The One Week Diigo Challenge
I have recently been on the lookout for a new social bookmarking website. I have used del.icio.us before - a few times in fact, only to find that it was lacking features that I needed. I kept trying because, well, that is what everyone was using. Why should I go elsewhere?
I recently stumbled upon (no, not that way) Diigo, and some of its features caught my eye. I have spent approximately one week using the service, and now I am hooked.
What is Diigo?
Diigo is an online social bookmarking site, similar to del.icio.us or ma.gnolia. It allows you to store all your bookmarks online, tag them, make comments, and share them with other people.
Why not del.icio.us?
The first question that everyone wants to know is, why not del.icio.us? del.icio.us is the de facto standard when it comes to social bookmarking. I wondered why everyone - even myself - was using the ‘Everyone else is doing it’ argument. I had the need for a social bookmarking site, and I have tried del.icio.us a number of times. It never seemed to work out.
The bookmarking aspect of del.icio.us is just like any other - find a page that interests you, bookmark it, add tags (or keywords) that describe it - then you can refer back to the links at a later point.
The social aspect of del.icio.us comes from ‘Your Network’, ‘Subscriptions’, and ‘Links for you’. Your network is a mashup of all of the bookmarks from your friends or people you find interesting in one place. Subscriptions is a watchlist of sorts, where you pick tags that interest you, and see the bookmarks coming in from users that contain those tags. Links for you are links saved by other people that thought you might find them interesting.
A del.icio.us Problem
I liked the del.icio.us concept, and they have a great browser addon to integrate right into your normal browsing routine. Here’s where I have problems.
Bookmark management in del.icio.us is nothing short of tedious. If you are dealing with a large number of bookmarks - importing, deleting, or re-tagging them, it is a down right pain.
The layout of del.icio.us bothers me - It looks like a mash of text. If you don’t know where to look for say, who shared the item, or where the tags are, it might be confusing. Page layouts are inconsistent. A simple update to the layout of the site, that separates content for each individual bookmark would be an easy and welcome change.
Another extreme concern for myself was private bookmarks. While you can save private bookmarks in del.icio.us, it is a simple share or don’t share label - which happens to be right inbetween edit and delete. There is no way to separate your private links from your public links, and I am worried I may accidentally share content I didn’t intend to.
del.icio.us claims to be a social bookmarking site. While I believe it has the social aspect, I don’t believe it has the social interaction needed to be considered a “social website”. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction. To me, social Interaction is limited. I share, you share, but is there any interaction between us?
I believe a social bookmarking site would go beyond a set of shared links. It is not only about sharing, but also the community itself - participation and discovery. I should be engaging those that share similar interests, or at least, have the ability to.
Why am I digging Diigo?
Diigo takes all the concepts that make del.icio.us great, and improves upon them.
Multi-Word Tags and Related Tags:
Diigo supports tags that are more than one word. Sometimes one word by itself isn’t enough to classify it. If I use “web” and “design” for keywords, this covers two very broad topics. If I put the two words together as “web design”, it is much more descriptive.
Even if you prefer not to use multi-word tags, del.icio.us only allows you to select A keyword. You can view a single related tag, but you are not conversing a hierarchy, you are jumping from one tag to another. Diigo allows you to dig into related tags, making it easier to find related content on multiple tags. On the right, I am searching for which bookmarks contain both the ‘development’ and ‘api’ tags, and you can see which tags I can dig further into.
Lists:
Is tying tags together not your thing? If you are in the mindset changing from straight bookmarks to keywords/tags, lists will be your savior.
Lists are a group of bookmarks that are tied together, but can be arranged in any order that you prefer. Lists can also be private, or shared if you prefer. Sometimes tags may have multiple meanings, but a list guarantees that all items are associated. You can think of this as a del.icio.us bundle, only better.
Public vs. Private:
Diigo allows you to easily switch from public to private, and vice-versa, just as I could in del.icio.us. However, Diigo also allows you to separate your public content from your private content, among a number of other views. You have a separate list of private/public tags.
Comments:
Think a bookmark is junk? Think it’s the best thing since sliced bread? Comment on it. There is no way to tell what bookmarks users on del.icio.us thought were better, other than to assume that a bookmark with more saves is superior. Of course, you can save public, or private comments. I wish Diigo would also do ratings like magnolia, but there is always room for improvements. (see below)
Friends:
Diigo allows you to pull up a user, see their tags and interests just like del.icio.us - but that is where the similarities end.
