Team Whiteboarding with Twiddla
If your team is spread out over a wide geographic region, online collaboration tools are key to getting everyone on the same page. Something that dispersed teams haven't had much opportunity to use use are whiteboards, which can be really useful in brainstorming sessions. But now, with Twiddla, this year's winner of the Technical Achievement award at SXSW, comes a team whiteboarding service that offers a no-setup, online meeting web site for team collaboration.
Twiddla can be used to mark up web sites, graphics, photos, or even start brainstorming on a blank canvas. Users can either sign up for the service by creating an account, or can just start using it in "guest mode." A public sandbox is also available if you just want to check it out to see if it would work for you.
If you do decide to use it to set up your own meetings, you can set them as either "public" or "private" and email invitations to your intended participants. Meeting participants are displayed in Twiddla's sidebar and with just a click, you can start chatting with them using an audio chat feature that utilizes your computer's microphone and speakers to take the brainstorming session from a chat session to a live conference call.
Image from the Twiddla blog
The whiteboard tool in Twiddla lets you draw freehand, insert shapes, insert text, and insert media. You can use Twiddla's built-in shapes or upload files from your own computer. Text can be entered in directly or can be placed in a text bubble or on a post-it note. A box at the top of the screen lets you enter in a URL of your choosing to pull up any web site on the internet. You can then overlay your drawings on top of the web site that is displayed.
But I think the Twiddla team sums it up the best. When I clicked over to their "features" page, only two items were mentioned: "Kicks A**, Doesn't Cost Anything."
I'd like to add to that list: Works.
Twiddla is now in public beta.
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All a bit clumsy but what a great collaborative tool. Google should add those functionalities onto their new Google Sites.
Very cool, just playing with it, great way to review a site.
But the text input/box feature doesn't seem to work in Firefox. That's a bummer.
Will have to see what the audio is all about.
@Vincent - it's probably easier if you have a tablet PC!
@crammo it was working for me when I tested in in Firefox 2.0 - are you using the beta, I wonder?
You might also want to look at services that have been offering this kind of thing for some time already, e.g. http://vyew.com/ and http://www.scriblink.com/
It sounds really cool and looked like it might work well in certain situations. But whats up with the default picture of a naked woman that just pops up in the public sandbox? Not cool when you're evaluating it at work.
Really nice tool! :)
Just didn't get hot to save the work for use in computer. Well, screenshot is what comes to mind first. but are there other possibilities?
oh, well. maybe just "save"button doesnt work on my computer.
So this has nothing to do with Twitter? Gosh!