A number of Ajax based powerpoint applications have launched in the past few month – notably Zoho Show and Thumbstacks (Thumbstacks also has a Flash option).
Empressr, headquartered in New York, is the newest entrant into this space. It’s a flash-based application with rudimentary features.
Online office applications are serious business with real acquisition possibilities. Writely, an online word processor, was acquired by Google earlier this year, and Google launched Google Spreadsheets, an online version of Excel, last month. Powerpoint web applications are probably next.
There are three key feature areas that I think must be covered if an online version of Powerpoint is to succeed. First, at least basic creation tools need to be developed. Second, the applications need to import and export in Powerpoint format. Third, the files need to be viewable online via shared or public hyperlinks. A PDF export feature would be nice as well.
Empressr allows sharing of presentations, but the creation tools aren’t there yet and there is no import/export to powerpoint (or PDF) available. Look for future versions to include these features.
Mike,
You forgot the 4th key feature to success: arrows!
There is one thing that still confuses me: why did Google decide to purchase Writely yet code their own online spreadsheet? With that in mind, will Google buy a powerpoint web site or decide to code their own?
2c
BK,
Google probably bought Writely because they already had a somewhat sizable userbase already, and they already had something that, frankly, worked. It was able to encompass the tagging, the organizing, and the actual features required in the writing (formatting text, etc.) and roll all that into one. And finally, writing documents is a much more common activity than creating spreadsheets, so that’s probably why Google decided to buy the somewhat established Writely and yet create a stripped down version of Excel.
I’ve used it, and its really is to use.. its not bad, but it still could do with little more features, to stand out..
Michael,
my tech people easily said that it’s only an AJAX interface for built-in controlls of Flash. don’t believe the hype so easily
Shaker will take care
http://shaker.hu/index_en.html
I think it requires a totally different approach for online powerpoint to succeed. Creation and import / export are great, but why go online when offline powerpoint does a much better job? The whole point should be a new presentation method. Perhaps using flash and interactive menus, not the traditional PPT style which has clear adventages on the desktop no matter what you do.
I was having a conversation about the failings of Powerpoint yesterday as i sat through a training session with awful graphics and terrible design. I think the way to go for programmes competing with Powerpoint is to make the presentations better looking. If it did that and had a more basic set up i wouldn’t care, the design possibilites on Powerpoint are so limited that it would be a joy to just get a little bit of artistic creativity into a presentation, not sidebars and weird blue triangle motifs.
Visokio FeatureFinder Desktop creates Flash DataPlayers* that can be embedded directly into MS PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat documents. Fully functional trial version is a free download from http://www.visokio.com
DataPlayers are standard .swf files, but they are an innovative combination of data, visualisations and interactive data filters…they make PowerPoint slides come alive with dynamic interactive displays…and enable dull .pdf documents to have interactive pages such as image mosaic indices and tables, charts, maps etc. embedded within. DataPlayers enable data within documents to be queried with real time feedback, offline. DataPlayers can also be pasted into websites and other Flash applications.
As Aner said, what do I do when I go offline? Last I checked at most conferences, unless you are in a web 2.0 conference, you dont necessarily have online access. I mean the flash runtime is there locally, so is, if you use mozilla, svg, canvas.
Reality check.
Finally, this may be the ideal medium to go beyond powerpoint for experimentation, given that unless people pay or a larger company buys, there is no viable business model (like most web 2.0, or web 1.0 for that matter startups).
(Read Tufte’s rant for more on what I mean)
Zoho Show is much nicer than Empressr, the whole Flash thing isn’t cool with me. It loads to slow, some browsers might not support it, and HTML, XML, etc. are all native, fast, allow right clicks, and frankly more flexible. That’s why I chose Zoho or any other Ajax based software better than flash based stuff. I mean who wants it to take that long, and have to have flash compaitable browsers to do that type of stuff when you’re on the go. It’s interesting, but not good enough.
Cheers,
gamehawk
“Gamehawk”, we know the range and volumes of browsers which support the Adobe Flash Player, but I don’t think we yet know the range and volumes of browsers which support any particular JavaScript application. (iow, I think you get greater reach and predictable support with SWF than with HTML/JS/CSS.)
