Google Presentations, which is free, is part of the company's online office suite, Google Docs.
Right off the bat, you will notice that Presentations has some of the same basic functionality as Microsoft's PowerPoint. It does enable you to create some really basic presentations, with themes, but the lack of features and slide show polish are real turn-offs for me.
Yes, there are nice collaboration features, just like the other Google Docs applications, but if the final product isn't on par with what PowerPoint produces, those features are almost irrelevant. The omission of basic animations and transitions really take away from it.
PowerPoint-style presentations have two major objectives. Those are to inform the people to whom you are presenting and to hold their attention. I would personally not feel great about using Google Presentations on an important presentation, where I need to impress people. The presentations that it creates just do not have the "wow" factor.
Despite all of that, the collaboration features are really the service's strong point. Not only can other people collaborate on the same presentation, but when you are done, you can either share it via a public URL or present it to a group of people that you invite. This is really where Google gets it right.
Google Presentations is a decent free, Web-based solution for creating slide shows, but the limited feature set hurts it when compared with PowerPoint. I give Google some points for the collaboration and sharing features, but that's not enough to get me to switch. I understand the concept behind trying to provide a simple solution, but this is a case where simple is not necessarily better.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Tonight the stars have aligned in Mountain View, and the long-awaited Google Presentations is finally live, and a working part of Google Docs for all users. Here are some of the specs from Google's release:
"-Create and keep presentations in one place on the Web that's accessible anytime, from any Internet-connected computer.
- Manage, update, and share presentations with colleagues by sending them a simple e-mail invitation.
- Edit together online and in real time, or contribute at different times to the same presentation on the Web.
- Present and control slide shows for all viewers over the Web, with no special setup required. Chat with viewers in real time via integrated chat.
- Import existing presentations to get started quickly.
- Quickly publish presentations to the general public or individuals of their choice."
As expected, it looks and feels a lot like Docs and Spreadsheets and handles Microsoft PowerPoint presentations up to 10MB without a hitch. We'll have a hands-on soon. In the meantime, you can play with it yourself at docs.google.com.
Google Presentations' GUI. It looks a whole lot like Google Docs, so users of that should feel right at home.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Despite many signs pointing to a release of Google's presentation service at last week's Office 2.0 Conference (coverage), the only thing we got were some new tweaks to Docs and Spreadsheets that went largely under the radar. This morning, The Inquirer is claiming that things are stirring in the depths of Google's Mountain View headquarters, and the app is set to launch "any day now." They're also claiming that the app will be integrating technology from both of Google's slide show and presentation acquisitions Tonic Systems and Zenter, which the company bought up in April and June respectively.
Despite mention of a presentation app, there's still largely nothing that's been said about a Wiki app joining the party, besides the acquisition of Jotspot late last year, which hasn't come to fruition amidst the rest of Google's services. On a related note, no matter what, we're getting something new from the company next week where Google is set to present something at the TechCrunch40 conference.
Some Gmail users (including me, but not Josh, nyah nyah) have a new option in their in-box: PowerPoint files that are sent to them can now be viewed "as slide show." When you click on this link, you're given a full-window, Flash-based slide show of the file, with forward and back buttons at the top of the screen and a slide selector drop-down menu.
Right-clicking on the Flash player gives you presentation options.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Right-clicking gives you options to play the slide show automatically, adjust the speed of the autoplay, and download the original file.
This is probably the presentation player that will be part of Google's upcoming competitor to PowerPoint. It's not, though, what we're all waiting for, which is the slide show authoring tool that will presumably have cool collaborative features similar to Google's word processor and spreadsheet. Nor does this peek show us what Google is going to be doing in the world of screen sharing or remote presentations, an area that several start-ups have recently attacked.
More coverage:- First post (I think) on the topic (in Spanish) at google.dirson.com.
- Google Blogoscoped:Google's Presentation Application?
- ZDNet: Google Presentation application peeks around the corner
CEO of Google Eric Schmidt discusses Docs and Spreadsheets, YouTube, lawsuits and more with John Batelle at the Web 2.0 Expo keynote
(Credit: CNET Networks)Google CEO Eric Schmidt went on stage yesterday at the Web 2.0 Expo and announced that the slides running on the four giant projection screens were actually Docs and Spreadsheet's newest app: a presentation service.
In an interview with John Batelle, he was asked, "Is this a competitor to Microsoft Office [and PowerPoint]?"
Schmidt: "I don't work at Microsoft."
Batelle: "Come on!"
Schmidt: "Microsoft does have a collection of Web-based products. But for people who need presentation apps on the Web, they're going to use this. This is a testament to the strength of Web 2.0."
See Previous coverage of Google's presentation app.
Schmidt then went on to talk about the DoubleClick acquisition, previously reported about on News.com.
Update: We've got some hasty digital camera footage from the announcement which we've embedded after the break. To see it, click the 'read more' link below. See also the News.com story.
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