Collaboration app Twiddla takes home SXSW award despite sluggish performance
Date : 2008 03 10 Category : Web Webware.com
Collaborative whiteboarding apps can be handy tools for small groups looking to do some brainstorming despite geographical displacement. Meet Twiddla, a completely free tool that lets you mark up media and live Websites, or simply organize ideas together on a virtual whiteboard. It also tacks on live communication with text chat and free VoIP conference calling that requires no additional plug-ins or software installation.
The app won an award for technical achievement at last night's SXSW Interactive Web Awards. While technologically fantastic, in my testing I ran up against some noticeable speed and local resource problems. At times I found the app to be nearly unsable despite its simple interface and snappy menus. At other times it was incredibly responsive.
In any case, Twiddla's packing a lot of features that might attract users of premium paid collaborative services like ConceptShare and Octopz who are seeking a very simple way to get feedback on Web design or photography. It could also easily replace Webex for a large number of people who use the tool simply for its text chat and shared workspace.
One of Twiddla's killer apps is the built-in screenshot tool. It will snap the current iteration of the whiteboard and save it into both your saved media folder and the meeting's history archive. For an application like photo or Web design consulting, this gives you the option of coming back to a workspace and editing content asynchronously.
I'm holding off on giving Twiddla a thumbs up for the time being. It simply didn't perform as well as I think it needs to in order to make me ditch some of the alternatives. However, I'm happy to see some little guys come up and show Webex and others like the recently Google-acquired Marratech what can be done on the UI side to make these tools simple and attractive.
Read Web pages at the same time with others, and make live markups to a site on the fly. You can also chat live with others either via text or VoIP conference calling.
(Credit: CNET Networks)