Share PowerPoint Presentations Online

Did one of the important attendees not make it to the presentation that you delivered yesterday? If he can’t come to the presentation, the presentation can go to him! That’s not as far fetched as it may sound – and you need not even email him your PowerPoint!

Several new Web 2.0 sites have come up that let you upload your PowerPoints. You can then send anyone a link to your presentation, and they can view it online in an embedded page. They don’t have access to your actual PowerPoint file (it’s secure) but they can see every slide (it’s available 24/7). Yes, it does sound like the YouTube of PowerPoint presentations!

I’ll look at three such options here, and then tell you more about how you could upload your PowerPoint to YouTube as well.

• SlideShare has been up for the longest time, and that shows. Everything is very well laid out, and logical – the site does run on polished wheels. You register and become a member, log-in, upload your PowerPoint, add keywords, and then retrieve a link to your online presentation.

Did you make a change in your original PowerPoint? No worries – you can upload it again, and your links don’t change. Do you want to add narration or a background music score? You can do that too using the just released SlideCasting option. In fact you can combine your PowerPoint and narration, and create a cool webcast.

• AuthorStream is a new entrant, and although it does not compare in features to SlideShare, it does have its share of unique features. It’s interface is cleaner, and they also provide a free PowerPoint plug-in that bundles in free PowerPoint to Flash conversion on the desktop. And yes, that plug-in is completely integrated with the AuthorStream site.Again, the process is similar to the way SlideShare works: you register, log-in, upload presentations, add keywords and are provided a unique link to your online presentation. 

• ScreenCast is from TechSmith, the same folks who create Camtasia and SnagIt. When you capture your PowerPoint presentations to video using the amazing Camtasia plug-in for PowerPoint, you can choose to directly upload to your ScreenCast account. This works very well and you can set permissions on who can view your online presentations. 

However, ScreenCast is not free although they do have a limited, free account option.

Do note however that you don’t have to upload your Camtasia created PowerPoint movies to ScreenCast – you can also upload it to YouTube, Google Video, iFilm or any other video sharing site!

And if you want to make videos from your PowerPoint presentations free of cost, you can do that with nothing other than what’s included with every version of Windows XP or Vista. Yes, that’s Windows Movie Maker and you can learn how to do that at:

http://www.absoluteppt.com/movie/ppt-to-youtube-moviemaker/index.html

Written for Dumb Little Man by Geetesh Bajaj, Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. You can check out more from Geetesh at Indezine and ppted.com.