Small Business Trends

33 Highly Useful Presentation Tools

Product ReviewsSeptember 28, 2009By TJ McCue

After the terrific market response to 11 Highly Useful Presentation Tools for Sales and Marketing, we knew that a follow-on post was mandatory to help readers sell and market successfully online (and off). Here is a list of 33 more presentation tools we hope you’ll find helpful.

SlideRocket is a presentation creation and management service that I didn’t include in 11 Presentation Tools and I wish I had. They offer useful tools to build presentations and cool analytics tools. The service starts at free and goes up to $20/user/month.

Sliderocket

PhotoPeach is a photo site with a twist. It allows you to import your photos from Facebook or Picasa (no others at this time) and create a slide show, adding words, audio, and music. You can host it there or embed it in your site or blog. Free.

Amazon Slideshow Widget is for those who have an Amazon presence at all, this widget is a way to display Amazon products on your store or alongside your profile.  You can choose images out of the entire Amazon catalog.

Adam is unlike any multimedia presentation tool I’ve seen on the web. I’m sure that expensive programs do this, but I’ve not seen it. The exciting piece of this is you can a “hotspot” to a PDF or Image file. Essentially, when someone scrolls over a particular area of a document, a popup (of sorts) opens and you can embed a video, text, music, or hyperlink. Free. Click on the “View Samples” link.

Blow Up is a downloadable tool that works with Flickr. It is totally free. It imports/loads your photosets into a fullscreen display. You can deeplink into the photos you want and run it on your own site or blog.
VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show web-based service (holding all sorts of documents like most of these other services).  Ranges from Free to $30/month. Allows people to leave comments five different ways.

IgniteCAST is a media sharing web service where users can create, upload, view and share structured video clips, interactive presentations, PowerPoint, software demonstrations, surveys, quizzes and more. Free.

Presentation Assistant provides various tools to bring the audience’s attention to a specific spot, and allows you to zoom in and annotate the screen. It also enables you to open documents or programs quickly, and play background musics conveniently during the presentation. You can do a free trial or buy it for $23.95.

MyJugaad.in is the tool if you need to quickly put together a presentation of a bunch of websites, bookmarks, or your blog posts.  MyJugaad.in is a slideshow for webpages, which are sourced either from popular websites such as del.icio.us (for best webpages), digg, google news, flickr, youtube, etc. or from a list provided by you or from your RSS feed(s). This image shows their tour where they explain – just type in a  search term and as the results come in, you can turn it straight into a slideshow.

myjugaad.in

I don’t know how long this little app will remain online, but if you dig in a little bit and want to learn what these two entrepreneurs are doing, read how they built this slideshow web app in six days…

WebSlides by Diigo is the same concept as myjugaad, however, theirs only appears to work with your bookmarks and lists from within Diigo. It promises to work from any RSS feed, but I couldn’t get it to work. Once I joined, I could create some bookmarks and then move them into a Diigo List, then the WebSlides widget worked. Here’s my result testing two of my own sites as bookmarks.

FormatPixel is an online publishing application that appears quite robust. It allows you to create ‘page’ based presentations; anything from magazines to fanzines, brochures to catalogues and even portfolios.
Free for one project with less than 512k in size. Next package is about $30/year.

Slidestory allows you to create audio slideshows and podcasts. It is a free tool and you have to download a small application for your desktop. From there, you can drag and drop images, record your presentation, and upload it to the Slidestory host.

Slidesix is another multimedia presentation sharing site, however, they allow you to upload a presentation and record audio, video or embed it directly from their web app. It is a free app and I found that it was quick to load and use. The management console kept things organized and their SlideLabs section had a presentation analytics component.

Prezentit is a web-based slideshow presentation tool that also lets your team simultaneously collaborate with you. Not all of the other services allow that.  The slides become webpages, so you can edit the code manually if you chose.

Webinaria is a screen recording application that is similar to Jing Project. It allows you to create a flash presentation (FLV or AVI files) as you click through a series of screens, web pages, or whatever you are demonstrating online.  Free.

Zentation is a tool for combining video and slides. On one side you’ll have your full motion video and on the other your material in the form of a slide presentation.

Present.io is a service of Drop.io, which is a real-time file sharing and collaboration service. Small file “drops” are free, but then you can select a plan starting at $19/month. Once you drop a file into the Drop.io service, it is immediately accessible publicly or privately. You can present information to everyone in this shared area or simply leave the files in one location. Drop.io tries to convert every file you send into a web-friendly format so that anyone, on any browser, can see it and interact with the file. There are too many features to list here, but it is worth 20 minutes to see if it can work for your company or project.

Animoto is a service to turn photos into hip videos. I do not use the word ‘hip’ lightly. This is another of my favorites from our presentation explorations to find ways for other small biz owners to find new and innovative ways to present and sell. Click on the link right below the featured video (right now it is two small dogs on the screen) that says “Watch the 60-Sec. learn more video”  in small print. They need to make this larger and more obvious, but don’t let that comment deter you.

Animoto

SpotMixer is a web-based video advertising service that makes it easy and affordable for small- to mid-sized businesses to reach new customers with online video ads and TV ads without hiring videographers or ad agencies. This is not a free service, but an affordable one if you want to explore online video advertising.

