Well, it didn’t take long to decide whether I preferred Google Notebook or Diigo. As I said when I started the comparison, the real test was which of the programs I would end up using.
There’s no doubt which program has won. I’m still using Diigo and not using Google Notes at all. In fact I’ve transferred all the bookmarks I made with Google Notes into Diigo.
What were the factors that led to this?
I found Google Notes a bit slower to use, especially when entering tags (called labels in Google Notebook). Tags are the key to both programs, so the ease by which they can be used is crucial.
Since I often use Diigo as a way of summarising long documents and keeping my place in them, I was irritated that I could only highlight one passage per entry in Google Notebook. In Diigo you can highlight as many excerpts as you want and also add your own comments as sticky notes. It is much more flexible.
I also missed the filtered drop-down bookmark list, which is a real time saver in Diigo for frequently used bookmarks.
The plus for Google Notes is that you can enter your own separate notes as bookmarks. But then do you really want to keep your personal notes on-line? I use EverNote for that purpose and there is no clash at all between it and Diigo. To my way of thinking they are different functions and there is no problem having different programs for them.
As I am not interested in the social sharing side of either program, I have not compared them at all from that point of view.