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Before class on Tuesday, I have never heard of the program Diigo.  When Professor Wolf mentioned that, it was a way to annotate online documents right on the web page.  He also explained how it is interactive, that you can read other annotations posted by others and others can read yours.  At first, I didn’t see myself ever using this after this class.  I find it easier to read documents once they are printed out rather than right off the screen.  I cannot concentrate when the documents are on the screen and I feel better writing notes in the margins with a pen and highlighting.   After using Diigo on the readings for Thursday, I realized that I might be able to use this tool in a classroom with students.  I would not use it for anything lower than the fourth grade, but it would be a great tool to integrate into lessons.  For instance, a teacher could set up a group in Diigo and have the students all join an account. Then for different lessons, such as a science lesson on the layers of the earth, the teacher could use an article or web page that reinforces the lesson.  The students would then go in and read the article and comment using Diigo.    I think students would benefit from this activity for several different reasons.  I think the fact that it is on the computer they would find it fun and different from reading out of a textbook and answer questions.  I also think that since it is interactive, the students can comment on one another’s thoughts taking the pressure off that comes with face-to-face conversation.  In addition, if this is done in the classroom using three or more computers, it is away for the children to interact but keep the noise level down while other students do independent work at their desks.  

Diigo is fantastic social bookmarking and proto-blogging tool, marrying the best of del.icio.us, the leading bookmarking site, and Google Notebook, a recently upgraded and highly flexible tool for interacting with and reviewing your websurfing experience. I didn't spend much time with Google Notebook once I discovered it by way of comparing del.icio.us with Google Bookmarks, but I played with it enough to notice a lot of excellent features that del.icio.us did not have, including the ability to automatically associate bookmarks with a current project, flexible blog-like layout for groups of bookmarks, and collaboration features. As I moved bookmarks into Google Notebook, I started to realize I would be missing out on some advantages of del.icio.us, such as strong interconnectivity through tagging and an exceedingly simple and crisp interface. Enter Diigo, which retains del.icio.us's advantages while sprucing it up with notetaking, tagging flexibility, and collaborative features that rival Google Notebook and then some. I compare these three approaches to bookmarking on four fronts: tagging, blogging, collaboration, and "other stuff".

Tagging: When I'm surfing, I almost never want to slow down to tag or detail the links I'm saving. I'm either just browsing, and I just want the page to be saved in some repository of "cool" somewhere I might be able to check it out later, OR I want to save the page and others to come back to for some project I'm working on. Although its actual tagging features (labelling) are limited, Google Reader was cool because it would automatically save links to the notebook I was currently working on, which seemed easier than having to tag the page every time I save for del.icio.us. Diigo isn't quite this easy, but it does provide the option of setting default tags so I can cruise through surfing without pause. It also allows you to change tags for multiple bookmarks at once, a feature that has been delayed in del.icio.us during the extended wait for version 2.0. Winner: Diigo

Blogging: Sometimes, I don't want to put a whole lot of thought into consolidating my links into one coherent group. In this regard, all three services provide suitable options for tossing together semi-coherent groups of links on independent webpages for others to see. Google Reader does a good job of making scraps from around the internet look palatable; see this example about ultralight backpacking gear, but it does not offer the same level of interconnectivity that del.icio.us or Diigo provide. A similar example from del.icio.us shows it's limitations: the links cannot be groups under one note or be put into any order other than alphabetical or chronological, and pictures and other non-bookmark material cannot be added. Diigo does not have any of these limitations: its lists can be ordered as you please and divided into sections, and they are built independently of the tags, so you can draw bookmarks from anywhere into the page, as you can see in this example. The option that makes Diigo stand out is its ability to transcend the status of "proto-blog" by easily exporting links to the blog of the user's choice. By simply selecting links and clicking "Send to Blog >>", a skeletal blog entry is started in Diigo which can be fleshed out and published on the spot. Winner: Diigo