The Friends section is done extremely well. It’s a bit much to put in a small screenshot, but it’s well organized and easy on the eyes. Here’s what I can see by visiting my friends profile:
- Recent stuff: Bookmarks and Tags
- Top/Most: Top tags and Most Bookmarked Sites
- In Common: Tags and Bookmarks we have in common
- Groups and Lists the user is a part of
- Messages: Discussions the user is a part of, which I can view or join if its a public or group conversation
- A list of their Friends who I might be interested in as well.
Communities:
While del.icio.us allows you to connect to individual users, and see what they are sharing, Diigo has communities and groups setup for users interested in the same topics - not necessarily the same keywords.
Communities are broken down by Groups, Sites, and Tags.
Users with similar interest can join or create Groups. Groups have their own set of bookmarks, even their own forum for discussion.
Tags communities are people who use similar tags - another way of allowing you to explore content, or people who are interested in the same content as you.
Site Communities (based on the domain name) allow you to find and contribute content which, might not be related, but is related to a particular website. Wikipedia and YouTube are good examples of this. Both sites cover an unbelievable amount of content on different topics, but you can easily find all links associated with that site. Try doing that on del.icio.us.
Sharing:
Sharing on Diigo is not limited to Diigo users. You can keep your own list of E-mail contacts, to easily send a non-Diigo user links. Diigo will tie into you Blog, Twitter, or Facebook as an added bonus.
Messaging:
Messaging allows you to carry on conversations between users - public, groups, friends, or even just notes to yourself. From what I can tell, messages can be carried on about a particular bookmark, but I haven’t quite figured that out just yet.
The Diigo Sidebar
Readers Of a Web Page:
Anytime I visit a page, regardless of if I have bookmarked it, I can see other users that have bookmarked that page or left comments (annotations). It also shows me the most recent bookmark by that user.
Web Page Annotations and Highlights:
Find a page, or even a section of a page truly interesting? You can add public, or private, annotations to a page, or a section of the page. These annotations will show up in your sidebar, and/or show a little comment bubble on the page itself.
You can do public or private highlights of important parts of a page. You can even have an entire conversation with people about the web page - on the web page.
Nothing is perfect
Diigo can be improved.
- There are times were the speed of the Diigo website isn’t what I would like it to be. I have not seen problems with the sidebar, or saving of bookmarks.
- Multiple bookmark management is better than del.icio.us, but it could still be improved quite a bit. In particular, I would like to see EXCLUDE filters, in addition to the include filters it already has.
- I would like tag management to be improved - right now it’s more difficult than it needs to be to modify or delete tags.
- Ratings would really help out the site - It could be broken into private, public, and group ratings, just as all the other features are.
- The browser addon is nice, but could be improved upon tremendously. However, just about any feature I can do on the web page, I can also do through the browser addon (a personal pet peeve of mine).
Should you switch?
I am not going to tell anyone to stop using a service they have become familiar with. I understand that ‘it just works’ mindset and there is something to be said for that. But I believe that the benefits in Diigo are worth the chance to give it a shot. As of yet, I don’t see any features available on del.icio.us, that are not available on Diigo - with the added benefits.
The One Week Challenge
I challenge each of you that read this, particularly del.icio.us users, to try out Diigo.
Diigo makes it easy to import content from del.icio.us, magnolia, simpy, blinklist, furl, connotea, and rawsugar. Additionally, Diigo allows you to simultaneously share your content (called Bookmark Elsewhere) to del.icio.us, magnolia, and simpy. This way, you can use Diigo for one week, continue to save to these services, and see if you like it. If you prefer to keep them separate and decide you don’t like it, you can always export back to the del.icio.us format - so you don’t lose any content along the way.
If after the week you aren’t convinced, come back here and tell me why.
Firefox 3 UPDATE: I have been informed of two issues that occur within Firefox 3 Final. Please see this Diigo forum post. It appears there is an issue viewing Digg comments - there will be an update to the Diigo addon to fix this shortly. Also if you use the Download Statusbar plugin - the extension still works, but mouseovers are blank. This is due to a Firefox 3 bug. Keep these two issues in mind if you are using FF3.
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Excellent review Tim. I made the switch to Diigo a few days ago. It has become my new bookmark repository.
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I'm using the "Bookmark Elsewhere" feature in Diigo. Very neat little feature, serves as a great bookmark backup tool as well.
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http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/19/it-gets-wo...
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curious what new features you wish to see for delicious?