Everyone’s talking (and blogging) about Diigo, the new best thing.



Now, I’m not very big on new best things. They rarely live up to their promises. I’m particularly wary of tools that are replacements for other tools. In this Web 2.0 world of the perpetual beta, I find it difficult to keep up and am reluctant to invest time in new technologies that look like they are just tweaks of old technologies. On top of that, when something novel does come along I find I’m no longer the enthusiastic early adopter I used to be. I take more convincing now than I used to about the value of the next new best thing. I often wonder if these technologies are just like Rube Goldberg Machines - complex ways of doing something that's actually quite simple





As for Diigo. Well, I got an friend invitation from good old Alex Hayes. I normally listen to what he has to say, so I went and had a look. My first impression was “Oh dear .... it kinda looks like Facebook”. My next impression was “Oh-oh... they want to install a toolbar on my browser”. I don’t like toolbars. Admittedly, you don’t have to install the toolbar, but it makes using the app easier. Ok, so what does it do?

Well the first thing I found is the old social bookmarking thing. I’ve never quite got into social bookmarking – I have a del.icio.us account but never really use it. I always have my laptop which has all my bookmarks on it. I can usually google pretty much any site I’ve visited in the past without any trouble. But I do know that social bookmarking is used by lots of people and has many school-based uses.

With Diigo, you can have lists, watchlists, you can even make a slideshow out of your favourites (although I’m not sure why you would want to). Nothing too novel.

It’s also a contact manager, has little applets like a comment wall, etc and has the ability to create groups like Ning does. Nothing new there either.

I was impressed, however, by the ability to annotate web pages live (sort of) and share them – that is cool and I can see me having a use for that. Or at least I did up until it crashed my browser on my desktop under XP and my notebook under Vista. Before anyone suggests I change my browser to opera or firefox or safari or mosaic  - I don’t want to and I shouldn’t have to. But that’s another post.



In short, my jury is still out on Diigo – watch this space.

DrJim

Image Citations
Diigo Logo - www.diigo.com
Rube Goldberg Machine - http://www.flickr.com/photos/madstillz/511517972/