Diigo

In my ongoing effort to learn more about cool and useful Web 2.0 apps, today I signed up for Diigo. Although I know Diigo is not brand spanking new (I usually don’t like to be the first person to kick tires), I’ve recently seen a few people in my network talk about this service. So I decided to try it out.

The sign up was easy. There is a very well constructed video on the main page (you can also find it HERE on YouTube) that did a good job of letting me know what to expect. It was less of a promotional piece and more of an informational one.

As I was going through the sign up process I decided to drop a note on Twitter to see what others thought and felt about Diigo. A colleague here at MSU, one I greatly respect, responded right away that she uses it and likes it. It was good, positive reinforcement while I was going through he short and relatively painless sign up process.

They do give you the option to search Gmail for anyone who might be on the service, but in light of the fiasco last year with a viral web 2.0 app nightmare (which I won’t name, but I’m sure some of you remember), I never send something to all my friends or to a list. I prefer to send to folks directly (and as side note, I prefer to get my invites that way also).

After signing up a searched for a few friends I figured would be on there and sent them a personal invite. I then dropped a note to Twitter and mentioned that I’d signed up and my username is SORRY_AFK, and invited anyone who had a Diigo account to friend me. Its kind of a test of social networking to see how many people I can get in my Diigo network in 24 hours. Be warned, Diigo puts a toolbar in your web browser – so there is a small bit of set up, but it was quite simple and looks really intuitive and easy to use.

To that end, if you are reading this, feel free to friend me. :-)

I have not tested Diigo yet – I figured I would do that when something came up naturally, instead of forcing it. I do use another social bookmarking service, but I use that more for ALL my bookmarks, not just my professional ones. Its not that I have anything up there that would really matter, but my goal is to use Diigo for career-type stuff and share that with everyone, the other will stay more for personal stuff.

Do you use Diigo? If so, what are your thoughts? If you checked it out and do not use it, why not? Are there other services that do the same thing that you prefer? What and why? Any great Diigo groups (communities?) you like and would recommend?