Author’s Note: This writeup is the third in a series investigating different types of online collaboration tools that you can use to help your organization grow and learn. Click here to browse other “Collaboration Tools” articles.
Today’s web tools offer plenty of flexibility for building and distributing presentations. Sites like Slideshare, Zoho Show, and Google Presentations allow groups of users to build and share multimedia presentations even when the contributors are in separate locations. Using these tools will allow you to keep your published presentations up to date without re-sending them or worrying about version control issues. You’ll also be able to embed some web-based presentations in blogs or present them live to online viewers.
Google Docs and Zoho Show
For most purposes, Google Presentations are PowerPoint without the licensing fees but with tight YouTube integration. If you’ve ever tried to force a web video into your PowerPoint slides, Google Docs will be a refreshing change. If necessary, you can download the finished product to PowerPoint format or PDF. This is a good idea if you’re going to be giving a presentation in public – always have a backup plan!
You can share or publish these presentations. “Sharing” in this context is inviting other Google users to collaborate on your presentation in real time. They’ll log in and start editing different slides while you work. This is a great way to firm up any sort of presentation required of a group project – no more looking over a teammate’s shoulder trying to keep up. “Publishing” here gives you a unique URL that you can send to people who need to view your presentation. They’ll be able to see it anywhere with an internet connection and they’ll automatically get any changes you’ve made to the presentation between the time you published the link and the time they actually view the show.
Zoho Show is the slideshow component of Zoho’s online office suite. This seems to have all the same features of Google Docs but without the Google branding. If you’ve got problems with Google, try this one. Zoho accepts Google and Yahoo accounts as logins, so you probably won’t need to create a new Zoho account. This will come in handy when you start trying to invite collaborators or viewers to your Zoho slideshows.
Slideshare
Slideshare bills itself as “the best way to share your presentations with the world”. You’ll find that you can upload a presentation (probably from PowerPoint) share the link with others, and add an MP3 soundtrack if you like. This could be a narration or just accompanying music. As with Google and Zoho, there are security options in place here that will allow you to control who can do what with your presentation. Slideshare will probably be the most comfortable transition for someone who isn’t ready to abandon PowerPoint just yet.
Still more online presentation tools
There are many more sites available that offer you web-based presentation building tools. Take a look at this Mashable.com article to see a longer list.
