The first time ’round, I wasn’t convinced. I tried Diigo more than whole-heartedly, for an entire month. I felt very much like it was good, but not really good enough — poor interface (not intuitive), clunky on the Flash / Javascript it relied on, a toolbar that got in my way, etc. I just generally felt that it wasn’t as slick and simple as other tools. I really wanted to like it, as I saw tremendous potential in its application — particularly being able to annotate and “mark up” the web. Its collaborative tools — groups, discussions, and more — also caught my eye. But it just felt too clunky; learning how to use it took time, and some things just didn’t work for me. Eventually, I grew to use Delicious much more and stopped using Diigo pretty much completely in June of this year.
However, now that Diigo’s been re-vamped — version 4.0, y’all — I may have to reconsider.
Start with Diigo’s very clear Tour. Here’s part 1, Research:
Diigo V4: Research ~ annotate, archive, organize from diigobuzz on Vimeo.
What do you think? Is Diigo changing the landscape of tools for collaboration, research, and archiving? How will its shiny-new version impact your teaching and learning? I look forward to your comments and suggestions. 
Note: There are two other parts of the tour available respectively: Share and Collaborate (which sound similar to me, but I didn’t come up with the labels!).
Cross-posted at Pockets of Change.
Adrienne Michetti is currently a full-time Masters student in 
\\\\New Post:\”Round Two and Version 4: Diigo\” – http://bit.ly/GkuSz from Adrienne Michetti\\\\\”Reply – Quote
Thinking about how to use the new EasyBlog feature in Diigo with a class. http://ow.ly/rKGt More on the new Diigo > http://ow.ly/rKHlReply – Quote
Yes, you should reconsider, Adrienne. Diigo looks and works better now. They replaced the silly Dashboard with the more meaningful term Library. The groups and classes features are great for sharing relevant research and related thoughts. The networks in Diigo are like customized search engines driven by real people. The new EasyBlog feature organizes discussions clearly and keeps them accessible for review later on. I think it’s an essential
toolplatform.Cheers,
Tod
Round Two and Version 4: Diigo http://bit.ly/lMmWPReply – Quote
Tod, thanks for the encouragement. I really like that you’ve labeled Diigo a platform rather than a tool. I am going to have to explore the networks further, as I haven’t spent enough time doing that.
The ability to share comments and highlighted text was one of the reasons i switched over to diigo- that and for some reason i was having trouble connecting delicious updates to my blog (but that could have been a China issue).
When I finally made the switch, the fact that you could import all of your bookmarks from one service to the other made it absolutely pain free!
Thanks, David. Initially the shared comments and highlighted text was a reason I wanted to like Diigo. But I found the flash / javascript (not sure which one it was) that enabled these features was unstable and clunky. I felt like I was clicking everywhere and accomplishing nothing. At times I would load a bookmark and not want to see all those annotations, too, but I couldn’t seem to get rid of them.
However, things seem smoother now and I am trying new things here and there to see how it goes. I still have a sense that Diigo almost has too many bells and whistles for me — for example, do I need an option to post to Twitter in every method of bookmarking? Does the annotation option need to show up in two different toolbar buttons? I think perhaps taking a design course at the moment is also making me hyper-aware of usability issues, so I will try to just take it easy…
I am not giving up just yet!
Reading "Rounding Two and Version 4: Diigo" http://bit.ly/JUKNb by @amichettiReply – Quote
What about MemCatch (www.memcatch.com)? Allows for the aggregation/webclipping side of things like these other apps, but focuses on the sharing of this knowledge across social networks. It just launched last month, so fairly new to the scene and only web based. But the iPhone app, desktop client (for all platforms), and integration with Twitter, LinkedIn, & Facebook are coming out in the next couple months. It also doesn’t stop at web clippings, will soon include: email integration (syncs with emails and lets you flag the ones you want to keep directly to your knowledge base), learning management system integration (for students), and RSS feed integration.
Peter Sabbagh
NYU -BA/MA
VP Memcatch
Peter – thanks for stopping by and leaving the note. I just looked at your product – looks interesting. However, what I like about Diigo is the annotation aspect. I can actually see what people think about specific parts of what I’m reading. So, we can build upon each others’ thoughts right within the webpage itself. For example, have you viewed the Diigo-annotated version of this page? (http://www.diigo.com/08cqn) It’s like a group annotation, and is especially important in learning, which is really the basis of what all of us here at U Tech Tips write about: tech for learning. Other than aggregating content and sharing it amongst others, what does MemCatch do? Is it transformative in the way that we can bookmark, share, write-up, annotate, and build upon the every-day websites we find? If so, perhaps you can share more!