Vincent Tsao's Bookmarks tagged review →  View Popular

Despite my best efforts, my bookmarks had gotten out of control. Something had to be done.

That’s when I came across my new favorite tool. It’s called Diigo, and I use it every day. Diigo allows you to highlight and save blog articles. Pre-Diigo, I would bookmark an article, and when I wanted to reference it, I would have to read the entire article again to get to the part I wanted. Now I highlight and bookmark the article, and when I want to access that information, I go straight to what I need. Diigo even allows you to put sticky notes directly onto blog posts and articles. You can add your own comments so that you know why the heck you saved and highlighted the article in the first place. The highlight and annotate options are particularly helpful if you do research prior to writing articles.

Yes, Diigo is far more useful than even I realized. I don’t usually rant over startups any more, but the best should get recognition.

Always,

Phil

Nice intro, Phil!

Just checked out their site, and I think Diigo organizes things in a much more elegant way and at the same time does more for users than most average social site by aggregating and utilizing information from everyone by everyone for everyone.

Rock on, Diigo!

Hi guys, thanks! Well, Diigo has really sold itself and has not been overly hyped by blogdom. I became aware of them after reviewing their beta some time back. A truly excellent startup, I use it all the time too.

Always,

Phil

Part I: Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff (Diigo) or Bust

Okay, here it is. I’m dumping Zotero, Delicious, and Google Notebook for Diigo. Blasphemy to some, I know, but I can basically get all I need in one:

Toys in the Sandbox




I can admit that streamlining isn’t the only reason for Diigo. There simply are some great toys built into this tool that I’m anxious to use at a great depth (something I can do by lessening the amount of tools I’m using).





1. Lists


2. Slideshow: A slideshow based upon a tag complete with screen-shot of the page and annotations


3. Watchlist: Add a tag that you want watched and it feeds in all bookmarks tagged with that term


4. Groups: Form social groups based upon common interests


5. Save Elsewhere: This tool posts all bookmarks from Diigo to other tools like Delicious. Great feature for those that want to maintain Delicious because a network has already formed there.


6. Blog: A really powerful way to blog about your Diigo work. A lot stronger than Delicious. I’m often annoyed by all the link posts (use to advocate for it) but this allows for a better post with the link.


7. Twitter Post: What can I say? I love anything that interacts this efficiently and effectively with Twitter. All you have to do is click Send > Twitter and you’ll get a popup to complete your Tweet. Very slick!


8. Enhanced Link Roll: This is really cool and a great feature for websites. Not only do you display your latest links, these links display your annotations!


9. Diigolet: A great way to use Diigo without having to download the toolbar. This helps in schools where the toolbar might be a bit of a struggle to get installed.

School Setting

For my personal learning environment, Diigo is the perfect way for me to streamline my tools without sacrificing quality. However, I’m not entirely convinced that Diigo is the best tool to implement within the schools.

For example, does Diigo distract more than it helps? It has a host of features and can function much like an extension of Facebook. While I have argued that Facebook and such are not bad things, I think it is worth discussing here what it does for classroom management and how sustainable is it if a teacher or librarian had to constantly monitor it, which given the features would be a reality. With a combination Delicious and Zotero, there is little to no concerns from the perspective of potential misuse of the tool as the social networking components are minimal — non-existent in Zotero.

This is one of those great conversations where educational technologists and librarians together will determine the best answer, and I know that the three outstanding librarians at GBN will have so much to add to all of this as we look to finding the best possible fit for our students and teachers.

Social Information Networking: Rich social networking features have been tightly integrated with social bookmarking and annotation to enable more meaningful social connections and intellectual exchanges. So you can keep in touch and interact with friends through readings and annotations non-intrusively and with little extra effort. Multiple ways are provided for sharing information with friends both on Diigo and elsewhere, with varying degrees of non-intrusiveness. You can also find “people like me” - those who are closest to you in interests, or search people by tags or sites to find others who share certain specific interests with you. Once you find people of interest to you, you can connect with them in multiple ways: invite them to add you as a friend, send them messages, invite them to a group, or simply add them to your watchlist.

“The new Diigo combines the best of social networking, bookmarking, highlighting, and annotating to let people discover, save, and share the information that is important to them personally or professionally,” said Wade Ren, CEO of Diigo. “Not only can people find a collective repository of searchable and relevant information, but they can markup and save information along the way - all while keeping in touch with friends and connecting with like-minded people.”