New York-based Thumbstacks is a bare bones but functional application that allows users to build presentations online and present them via a permanent URL. It uses both Flash and Ajax - it uses Flash if its installed, and defaults to Ajax if not. Click here to see a sample presentation. Note: Zoho is preparing a web based power point application as well - I should get a demo in the next week.
Don’t let the lack of design fool you - I’ve tested the product and the core functionality is there. Here’s what’s included now: a nice online interface to create applications (see screen shot), the ability to manipulate fonts (including sizes and colors), drag and drop functionality, image inclusion (including flickr images using the Flickr API).
There are a number of planned features that aren’t there yet: drawing tools (lines, arrows, shapes, etc.), export to powerpoint/keynote/pdf, private sharing on presentations (everything is public right now if you can find the URL), and a search feature for public presentations.
This launch is pretty timely given the Writely acquisition by Google today. Thumbstacks is the creation of Duncan Werner, who was previously an employee of PubSub.
Thanks for the great writeup! I couldn’t have asked for a better overview.
I’d like to clarify one thing, though: not everything is public. Unless you specifically make a presentation public, there’s no way to access it without logging in.
Cheers,
Duncan
Also, can we tag etc, like numsum?
Why would a company produce a product they have to create twice - once in flash and once in Ajax? I understand the user-experience theory. Flash gives users the “best” experience, while still providing AJAX for users without it, but really how many users are you gaining by providing both methods? Compare that to the amount of work it must be to build the same functionality twice, in two different technologies… it just doesn’t sound like it adds up.
What do you mean by ” interface to create applications”
Do you mean ‘presentations’ or am I missing something?
Hey Mike… Duncan was much more than an employee, he’s actually a co-founder and built most of the first version of the code. PubSub absolutely wouldn’t exist without him…
Power struggles, employees… geez man, get yer facts straight… : )
Tom: we didn’t really create anything twice. If available, flash is used to do things like scale images, which browsers tend to be pretty bad at. Our aim is to be widely compatible, so there’s no flash requirement; but if you have it, we use it to tweak the experience.
Salim: you’re too kind, as usual, and overstating it. I’m just one of the guys in the trenches.
Wow, Thumbstacks was built for Skype, the URI schema skype published, can easily be used to create an AJAX wizard to create group chats, conference calls, File transfers etc.
Impressive.
Great post, and an invaluable tool for sales reps of all stripes. I’m going to link back to you at landingthedeal.com and recommend your post.
Thanks for the great overview, guys.
Possibly a Google Acqusiition to round-out Google Office?
Saw these guys demo at NYC Tech meetup in January - outstanding demonstration and very cool.
:cough: next google acquisition :cough:
Brian - what was that? I couldn’t hear you.
Interesting that Thumstacks is to be delivered in both Flash and Ajax/DHTML. Is the Ajax version a “down-level” client without all the interaction or features?
My team at Laszlo Systems announced this week that OpenLaszlo will target both Flash (our mainstay up until now) and DHTML. We have a demo up on our site (http://www.openlaszlo.org) that shows a highly interactive, full-featured application (including drag and drop) compiled *from the same source code* to both Flash and DHTML.
Look at Laszlo Mail, consider how much we were able to accomplish with a small team on a tight budget, and you have a compelling argument that the cost of entry for full-featured rich internet applications is about to drop significantly.
These boys are SOOOOOO going to be snapped up by Google…so far…
Blogger - Typad/Wordpress blogging
Writely - MS Word
Gdrive - storage
… all that remains is Thumbstack.com for MS Powerpoint and Zohosheet.com - MS Excel and they have pretty much got themselves a complete office suite of online-based products!
Me going to find a server and hard-drive company to invest in. These boys are going to require LOADS of storage in the next 2 years!!
Mike, I got an idea for this site, a pseudo betting system for fake points. This would let us all make wagers on which companies here will be flipped, etc. (mike I have a friend who has some software to do this if you are interested).
will this be renamed gpoint?gnote?gpresenter?
i say this assuming it is a done deal, although i have nothing more than pure speculation.
Between writely, numsum, gmail, jot, and this… goodbye Office.
I loved/hated Raindance (bet they’re glad they sold recently) and since about ‘94-’96 wondered what all the yap was about videoconferencing when conference call (now Skype) and a shared ppt (now Thumbstacks) made for a better meeting.
Just wish it was blended into Basecamp. Wow 37 signals really channeled some evangelical bliss into the net, thanks Chicago.
WATCHWORDS Loook past google
This webapp is google-worthy. Good job.
definately Google’s next acquisition - my testing is done on Ubuntu Linux Dapper with Firefox 1.5
haven’t tested it too much yet, but if it can export to .swf, .pdf or openoffice.org impress that would rock so much more.
This is a great idea!
People show look at CSS more closely. Turns out CSS people already have slide show in mind. There is a projector media type which means you can make presentation with only HTML+CSS. Right now it seems only Opera has an implementation with a feature called Opera Show [http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/operashow/]. It is really a hidden gem.
נחמד מאד. הגיע הזמן שתהיה כאן גם תגובה בעברית.
thumbstacks is impressive! Mike, i guess Zoho never got back you with a demo? i haven’t seen a writeup…
Wai Yip’s comments are right on track — CSS has a great deal of potential, and specifically for slideshows. in fact, i wrote a little blog piece on doing slideshow fadeout transition effects with pure CSS/javascript (no Flash etc).
you can check it out here: http://www.exhibitanywhere.com/blog/?cat=8
cheers,
shameel at exhibitanywhere.com
不错的！
Thumbstacks is cool and so is zoho, but we think that you have to use flash to be able to generate reall cool online presentations, take a look at our solution. http://www.empressr.com
Congrats on such a good product.
All I have to say is please keep distance from Google,Microsoft.Find ways to sustain your project.
Right now you do have to build two interfaces if you want to do both Flash and Ajax, but if the OpenLaszlo Legals (ugh, what a name) project (http://www.openlaszlo.org/legals) ever comes to completions, you should be able to write your interface in a XUL like language and get both Ajax and Flash interfaces.
On the topic of Ajax and Flash PoewerPoint apps, this is the one loser in the office productivity sweepstakes. How many times have you searched for connectivity in a strange conference room. No, presentations are one thing you want to have locally, now matter how nice it would be to let other people view them over the web.