It was interesting to read here the range of projects which are being built atop SWF, thanks.
For offline use, the new Flex Data Services are a start for coders, and keep an eye on Mike Chamber’s blog for news on the Apollo Project, which deploys such a synching sandbox for content providers.
Seems like this is shaping up to be a programming competition for a buyout. Zoho is even color coordinated with Google. As to that end, after a few minutes of fiddling with each, Zoho seemed the best to me. They followed the paradigm that users are used to, powerpoint. I agree with the general sentiment that extra features are needed to truly get users to take notice. However, I think that all of these programs missed one of the major uses for presentation software, displaying business data. I didn’t see any features allowing the creation of graphs and charts that were easily editable within the program. The only option for users is to make an image and upload it. This also hits on one of the major uses of office software, interoperability. I think Zoho has the right idea with an office suite, but needs to focus on simple interoperability between office programs.
Empressr does have the capability to create dynamic graphs and animating charts that are easily editable. It allows users to select chart types (e.g. bar, area, line, pie), define formats (colors, labels, etc) and preview as needed.
You will find that a ton of online apps will be springing up in the next few years. It is definately were the future is heading. They help increase functionality and shifting to a global enterprise. Users can customize and build from anywhere there is an internet connection, which are becoming more plentiful in the US at least.
They are also predominantly open source, and who can argue with that. The applications will continue to get better, especially with the minds of Google on the bandwagon. In general, it is how software will be done.
in this alpha version of empressr, we focused our efforts on integrating rich media (video, flash, animated charts/graphs, etc) instead of the creation tools since there seemed to be more of a need for this. we figured you can easily create assets with fully evolved apps such as photoshop, illustrator or flash and upload them into your presentations. we also offer a personal library feature where you can store these assets online for future/continued use in empressr.
future development will indeed consider more flexibility and cross-format compabitilities.
we’re still in the early stages of development although we’re in full production now and will keep improving. it’s useful to hear all comments, thoughts, feedback, so please send or post to our forum!
we also have an enterprise version of empressr which isn’t available for public view, but includes workflow, status trackers, shared assets and the like. if you’re interested, please contact us at info@empress.com
This is the final piece that could break the need for Microsoft Office; online word processor, spreadsheets, and finally presentation.
Telecoms who have ignored open-source solutions like open office may take more notice of these online options since they are gearing themselves so much towards broadband solutions.
http://www.telecommer.com
I think we will have better tools in the near future, y wrote a little article of this “web 2.0 bubble” in my blog. maybe someone could find it interesting.
Bye Bye Microsoft
Neal Saferstein
Hugh McCallin I was having a conversation about the failings of Powerpoint yesterday as i sat through a training session with awful graphics and terrible design. I think the way to go for programmes competing with Powerpoint is to make the presentations better looking.
That’s a technical solution to a non-technical problem. All the star-wipes and fades can’t gussy up crap data or a bad presentation.
One of the best presentations I’ve seen was done with just some text files wiped up in the unix editor vi. Put a couple of strong bullet points on each slide and you’re done.
Course figuring out what data to use to tell a story and what points to make is a lot more difficult than deciding if a rabbit should talk during a humorous interlude in a presentation.
We launched a WYSIWYG AJAX Web Development platform last year, called Synthasite – the Beta Program is over and it’s going to full release very shortly.
We totally believe in AJAX applications – and it’s funny how few of them are actually out there. We’re going to take on Frontpage, Dreamweaver, etc. Watch this space! (http://www.synthasite.com)
I’m waiting for someone to base an online presentation around something like Eric Meyer’s S5 http://meyerweb.../eric/tools/s5/
I have a challenge for Thumbstacks, Zoho and Empressr as well as for other online presentation tools.
I invite you to read and respond to it at http://www.dega...nd-thumbstacks/
Would really love your thoughts!!
Aner
Zoho show is a good one and sure a future challange for it
Yeah, this is a very rudimentary Powerpoint wannabe. There are JSbased solutions that do more than this.