Vuvox is fun to explain. It takes your slides and puts them into a moving collage (not a video).  You can bring your Flickr, Picasa, an RSS feed into the service and have it display your work. Within it, like other services we’ve mentioned, you can create “hotspots” where you have a popup within your presentation and a link. Some of these services are simply meant to be experienced or seen.

Freepath is a playlist application that helps you mix and play your rich media assets such as video, photos and music together with your traditional desktop files like PowerPoint, PDFs and Word without having to convert files, embed links or import files. They say in their About Us section to “Think of us as an iTunes-like playlist where you can organize, arrange and play all your stuff.” Again, the tour is in order.  There is a free trial and it is only $50/year for a single-user license.

Freepath

As I review all these sites, with some of them, I see a simple place to create or host a presentation. But with some of them (like Vuvox, Animoto, and Freepath to name just a few), what I find happening is marketing ideas I’ve had for years are now taking shape because they have created a way for me to take my ideas to the web in such an easy way that I can’t help but experiment.  You may find yourself thinking and coming up with new ways to reach a customer.

InstantPresenter is in here because it is a new type of web conferencing tool that allows you to have multiple participants, via voice and/or webcams to be part of an online presentation. Has all of the collaborative tools you’d expect from whiteboards to chat. You can upload your slide presentation and have it available from their servers. Free trial, then $39/month.

Spicynodes is an interactive mind mapping sort of tool. With it, you can guide visitors on a tour. Because it is a new way of visually showing and moving people through information, it can be confusing at first, but it may be just what you need to help people understand your service or product. Instead of a traditional navigation menu, you would offer a series of “nodes” or perhaps we could call them waypoints, where as a viewer clicks through this new map, other options display. If you’ve ever seen Google’s new Wonder Wheel search tool, that will help this makes sense. It is a free service and it lets you sign up with your Google, Yahoo, or OpenID account. They have a terrific gallery of examples.

Spicynodes

Sometimes you just have to draw out what you want to say. Gliffy is your tool. Actually, you don’t even need to draw. They have tons of shapes and flowcharts and images you can use to diagram out whatever you’re thinking. Straightforward, with easy-to-use features. I quickly dragged and dropped various images and shapes onto a palette. The new file could be saved in my Gliffy account or exported to a variety of file format.  Free trial and then $5/month.

Creately is a diagramming service that lets you create flowcharts, diagrams, website maps where the links are clickable (as in site navigation, not geographic maps), and ready made templates for many common team projects. You can link diagrams together as well. Currently in beta, free for public diagrams. Private access is about to launch.

Mindmeister is a mind mapping and diagramming tool.  There are those times when you need to create a visual that represents part of what you or your team are thinking and discussing. A whiteboard type of discussion where you are connecting the dots. Mindmeister is great at that, plus you can then share it to the web, with links.

Cooliris is a 3D photo/video wall. It is a browser plug-in, however, it also gives you a specific URL (webpage) where others can view your 3D wall of images. It visually appears to pop off the page. Very engaging. It works with many photo and social networking sites including Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook and pulls your images into the Cooliris wall. Free.

Cooliris

Moonk lets you create a slideshow or video show from your files. If you have wanted to put video on your site, but haven’t wanted the public aspect of YouTube, Moonk might be the answer. You can then integrate or embed this “player” into your website or blog. Free.

Toufee allows you to create flash files (without the programming experience or expensive applications) that can be loaded to YouTube or your site. Free trial and then $60/year.

Viewbook, at first glance, is an online portfolio for photographers and photo-oriented businesses. But if you have a visual product or service, it may work for you as a way to build a visually rich website or promotional page. Free trial and $19/month for professional package.

Stupeflix lets you turn your photos, videos, presentations and text into professional looking videos.  It is a fast and full video editor with features you only find in desktop applications. Free for small videos, with Stupeflix brand. Premium options are a low-cost per video.

Skrbl is a whiteboard tool and collaboration service. You can have up to five people join you in a collaborative space and work on the same document drawing out your ideas and uploading pictures, if you need to. Free for single user, $10/month for five users.

Twiddla is an online whiteboard, plus a co-browsing web meeting service. You can mark up web pages, share files, and chat while you work together. They have a free trial, with no signup to get started, and then, its still free. After 30 days, they expect you to register. Who wouldn’t register for such a great tool?

* * * * *

Now, with 44 Highly Useful Presentation Tools (33 today plus 11 last time), we all need to get busy creating professional presentations that help educate our customers and generate new sales. Keep us posted about which tools you use and like. We’ll be busy here at Small Business Trends playing and experimenting with this new batch of presentation tools.

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133 Responses to “33 Highly Useful Presentation Tools”

Leave a Reply
  1. Martin Lindeskog says:
    September 28, 2009 at 3:21 am

    TJ: Wow! What a list! Now I have to go through it before my second course on social media in November and see if I could use some of the tools.

  2. Maris says:
    September 28, 2009 at 4:03 am

    You should check out also prezi.com which allows you to create awesome zooming presentations.