Research megatool Diigo will officially announce its new WebSlides for RSS feeds and Bookmarks feature at TechCrunch40 next week. The new widget is an embeddable player that presents feeds or bookmarks as live web pages in an interactive slideshow format, complete with the full content, pages, links, comments, and ads. The widget can be sent to friends and colleagues and also placed on websites, blogs and in social networks. Each slide that is displayed actually registers as a page view for the content owner. Webslides also allows any Diigo user to annotate each page on the fly with sticky notes to share thoughts or to highlight important sections. Viewers can also bookmark, tag, share, and clip content from the pages in WebSlides for future reference in their own Diigo online folders. To use WebSlides, users enter a feed or list of bookmarks and add background music or voice narration. By clicking “Play,” the list transforms into a slideshow. There’s a lot of competition in this space, but having looked at the product I can see why Diigo qualified for the demo pit at TC40. A widget that includes full content including advertising is a good thing for publishers, and it’s the first slide/ widget I’ve seen that does this. Combined with Diigo’s research capabilities it makes for a great product. Video demonstration is below. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Diigo To Launch WebSlides At TechCrunch40 Posted: 14 09 2007 14:43:10 CEST by Duncan Riley Tags:  Company & Product Profiles   [edit]

Diigo, "Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff", the web2.0 social bookmarks and annotation service, has finally announced going public today!*I've been waiting for this to write about it, well here it goes:Diigo is a great, no, a fantastic tool(!) Not only for bookmarking but also for research, blogging and a must for any social bookmark mania. It's a kind if mix between del.icio.us (social bookmarks), Wizlite (web highlight and notes), Onlywire (multi post to social bookmarks), with Blogging support. Diigo vs Flock: In fact, there are some similarities with Flock, the web 2.0 browser, though you can install Diigo on Flock you'll get some close features, like: blogging: They both support WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, Typepad and MovableType for now (+Dupral for Flock) exempt that Diigo, instead of a blog editor, uses the online blog editor.+ In flock you can save your post for later, in Diigo you can clip the text you want and blog from your bookmarks later on. (See an example, select all and expand to see what I mean.) Bookmarking: Both have a one click bookmark. Flock can sync and bookmark to Shadows and deli.cio.us. Diigo's, called QuickD, let's you set a custom tag and also can simultaneous bookmark to: de.licio.us, BlinkList, Furl, Netvouz, RawSugar, Simpy, Spurl, Yahoo, locally... and of course at Diigo! Search: They both have good search but very different. Flock can search though bookmarks, history, the web and add search plugins like in Firefox. Else Diigo let's you completely customize, add search engines and display them in one or more dropdown menus on the toolbar. (For example, I customized a part of mine for searching though social bookmarks: digg, del.icio.us popular, Netvouz, Hatena...and the same menu that will search my bookmarks.) And at the Diigo website there's an in-page pop-up advanced search which let's you search tags, url, title, phrase, in comments, in highlight or anywhere for only user's or community bookmarks.So using both, Diigo AND Flock, makes you someone very very... social!? ;-)Highlighting:This is the main interesting feature in Diigo.You may not have the Flock's RSS reader support*, nor the drag and drop Flickr or PhotoBucket toolbars but you can Clip text and images, Highlight, Web notes and Aggregate the clippings. Aggregating clippings lets you collect text on the web and later view them all on one page, very useful for research and blogging. See the screenshot. Diigo's highlighting styles Other special features: A bookmark status icon on the toolbar shows if the page has been bookmarked by you, has been commented by any Diigo user or both.Tag cloud which is also a batch tag manager. [Screenshot]Batch selected: Set the selected bookmarks to public/private, mark as read/un-read, expand details or delete them. Quick access: A customizable drop down menu to quickly access any bookmarks of a certain tag. Forward: Email link AND clipping. (usually it's just the link.)Highlight: Search terms like the Google toolbar but also possible on bookmarks and inside non expanded clippings.Tagging: They can be comma OR space separated!Delete: This is a small detail and would be better shown in a video but I love it: When you delete a bookmark it 'flies out' and disappears with a zooming effect! ...and of course it's a one click delete. + all the usual features, and not so usual features like: import directly from browser bookmarks and del.icio.us, follow a tag, user or search results, RSS links, Unicode support, an Ajax linkroll generator and much more... This without mentioning what's comming up! (API included!)As you see, they have done many updates since they started in Decamber. If you want to see more there's a recent review by John from Libraryclips and very good and complete help pages with screen-shots at Diigo.Note: The toolbar exists for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Flock, but incase you find yourself in an internet cafe, there's also an in-page bookmarklet for bookmarking. All the rest, annotation, blogging... comes with it's the toolbar.I've used, and still use now, the Diigo toolbar along many other extensions, where in the beginning it did have some compability problems, it's been a while I haven't had any.*I want to apologise to all the diigo team for the other day with a special thanks to Maggie Tsai for her kind understanding and reaction. -Some of you may know what it is, if you don't I won't tell you. (><") ::Shame::

