GPS for the Web
A reader response in the October 2006 issue of Family Tree Magazine caught my eye:It astonishes me that a magazine such as yours would publish an article telling its readers of the many resources available on a "fresh-faced" Cyndi's List <cyndislist.com> without warning them that the site has not been seriously updated since mid-2003 ("Upping the Ante," June 2006). By looking at the new, temporarily uncategorized links, you'll see that Cyndi Howells hasn't been moving these linkst into her main index for almost three years.Well that might explain why I haven't been successful getting Family Matters added to the list.
My point is . . . Why depend on an out-dated technology when you can use the online version of a GPS system to maintain your own set of research waypoints throughout the Internet. And, you can easily share them with others - either in a research group or one-to-one. You can do all this and much more with Diigo. Diigo is different from other social bookmarking systems in that it allows you to add your own sticky notes to your bookmark and share those notes with others if you wish. It's easy to select a page or a bit of text and email that information to someone. And, because your bookmarks are managed on Diigo's servers, your bookmarks and notes are available to your from any computer.
It gets better. Diigo is a free service. Once you have created you account, download and install the appropriate toolbar (available for Foxfire, Internet Explorer and Flock) or bookmarklet and you're ready to go. If you already use other social bookmarking platforms - like del.icio.us or My Web - you can set your toolbar options to automatically create bookmarks there too.
Diigo is a researcher's dream. The email forwarding alone is worth its weight in gold! Stop by the Diigo site and see for yourself.
A review of the Diigo social bookmarking platform and its potential for family historians.
