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Online whiteboards: the art of communicating

Posted 12 October 2007 at 8:39AM by Simon Dickson in Doing business online

Sometimes the best, or indeed the only way to communicate an idea is to draw a picture. This is great in face-to-face meetings, or when you're playing Pictionary. Not so good when you're on the phone, or using email. Thankfully, there are a few 'online whiteboard' tools out there, which allow you to collaborate visually with other people, and even better, there's usually no need to register.

The first such tool I used was Imagination Cubed, built - perhaps surprisingly - by General Electric. You get a full range of drawing tools: freehand, lines, shapes, text-boxes, and so on, plus some fantastic extra options: who needs a plain whiteboard when there are wild backgrounds to choose from? It uses Flash, which can make it a little sluggish; and whilst you can invite friends to join you via an email invite, it lacks the sort of immediate 'permalink' feature we've come to expect these days. But it has features which newer rivals lacks, such as the ability to watch an 'action replay' of your drawing coming together.

A better option these days is skrbl, which does much the same thing, but uses no-nonsense techniques like Ajax and javascript. You get a decent supply of drawing tools: text boxes with lots of Word-style formatting buttons, basic shapes and a good-enough selection of colours. It's nowhere near as comprehensive as GE's offering: but I find it much more responsive. And importantly, as soon as you start drawing, you get a normal web URL to share with your contacts.

If you want to sign up for an account, you can maintain a list of previous masterpieces, and add basic password protection to any you don't want the outside world to see. There's also a new 'skrbl for teams' service, which lets you scribble collaboratively on web pages and Word documents, create flowcharts or mindmaps, and even hold online videoconferences as you do it. If you find yourself doing a lot of visual work with contacts and clients, the $10/month fee could be a small price to pay.

And if you think you've got a talent for this sort of thing, try iSketch - ten rounds of online Pictionary, in numerous languages. As soon as one player guesses correctly, the clock starts ticking. Good fun in small doses.

Tags: GE, imagination cubed, isketch, pictionary, skrbl

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