Tweet Google adds animations and transitions to presentations

Google today released an upgraded version of Google presentations. Google presentations now support most of the basic animation effects like fly, appear, zoom, spin  in addition to slide transitions. With this release Google has narrowed down the feature gap between Google presentations and other online or desktop presentation applications.

What's new in Google presentations?
Google has added more than 50 new features including real-time collaboration:

• Transitions to move between slides with simple fades or spicier 3D effects
• Animations to add emphasis or to make your slides more playful
• New themes to create beautiful presentations with distinct visual styles
• Drawings to build new designs, layouts, and flowcharts within a presentation
• Rich tables with merged cells and more options for adding style to your data

Google presentations are now as good as Microsoft PowerPoint 
Since most of the people use just the basic animation effects like fly,appear, disappear this release will certainly eat the market share of other online presentation creation tools and my be PowerPoint too. Google presentations now has a option to download the presentations as PPTX. A presentation created with Google presentation work just fine in Microsoft PowerPoint along with animation effects.

The day, Google adds option to add audio and record narrations, the competition for Microsoft PowerPoint will really be tough considering the free versus paid scenario.

How to enable new presentation features?
Most probably you will see an alert to enable new presentation on Google docs home page but if you don't see that, you can enable it from Documents and settings.

• Click the setting icon(Gear icon on top right). 
• Select "Documents and Settings".
• Click Editing tab.
• Tic the check-box "Create new presentations using the latest version of the presentation editor" and save.

Newly added features will only work for new presentations you create.

A presentation created with Google presentations

Tweet How to share presentations on LinkedIn?

Image via CrunchBase

There are two ways to share your presentations on Linkedin; 1) Using SlideShare 2) Google Presentations. In order to share presentations either via SlideShare or Google presentations you need to install SlideShare or Google presentations application. To add a presentation  to your Linkedin profile, follow the steps below:

1. First sign in to your Linkedin account
2. Either go to' Edit My Profile' and add an application from there or click 'Add an
    Application' box on the right.
3. In the Applications section, click Add an
    Application and select Google or Slideshare
    Presentation.

You need to have a SlideShare or Google account to use respective applications. Login to your SlideShare/Google account to link your SlideShare/Google account with your Linkedin profile.These Linkedin applications not only let you share your presentations with your connections but also let you see what people in your network are sharing, viewing and commenting.

Google presentations Linkedin App
Though you can upload and share a new presentation from your desktop or share an existing presentation in your Google account  yet you still have to go to Google docs to create a new presentations.




SlideShare Linkedin App
Slideshare app lets you share all presentations from your Linkedin account or upload and share new presentations from within Linkedin. SlideShare has recently released Linkedin share button as well which means now you can share any SlideShare presentation on LinkedIn with a press of button.

Tweet Now conduct presentation web meetings from your mobile

MightyMeeting, a new entrant in online PowerPoint meeting domain, unlike other presentation meeting tools like Present Live from authorSTREAM , SlideLive, Zoho Show or Google presentations,  lets you conduct PowerPoint presentations on the go even from your smart-phone. Using MightyMeeting  you can conduct presentations remotely via its web interface or  iPhone and Android applications. Despite the fact that animation effects seems missing on MightyMeeting, running a synchronized slide show from mobile phone has its added advantages.

The only presentation meeting tool which retains animation effects is Present Live from authorSTREAM though they don't have any app for mobile yet. MightyMeeting could come in handy when you have to start a presentation meeting at a moment’s notice.

Tweet Online PowerPoint meeting tools

PowerPoint cloud meeting or presentation meeting is not a new concept; SlideLive, authorSTREAM and Google presentations have been doing this since long.

These PowerPoint meeting web applications allow presenters to deliver presentations, live over the Internet where slide navigation is being controlled by presenter. In today’s world, many a times we need to communicate with people at different Geo locations who can’t get together at same place. That is where these presentation meeting applications come in handy.

Image via Wikipedia

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 has also come up with a similar feature called broadcasting where presenter can click through the slides and everyone attending will be on the same slide. Animations also work the same way as in PowerPoint file. Only thing seems missing is chat which Microsoft must have planned with Microsoft communication server.

Here is a video demo of broadcast feature from Microsoft.

Tweet Funding time for online presentation websites

We all have seen success of video sharing websites and now it seems to be turn of presentation websites. There are so many online presentation creation and sharing websites. Most of them have pretty good content as well as user base. SlideRocket and Prezi are two such presentation players who have raised quite good funding over the period.

