature releases. Diigo is the product of hardwork, deep understanding of what end users want, and one of the most feature complete social annotation services I know of. Last week, the team at Diigo released some great updates that make it all the better reason to switch from whatever social bookmarking tool you're using, to Diigo. Here's a rough outline of what the team has been up to:Easier to Bookmark: Recent updates allows users to add a 'Diigolet' to their bookmarks; a button that allows you to add whatever page you are viewing to your Diigo bookmarks, an invaluable tool for information hungry users.Importing/Exporting: Badges are the 'hip' thing right now and Diigo doesn't want to miss out on it. So, they will be releasing a linkroll that will allow users to add their recent bookmarks to their blogs or websites to share what they have been bookmarking. You can also import your Del.icio.us bookmarks to your Diigo account.Toolbars: The Diigo toolbar has also been upgraded. You can blog about the page you are viewing with the "Blog-This" button, as well as instantaneously add the page you are viewing to your bookmarks.

Our design philosophy is simple -- what makes the most sense to us as users, what we'd like to have as users ourselves, and what are some creative ways to do things even better... We'd like to continue thinking out-of-the-box, and not to be totally bound by traditional framework or method of doing things.What Diigo has to do is really stick out to users; and that's pretty hard to do when there are a great number of other competing services. That's exactly what Diigo does. For those that are looking for a head-on review, I suggest you take a peak at our initial preview.

A better way to remember your online research April 15th, 2007 · No Comments How often have you found yourself scouring the web for information on a specific topic only to forget which websites you’ve visited and what information was valuable? That’s where I find myself a lot of times when I do online research. Whether that’s compiling a list of pros/cons for all the content management solutions out there to gathering data to write a paper, inevitably I forget something. You know how it is, you sit there and you scratch your head knowing there’s a reason you came to the conclusion you did, but can’t remember what it was. To everyone out there like feels my pain, I want to introduce you to Diigo. Here’s a brief rundown of what it does (as it relates to online research). Highlights text on web pages to make them stand out. Add comments to highlighted text or to the web page overall. Provides a central location to view all your highlights and/or comments.

And the cherry on top of all that is that there is no software installation required. All those features are easily accessible through a bookmarklet. If you prefer, there is a downloadable toolbar as well. The beauty of Diigo is that it documents your research. Before, I used to use a text editor. It was terrible. If I’d visit an interesting website, I’d make note of the URL, any interesting text, and any other tidbits I’d want to remember. Then I’d save it with some vague filename wherever the default save location was on my computer only to never find it again. And I call myself a tech-savvy.

In my during-semester survey, a few students offered the following comments about Diigo when asked what had helped them learn in the course: The Diigo annotation technology has made reading the court cases far more enriching. It as though you are in the room while I am reading the cases.... I wish there were a way you could do the same for all the other readings. It really helps to bring clarity to the court cases by reading your comments. I would be confu[s]ed on some judgements or miss important points without the comments. It is the next best thing than [to] sitting in a lecture and discussing interpretations.