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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.

Most web workers use some sort of online bookmarking service. We recognize that our brains can only hold so much information, and it’s useful to have our pointers available no matter where we happen to be. But how do you decide which service to use? With its version 3 relaunch, Diigo has an answer to that question: they’ve piled on the features to become the most comprehensive bookmarking site around. Whether you’ll use all of those features is another question, but their combination is at least worth a look.

The only real negative is that, with the number of things they’ve crammed into the site, it can be a problem to find the functionality you’re looking for, or to fully utilize everything. But that’s a better problem than feeling constrained by a lack of features.

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

The feature they are testing out applies to their groups feature.  Now, if you are a member of a particular group in Diigo, you can give certain URLs a thumbs-up if you think it is especially helpful.  They are holding off on deploying this feature site-wide until they can make a determination how game-able the feature is.

Groups are similar to a web forum, but centered more around site bookmarks that are collected to provide a resource for the group.  There are groups for all sorts of things, from social media to cooking.  Some groups are extremely active, and others are simple collection points for related URLs.

7 Reasons Diigo Tastes Better Than Delicious

I’ve used Delicious for a long time to manage my Web bookmarks. It was easy to use, accessible from any browser, and worked well with Firefox. For all my needs, it was a great bookmarking service.