Diigo Community

One of the things I’ve seen other people rave about is the ability to have “private” objects on diigo. So an annotation, bookmark, comment etc can be hidden from other users, something that can only currently be done in del.icio.us with a hack. Personally I think this is neither here nor there, while its nice to have the option (when I first started using del.icio.us I did feel I was being forced into the whole social aspect of it rather than finding my own way) it does remove from some of the community aspects. Of course this is an obvious attempt to move diigo into local (browser) bookmark territory as opposed to what del.icio.us is usually used for, which tends to be more for points of interest. There are sites I have bookmarked, such as my bank, that I would never add to del.icio.us, I would be more tempted to add it as a private bookmark to diigo (although I haven’t).

The bookmarklet is in fact very advanced, you fire it up and a small toolbar appears at the top of your browser window. One option allows you to bookmark the page and there are links to your diigo bookmarks and subscriptions. Theres also a “highlight” option that only becomes active when you have some text highlighted. Generally the bookmarklet works well, you can hide it from your screen and call it back by moving your mouse to the left of the browser and it generally copes well.

To sum up, I liked the diigo service. Its attempt to augment basic webpages with advanced features is admirable. Currently theres a sense of community lacking which may be down to the fact that it is currently a closed beta, it may also be down to the lack of a “popular” page be it overall or by tag, both would be good. There are also a lot of features that are in the pipeline and alot of features that I didn’t get a chance to test out, features like “Blog This”

Rival Clipmarks offers some similar annotation features.

t they’re offering a “better del.icio.us”

Diigo isn’t a terrible product, but I think it’s safe to say it’s going nowhere. Aside from the few hundred users who find the additional features useful, it’s unlikely to see any real adoption.

As I said in an email to you guys, I’m sorry for being so tactless about this - and you’re right that I didn’t give a fair run down of your features. Nonetheless, I do wonder if you might struggle to differentiate the offering in this market.

Best thing about Diigo by far is the inadvertent smiling walrus in the logo. The site’s starting a footrace that’s already over, but that walrus is seriously cute!

These services depend on volume to experience any success at all, being collective intelligence models.

If you have ever tried to use it I can assure you it is pretty painful. I am not sure if it is something personal to me, but I find their UI design very painful.

I say that review was spot on except for the line: “Diigo isn’t a terrible product”

Diigo Launches, Nobody Cares

If you’re looking for some awesome blogging and research tools in addition to everything you’d expect in a bookmarking service, then explore the depth of services that Diigo has to offer. In my opinion Diigo isn’t just a tool, it’s more akin to a household appliance.

This space is seriously crowed!

“Diigolet” (no Flock version yet)

I hate it when I read a nice blog post and at the bottom they have a “Liked this Article? Bookmark us!” section, and there are 26 entries (no kidding!).

Diigo is different, not because it can’t do what the other services do. It’s different because it puts the user’s needs first and centre, instead of using the user for information aggregation purposes.

32. the Wandering Author - July 29, 2006 What I don’t understand is why anyone should care about the opinion of a blogger who apparently posts without even knowing anything about his subject. I spend a lot of time doing research, some of it on the Internet. I have a whole, long list of somewhat nice tools I have come across. Most of them are things I might use occasionally. I would never even think of adding toolbars for most of them, or setting up a permanent tab in Firefox to keep them always available - I’d just clutter up my workspace. But that is exactly what I have done with Diigo - I installed their toolbar and I set up a permanent Firefox tab for them. Why? I can share bookmarks with others when I need to, but much more importantly, I can highlight, annotate, clip, and bookmark any Web content I choose, all in one central, convenient spot. Diigo is like a well-loved research notebook crammed with notes for current projects, past projects, possible future projects. Unlike most of the bookmarking “services”, I can go back to a page and see my own notes reminding me of the thought which prompted me to bookmark it. There is nothing else that even approaches it on the Web, or if there is, I haven’t heard of it. The only other social bookmarking service I consider of any real use is eSnips, which allows me to upload files for sharing with a group of my choice. Which is an entirely different feature. But, I could more easily imagine Diigo adding that functionality to their existing site than I could imagine eSnips catching up to Diigo. Personally, I hope both eSnips and Diigo survive, but if only one of them is to be a success, my vote is firmly with Diigo. As for all the other, popular social bookmarking sites out there - yes, it was a somewhat interesting idea, but they have already been left in the dust by Diigo. Calling Diigo “just another” site like the others is as absurd as it would be to label the first interstellar spaceship “just another aircraft”. Yes, I can think of features or tweaks I wish Diigo would add. But they’re just starting out. I’m sure the first interstellar spacecraft will need a few refits, too. But that’s no reason to suggest we might as well all stay on Earth and ignore the rest of the Universe. Diigo opens up a much wider universe on the Web to me, and to many others. To all of you who don’t care - enjoy being stranded in your little backwater pond as it stagnates - I will be out surfing the whole wide ocean of data out there. And I won’t waste any time worrying about you and your plight; after all, you brought it on yourselves by your apathy.

The question is: does anybody care?