PowerPoint and Keynote have long been the de facto standard and the most widely used presentation tools for all your office or personal needs – nearly ubiquitous on corporate computers, feature packed and tightly integrated with other office applications to the extent that they provided the control an average user needed to create and deliver a pitch. In fact for most part of its history, PowerPoint has been almost synonymous with the word “presentation” both used and abused interchangeably. Like it or loathe it, both these tools are here to stay. Having said that presentation tools have come a long way, in terms of how they interact with the user and the audience. They have never had it so good. Once a stagnant medium for communicating with captive audiences, they are now freely shared and broadly consumed on blogs, twitter, email, and even sites similar to YouTube that host millions of presentations. Presentation programs have been rewired, regrouped, and repositioned. Here are a few next generation tools that we think provide an overview on what the trends are, to take your presentations to the next level.
Prezi: Prezi intended to be an intuitive tool to develop and share ideas as a visual narrative, appeared on the scene in early 2009. It dazzled us with web-built presentations that were actually really interesting to watch. Prezi offers dynamic transitions in a non-linear presentation format – meaning you can actually drill down an object to the extent you want to and even create a sequence or flow of events as your story unfolds. The web-based program has an editor that is designed to be intuitive. With new features built-in, one can create a Prezi with 3D effects and also use your own PowerPoint slides to build a Prezi quickly. Prezi is distinguished by its Zooming User Interface (ZUI), which enables users to zoom in and out of their presentation media.
SlideRocket: An online platform that lets users create, manage, share and measure presentations. Delivered as a SaaS offering, SlideRocket offers distinct advantages that separate it from legacy, PC-era presentation technologies. Some of the advantages include a highly intuitive, web-based interface; Online authoring, editing and access tools; Intelligent publishing etc.
Google Docs: Google Presentations another web based tool, may not be the most feature packed or whiz-bang presentation creation tool around, but with several essential features, it definitely earns a respectful mention here. It is free, web-based, and offers the same dependable cloud-based backup and work-anywhere convenience that you’ve come to expect from Google products. You can share your work, collaborate, work on it from any web browser, and pull from the thousands of templates available in Google’s vast public templates pool.
SlideCart: Soon to be launched, SlideCart.com seems to be an impressive foray into a latent market ready to use graphics and illustrations that can help you save time and effort while creating presentations. This treasure trove of templatized graphics available online is designed to cater to anyone who wants to create a unique presentation quickly – be it for personal or corporate messaging. If you have been looking for ways and means by which you can create presentations in a captivating way, ready to use library of PowerPoint based graphics, illustrations and templates from SlideCart can help you achieve your goal easily. With just a few clicks, you can create an impressive slideshow or PowerPoint presentation using the resources available online. All you have to do is just download the graphics that suit your requirements. And Yes, they allow you to download a single slide – so just pick and choose. No need to buy a bundle of 12-15 slides on the same topic, when what you need are only a couple. The slides are fully editable in MS PowerPoint. All you have to do is just include your text in the ready to use PowerPoint slide presentation. SlideCart will be launched in October 2012, however a beta preview is available here: www.slidecart.com.
