The first thing I thought of was the Tablet PC when I saw Sketchcast as a delicious popular post in my RSS reader this morning. With Sketchcast you can share drawings with or without voice all through a pen-friendly Flash interface in the browser (Firefox or IE). I made a mockup of Hmmcast #174 entirely using Sketchcast. Unfortunately it’s not available in HD or as a download so I don’t think this will be the ‘official’ Hmmcast #174, which is one disappointing aspect of Sketchcast. Accordingly, not releasing this at the 4:20 publish time.

Here’s what my very first effort — complete with a few errors — looks like (if you can’t see the object embed in your reader, clickthru on this post to view from the website):

The Sketchcast fine print
Also, it’s only for personal use licensing unless written permission from Sketchcast is obtained per the Sketchcast Terms of Service:

(v) You agree not to use the Website for any commercial use, without the prior written authorization of Sketchcast;

Delving deeper into the Sketchcast TOS we learn what rights you give up with anything produced using Sketchcast:

For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting User Submissions to Sketchcast, you hereby grant Sketchcast a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, and display the User Submissions in connection with the Website and any of Sketchcast’s, and its successors, assigns and affiliates, business and operations, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.

So basically, Sketchcast can take your work, no matter how long you’ve worked on it, and use it to promote Sketchcast without any additional permission needed from you, the publisher. This isn’t too unusual in the video world these days (publishers, check your favorite video site for similar language). The licensing goes further though, allowing anybody to remix and mash anything you publish through Sketchcast:

You also hereby grant each user of the Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms and Conditions. The above licenses granted by you in User Submissions are perpetual and irrevocable.

Not terribly useful for groups desiring privacy
It’s too bad Sketchcast couldn’t allow publishers to choose the licensing of their choice. I’m curious if more fun type sketches and less serious ones will fill the site? Looking around at what’s there so far, it’s a mixed bag. In general, I like it, and it could be useful for quickly sharing ideas — just not very private ideas, unfortunately — with others. If they add a private groups feature, it would be handy for sharing sketches with project ideas that groups aren’t ready to share with the whole world. Then again, I think there are a few whiteboard apps out there for other programs.

Haven’t written about my Tablet PC experiences as much in the third year of ownership and recently passed the 1,000 day mark as being a Table PC owner. However, it was nice this morning to see an online application where the Tablet PC shines — in Firefox too, another rarity of sorts.

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