TOP 100 TOOLS 2009

Diigo

2008 (Spring) ranking 52=

The Good: The “About This Page” info– if it works correctly (it’s a beta, I totally understand when things don’t work quite as expected…..especially when aggregating information from multiple APIs) the About This Page is a useful, central repository of data on a selected page. This feature could be incredibly useful to companies that want to see what people are saying about them, blogs that want to know what their readers think of their stories, and anyone curious about how their information is being perceived by readers. Like the other social annotation services, the “Blog this” option is excellent, as it immediately does a cut and paste + login + compose + automatic reference citation. The interface is also very straight-forward and easy to use. When you log in at diigo, there are no points of confusion, and you can easily access your bookmarks and annotated content wherever you are. I could have really used something like this in college.

The Bad: A few technical glitches, but that’s expected at this early stage in the game. The only other problem I see with diigo is that they are in an incredibly crowded space, but I like their angle.

Conclusion: Like most of these services, it would be unfair to spend an afternoon trying to scratch the surface and give a detailed review of the features. Now that I’ve got the Firefox plugin installed, I’ll continue giving diigo a shot. To me, it would be interesting to see a side-by-side feature comparison between the different social bookmarking and annotation services out there. But that’s for another day, as this is Sunday, the Patriots are playing now, and the Sox have game seven tonight. Priorities, my friends, priorities.

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!

Diigo 3.85 (A/A-)Diigo is by far the most fully featured social bookmarking site in this list, and offers several unique capabilities. The most notable feature is that users can highlight text right on the page, as well as make annotations via a “sticky note” for later viewing.There are also other very useful features. I particularly liked the sophisticated and advanced search option for doing a keyword search of one’s own or public bookmarks. On that page you can limit a search by a phrase, and restrict a search to a URL, title, comments or highlights. You can even search “on” specific users as wellNote that when you place a “sticky note” to comment on a page for your later viewing, that note is viewable by anyone else in the Diigo community that views that page too! .There are some other interesting and unique features on Diigo. For instance, when highlighting a word on any page with Diigo’s bookmarking tool, a drop down menu automatically appears that allows users to search for that highlighted word on various search engines, social bookmarking sites; blogs, on the active site and more. I also had much more control in formatting when saving a page; and had an option to forward the page to another person as well.What about the all important group feature? Well, Diigo rounds out its offerings very nicely by just this month launching its “Groups” function. That feature looks to be a clear and elegant way to allow anyone to set up a private environment for sharing your bookmarks. Ultimately, if you combine the Web annotation capabilities with the ability to share in groups, Diigo has created a very enterprise friendly social bookmarking service. And, according to a spokesperson at the firm, this Groups function is “just the first of many more advanced group collaboration functions that we will be introducing in several phases” So we look forward to staying tuned!My Grades:Group Function Capability: AResearch Value: A-Design/Interface/Ease of Use: A-Fully Featured: A-(only missing “related users” and “larger topics”)

the ability to create your own customized group where you could share your bookmarks within a own defined group—such as a workforce team, department, project team, or any other defined group. That article provided a list of social bookmarking firms that fit that criteria, and included a detailed feature comparison chart

the four most important criteria for a social bookmarking sites’ applicability to internal/enterprise searching:1. Group function capability. How easy is it to create a new group? Can the group remain private? Other group features?2. Research value. How much of a page can be saved; are there advanced and precision search features?3. Design/Interface/Ease of Use. Is it a pleasant experience to view and use the site? Does it show evidence of being intelligently thought out and designed?4. Fully Featured. In the Knowledge Management supplement, I focused on these features:Ability to create an RSS FeedSurfacing of “related tags”Surfacing of “related users”Tag suggestionsTag cloudImport/export bookmarksAbility to crate larger “topics” or hierarchical categories