  3. Craig Pickering says:
    September 28, 2009 at 4:45 am

    Another very nice web version – http://280slides.com/

  4. Boble says:
    September 28, 2009 at 6:03 am

    I think you should think about adding SlideBoom.com to this list. It is an amazing tool for sharing rich PowerPoint presentations with transitions, animations, sounds and video.

  5. chris kluis says:
    September 28, 2009 at 8:26 am

    Any list of presentation software without Prezi is hugely incomplete.

  6. Amanda Collier Stillwagon says:
    September 28, 2009 at 9:52 am

    Amazing list! There are so many cool things to play with on here. Thanks for compiling all this for us. Lists like these save readers like me so much time. You do all the leg work and I get all the benefits. :) Awesome job!

  7. TJ McCue says:
    September 28, 2009 at 10:10 am

    Hello everyone,
    Wow, thanks for all the positive comments and tweets. Many, many thanks. This post was a lot of fun to work on and I personally found some new ones (as noted) that just amazed me.

    280Slides and Prezi were listed in the previous post entitled 11 Highly Useful Pres Tool and linked at the start of the article.

    Again, I appreciate your enthusiastic sharing of this post. We’re listening to your input and feedback as we create useful and helpful reviews of applications and tools to save you time and money and help all of us on the path to success.

  8. Gary Anderson says:
    September 28, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    Great stuff TJ.

  9. Susan Oakes says:
    September 28, 2009 at 4:34 pm

    TJ

    As the others have said this is a great list. The whiteboard tools look really interesting for collaborating.

    Susan

  10. dwightgenius says:
    September 28, 2009 at 10:26 pm

    Nice!Another professional presentation tool Moyea PPT to DVD http://www.dvd-ppt-slideshow.com/ppt_to_dvd/

  11. Clet Anni says:
    September 29, 2009 at 12:18 am

    this is really a nice list thanks for sharing

  12. John B says:
    September 29, 2009 at 12:55 am

    Hi
    very useful list, however I found these tools interesting
    Raptivity Presenter + YawnBuster
    I did a trial and also interacted with their support – amazing is the only word…

  13. andy stewart says:
    September 30, 2009 at 5:19 am

    Online collaborating and teaching can work, If you have trust and the right tools.
    I recently tried http://www.showdocument.com – good app for uploading documents and working on them in real-time.
    Most file types are supported and it needs no installation. – andy

  14. Olivier (olivierl) 's status on Wednesday, 30-Sep-09 12:58:47 UTC - Identi.ca says:
    September 30, 2009 at 8:03 am

    [...] http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/09/33-useful-presentation-tools.html a few seconds ago from web [...]

  15. Design, Development, Freelancing, and Geeky links. | Border7 Studios says:
    October 2, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    [...] 33 Highly Useful Presentation Tools: With these you may be able to pull off a much better presentation [...]

  16. Business Management says:
    October 4, 2009 at 10:56 pm

    The article is nice . All i CAN comment is that I don’t know how long this little app will remain online, but if you dig in a little bit and want to learn what these two entrepreneurs are doing, read how they built this slideshow web app in six days.

  17. TJ McCue says:
    October 4, 2009 at 11:33 pm

    @Andy Stewart Thanks for the comment and tip to look at ShowDocument. At first glance, it appears to be a web meeting and collaborative document service. Do they have tools for building presentations? Thanks.

  18. web graphic design says:
    October 8, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    My comment would be that Computer slide presentations are one of the ways we sell in person. We create the slides, show them to a prospect and then leave them on our machines for the next time we need them. Aside from repurposing existing presentations by loading them online, what if you want to create new presentations from scratch that do more — that contain a mix of slides, browser screen shots, product images, and even short video clips? Today you can easily do that and often for free. Jing and some of the tools below make it possible to create a more dynamic presentation, complete with audio, animation, and video that you can position on the Web for customers to review at their convenience.

  19. Billy Boy Cool says:
    October 11, 2009 at 4:29 am

    Great list but I think one of the most innovative new tools on the market is missing. That’s the zooming presentation tool Ahead (http://www.ahead.com). It’s brilliant for presenting hi resolution visual content on which you can zoom in and out. On of it is has a great cool factor.

  20. TJ McCue says:
    October 12, 2009 at 9:42 am

    @BillyBoyCool Thanks for pointing out Ahead – it does look cool and one that others will want to use. Much appreciated. Do you work in the design worlds? How did you discover it?

  21. Ebiz Graphics says:
    October 20, 2009 at 6:45 am

    My comment would simply be that Slideshare is a well known presentation hosting site. It has great web applications to let you distribute your presentations to LinkedIn, Facebook, and many other social networks. It is becoming its own social network, in essence. They do not let you build a presentation as many of these others do; you only can host it there. It is simply a presentation portal where your ideas and thoughts can garner traffic and links.

  22. Alternativas para o PowerPoint says:
    January 27, 2010 at 12:08 pm

    [...] mais quando o conteúdo é reunido naqueles PPTs  gigantes, de não sei quantos mil slides. Aqui nesse post do Small Business Trends você encontra 33 ferramentas ótimas para produzir um material dinâmico [...]



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