I've tried since 2001 to find a viable web-based whiteboard system. Anyone who knows me will tell you I have whiteboards all around me, and use them all the time to try and illustrate the various things that I like to incoherently ramble on about. This urge is no less present when talking to someone across town, or even in another state, though, so I have wanted an easy to use, web-based whiteboard app, preferably collaborative, but with a permissions hierarchy so it can't be vandalized, unless I allow it to be.

I found a couple promising linux apps, but configuring them was always a pain, and the functionality was a shadow of MS Paint. Plus, my home linux server/dsl connection isn't the kind of stable connection I like to rely on for 99% uptime. Not good.

For my last job, I managed to find GE's imagination cubed, which is a pretty stellar effort, I admit - but sharing boards ended in an 8000 character URL, and since usually by the time I want to draw a picture for someone they have already completely lost interest, I need as painless a process to get them there as possible. Also, it ran a little sluggishly for me, thought that is probably a function of the admittedly very slick and full-featured interface.

Imaginationcubed worked for that job, where a lot of collaboration occurred in geographically separate places, but (as far as I could tell) it lacked the permanence of an office whiteboard that could simply be left as it was at the end of the day, and returned to the next day.

Today I read about Skrbl, which follows the incredibly annoying "Encapsulation Buzzword 2.0" standard of eschewing vowels for its name, but is actually quite awesome.

It's got a no-login mode, so a quick, 5 second "let me draw you a picture" mode exists. Check.

It's got a login-based persistent mode, so I can "own" a board, and have its contents maintained even when no one is using it. Check

It's got a password-based system so I can restrict access. Check.

More important than those, perhaps, is that you can SAVE the contents of a board to a file to take with you offline, or just to save a drawing while still being able to clear your board. That said, you can also "own" multiple boards, so I could have the "New Website Mockup" board to brainstorm with friends, and the "Doomsday Machine Schematic" whiteboard that is just for my own personal..er...scientific inquiry. Saving the boards is a huge and unexpected feature for me, as I literally used to take digital pictures of my whiteboards before erasing them just to have them to refer to later.

Drawing and text and stuff are fairly standard, but have a good response time and good level of sophistication in the features. There aren't a thousand buttons to confuse people who just want to make it work quickly to convey an idea, but you're not locked into a set font size or pen color or anything.

The delete function is a little strange - you have to select the element with the arrow tool and then right click in order to get a delete option. The main problem with this is that it's not immediately apparent - it works fine when you know its there, it just doesn't leap out at you.

I'll completely forgive the delete weirdness (and absence of a simple Eraser tool) for the fact that it has zoom and search capability.

You can also upload (small in file size) images and include them - very useful for doing a whiteboard mockup, and in a way transcending what most people can actually do with a real life whiteboard. This requires login, but it's pretty obvious that the no-login section of the site is designed for quickies, and in that respect it accomplishes everything it needs to. If I want the more advanced features, it makes sense to have to log in.

If they can add in a Flickr style API to this, allowing people to include these whiteboards on other pages..holy CRAP.

I'll be posting later with some examples of its use, but I couldn't contain my excitement when I first read about this - finally Buzzword 9.0 has delivered one of the few apps I really WANTED on the web.

[and it was good]