The success of the Apple iPad since its launch has been nothing short of phenomenal. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the ipad, the widely and wildly anticipated tablet-style computer that he called “a truely magical and revolutionary product”:

“What this device does is extraordinary,” Jobs said. “It is the best browsing experience you’ve ever had. … It’s unbelievably great … way better than a laptop. Way better than a smartphone.”

For those iPad users who take reading seriously, you should check out “Readict (Pro)” ~ a new iPad RSS reader. It is an iPad reading app that integrates highlighter and “read later” functionalities to provide efficient and effective reading experience.

Here are some key features:

Customize RSS Feeds ~ from popular sources, Google Reader, Twitter favorites, etc

Annotate Article ~ add highlighter and sticky note for more effective reading

Download to Read Later ~ download links for fast reading later, without interrupting your flow

You can download Readict (Pro) from the Apple AppStore.

 

As Mozilla is gearing up to public release of Firefox 4, Diigo is proud to announce the release of three new Firefox 4 extensions, all ported from Diigo’s popular Chrome Apps. Joel Liu, product manager at Diigo Inc, commented: “Firefox 4 provides a significantly improved development platform, and much better user experience. We are thrilled to bring our popular apps onto this platform, getting ready for its public launch soon.“

Diigo’s new Firefox add-ons include:

Quick Note, available in Firefox, Chrome, Mac
Awesome Screenshot, available in Firefox, Chrome, Safari
Read Later Fast, available in Firefox, Chrome

All these three apps/extensions are designed to focus on a single-function to deliver the best-of-breed functionality, as well as fool-proof usability. Though still in beta, and not yet fully integrated with Diigo.com, they have already received rave reviews from both the press and users.

The Chrome versions of these apps were released three months ago and have already become some of the most popular and highest rated apps in Chrome Web Store, specifically,

• Quick Note is now #4 most popular Chrome app , #1 in productivity & utility (excluding Google’s own apps)
• Read Later Fast is now #9 most popular productivity and utility Chrome app
• Awesome Screenshot is now among top 10 rated, #25 most popular of all chrome extensions

Please go check out these brand new Firefox add-ons today:

 

• Quick Note for FF4 >>
• Awesome Screenshot for FF4 >>
• Read Later Fast for FF4 >>

 

 

If you like them, please show your support by giving them a big five-star rating , and tell your friends! Remember, you do not need to be Diigo users to enjoy these single-function apps!

Check out what some users say about “Quick Note”:

• This is the best app. I’ve been looking for a note app like it for quite some time. Nothing quite cut the cake – except this.
• Really useful! Especially when I’m doing research for a project.
• I love this app so much. I move notes from Windows to Linux to Android and to my CR-48. So simple and it just works.
• Awesome app, extremely useful, it the hub of all my notes, quickly accessible and saved to cloud
• Great simple quick note tool that can sync across mobile devices and web! highly recommended for organizing your life!
• Great way to take quick notes without having to open a word processor or some other program. My browser is always open and with 2 clicks I have a new tab and a note pad to type on! Wonderful for taking notes in meetings, capturing those spur of the moment ideas, etc.
• It’s great. I’m saving trees by using a whole of a lot less post-its.
• Awesome truly HTML 5 app. You guys are the benchmark for web apps. Great work folks!

User comments on Awesome Screenshot:

• The best. Forget Snag-It
• Excellent. Capture and annotation in one fluid workflow. Huge timesaver.
• This is the best whole page screen capture extension, super mega bonus for annotation tools.
• I create a lot of web-based tutorials in my company. This is a great tool for doing that. Thanks for developing.
• Awesome. Just what I was looking for. Not too complicated, not to simple. Excellent options.
• This is incredible! Saves me so many steps…..and saves tons of time!
• I am computer illiterate, totally, just installed this add on, its “awesome”. its easy to use

User comments on Read Later Fast:

• PC World: ““Falling under the “devastatingly useful but simple” category, Read Later Fast does exactly what its name suggests.”
• This is one of the best apps on Chrome. But not only can you save ANY page to read later, you can also view them offline! This is great when you need to view things and your internet is down. I have a Wikipedia page that I kept a few weeks ago and I can still view the whole article with all of the pictures!
• Great app and extremely useful. Helped me cut down on the 30 plus tabs I usually have open.
• One of the most useful apps for me. I used to keep tens of references to interesting web pages in tabs for months, so my tabs were cluttered. Not anymore.
• These diigo apps are amazing. Finally I can start reading on my work mac, pick it up at home on my pc and finish on my iPad.

A new enhanced Diigo Chrome Extension, “Diigo Bookmark, Archive, Highlight & Sticky-Note” is available! Diigo fans: please show your support: a 5-star rating there and/or help us to spread the news by tweet, etc, etc, would help a lot & be very much appreciated!

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Version 1.6.2.4 update
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* [new] Upload cache page: save a copy of the web page to My Library via Bookmark >> Cache

Note: Caching service is unlimited for Premium & Basic plans. Other free accounts have limited allocation per month. See Feature Matrix for more details >>

* Several new options are now available. Right-click on the Diigo icon to access the Options menu:

* [new option] Load bookmarking status automatically. When enabled, the browser action icon will turn red to indicate whether current page is bookmarked.

* [new option] Show highlights automatically. When enabled, annotations on a page will be displayed automatically. This way, you don’t have to click the highlight button in order to see the existing highlights on the page.

* Diigo+Google search in context menu: Select some text, right click and search your library! (can be disabled in options)

Since the “Save Favorite Tweets” feature roll-out, we have received great response. Many have commented how cool this is 🙂
With different Diigo tiered account plans, we have made the following update to make this feature even more readily available for all users to enjoy and try it out:

* Premium account: when you set it up, all your existing favorite tweets will be fetched and saved to Diigo. Afterward, our system will then process automatic saving on a daily basis. Best of all, any tweets with links, their webpages will also be cached, so you can always access the archived pages. To learn more about Diigo caching service, please check out the cache help tip >>

* Basic, Education & Free accounts: this feature is now available to all users, except only the first page of your favorite tweets will be saved on a daily basis. (note: for most Twitter users, this should be sufficient since only very few people would mark more than 20 Twitter favorites and go beyond the 1st page per day.) Furthermore, for Basic accounts, links in the saved tweets will be cached, but caching isn’t available for Free / Education Basic accounts.

BTW, for those who are not too familiar with Twitter’s “Favorites” feature yet, it’s an easy way for you to mark a tweet as a favorite within your Twitter account by simply clicking the yellow star. Now with the Diigo’s “Save Favorite Tweets” to auto-save them in your Diigo library, they are a super combo together!

Diigo team continues to innovate to make Diigo better and better. If you have suggestion or feature that you’d love us to consider, make sure to share your feedback with us in our UserVoice forums or email us.

We have just implemented a new premium feature, “Text View”. By parsing your cached pages, our system removes the clutter around what you are reading and displays a clean, readable view. For those users who have upgraded to a premium account, you can access this feature by clicking the “Text” link under each bookmark in “My Library”. You can also quickly scroll through your cached pages via the “Text View” reader:

Please note this feature is mainly designed for better readability for long articles that are heavily text-centric (ie. not really applicable for graphic-centric pages, like homepages, etc).

This “Text View” feature will also soon be available in the upcoming Diigo mobile apps as well (*premium account access required.) It will enable simple text view that will fit better in small mobile window, so that you can easily download your unread articles when you have Internet access, then enjoy easier reading of your Diigo “Read Later” webpages on the go. We will soon finish up the integration to iPhone / Android and introduce the enhanced mobile apps. So stay tuned for those new announcements.

Lots more very useful premium features forthcoming. For those advanced users who wish to enjoy pro features, better support, and an ad-free user experience, get your upgrade today!