Prezi lets you break away from the slide-by-slide approach of most presentations. Instead, it allows you to create non-linear presentations where you can zoom in and out of a visual map containing words, links, images, videos, etc. Prezi is quite similar to pptPlex, a Microsoft Office Labs project . Prezi has raised an undisclosed amount in Series A financing from Scandinavian VC firm Sunstone Capital and is adding Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to its roster of company advisors.

SlideRocket, the online presentation creation solution, announced it received $5 million in Series B funding and that Chuck Dietrich, a former General Manager & Vice President at salesforce.com, has joined the company as CEO.

SlideRocket, similar to 280Slides and Google presentations is a cloud based service which lets you create slideshows online without the need of PowerPoint software. It also lets you collaborate and work in sync with your colleagues. Easy collaboration is also a main highlight of Microsoft PowerPoint 2010.

It will be interesting to see how much market share Microsoft will be able to grab with so many presentation players already in market with ample user base.

Tweet Can PowerPoint 2010 jeopardize online presentation creation business model?

With three main objectives of 'Work anywhere with Office Web applications', 'Collaborate better with co-authoring' and 'Bring ideas to life with video and picture editing', Microsoft is all set to launch office 2010 next year.

Microsoft office along with Microsoft SharePoint 2010/ Windows Live account and Office Communicator 2007 R2 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 will be a great tool offering almost all features being offered by online presentation creation websites. Google presentations seems to stand nowhere against PowerPoint 2010. Can PowerPoint 2010 be a threat to online presentation creation websites? Though the question makes some sense yet it will be too early to look for an answer.

As per Microsoft

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 delivers more new and exciting ways to create and share dynamic presentations with any audience. Improved audio and visual capabilities help you tell a crisp, cinematic story that’s as easy to create as it is powerful to watch. New, easy-to-use tools help you polish your presentations to help you keep your audience’s attention even longer. Almost-anywhere access to PowerPoint 2010 from your Smartphone or the Web allows you to simultaneously work on presentations with other people. Simply put, it’s never been easier to express your ideas with PowerPoint 2010. Its Backstage view replaces the file menu, a co-authoring capability streamlines collaboration, and the ability to broadcast slideshows doesn't require viewers to have PowerPoint installed.

Embedding video in PowerPoint

With PowerPoint 2010, you can effectively engage your audience by embedding and personalizing videos within your presentation. The embedded video file can be customized by adding video triggers and styles directly within PowerPoint 2010 using inbuilt basic video edit tool, saving your time and money. You can also save your PowerPoint files in wmv, compress them and share.

Awesome visual effects

PowerPoint 2010 has new Smart art graphics, more animation effects, and advance transition effects. With PowerPoint 2010, you can easily create powerful visuals and apply professional-looking designs to photos and text, and to videos in PowerPoint. From new and improved picture-editing effects such as saturation and watercolor to video editing and formatting capabilities such as trimming, fades and reflections, Office 2010 opens up a world of design options to give life to your ideas.

Here are few videos demonstrating features and capabilities of PowerPoint 2010:

PowerPoint 2010

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by Slideshows | Upload your own presentation

Tweet PowerPoint presentations on Michael Jackson

Such was the impact of Michael Jackson's sudden death that Google stopped responding for a while. Twitter has to remove 'Trending Topics'. Every website, blog, TV channel was just talking about MJ.

PowerPoint creators also paid tribute to MJ in their own style by creating some great presentations. Few presentations embedded below will let you have glimpse of MJ's life.

Michael Jackson Life and Times

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by islides | Upload your own presentation

Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) – YOU are my life

View more documents from Krudang Krangdu.

Tweet SlideShare now let you import Google docs

Online PowerPoint and document sharing website SlideShare today released a new feature of importing your Google presentations and documents into SlideShare account. You just need to click on the “Import from Google Docs” link on the upload page, enter your Google username and password, select the file and click “Import to SlideShare”. See more details at SlideShare blog.

Tweet Is online presentation creation better than Microsoft PowerPoint?

In the last few years a number of products have been launched to create presentations online. Google presentations, 280Slides, Slide Rocket, Zoho Show and Preezo to name but a few. Latest in the list is Adobe Acrobat Presentations. With so many products in the market, it's difficult to decide which one you should use? Chris Pirillo has something to say on "What's better than Microsoft PowerPoint?"