Webware

Bored of Google Presentations already? If you're looking for something with a little more pizazz, there's Prezentit, a Web-based presentation maker. Like Google, Vyew, and others, Prezentit lets you build, and work on a presentation with several collaborators at once, all in your browser. You can send out the finished product as a URL, or even download it in the form of an HTML file that will run on any computer with a browser installed. These are handy features, but how does it stack up on features? The answer, unfortunately, is not well.

As far as presentation makers go, Prezentit is pretty bare-bones. You can only add text and images, and there are no slide templates like you'll find on PowerPoint. To add content, you can upload image files from your hard drive, which get stored in a free storage locker that holds up to 250MB. There's also a gallery of background art, although you're limited to less than 20 sample shots. Unfortunately, there's also no way to upload a PowerPoint file and have it convert to the editor, which is where these services can be incredibly useful, especially for creating a highly searchable index.

So what sets Prezentit apart from the pack? Despite its lack of features, its interface is wonderfully easy to use. If you're familiar with Microsoft Office 2007's "Ribbon" UI, the idea isn't too far off. There's also a slew of genuinely good-looking transitions, many of which are smooth, and low on the cheese factor (read: there are no glitter graphics or explosions.) While there's no built-in chat client, there are hosting pages for each presentation that double as a place to let others add their two cents about what could be better. The service is also adding an "explore" section soon for publicly shared presentations.

I wouldn't recommend using Prezentit over some of the other Web-based presentations out there simply due to a dearth of features I think are pretty essential to a good presentation app, but the service is young, and there's definitely room for growth. We've got more screenshots after the break.

Put together simple, good-looking presentations with PreZentit. You can even upload your own images, although file sizes are capped off at 1MB a pop.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Octopz (pronounced 'Octopus') is a Web-based, online collaboration tool for small groups. It's one of the many companies presenting at next week's Web 2.0 Expo here in San Francisco, and is making its public launch on Monday.

Octopz runs in its own browser window and uses Adobe Flash to mix a whiteboard space with live text, voice, and video chat. The workspace has an area to upload and share files with other group members. Each uploaded file gets its own folder, which houses any edits made by group members. For example, if you're making notes on a digital photograph, other members can create a copy of that photo and add their own notes. Each version is neatly stacked underneath the original. All group edits are saved and stored, and can be shared and edited later for asynchronous collaboration.

Things get a little tricky with Octopz's multiuser controls. Anyone can grab control of the workspace at any time, which in testing led to some minor power struggles. There's also not a way to keep track of which group member made which edits, either with a history or differentiating colors per each user. Despite these issues, Octopz handled a four-person conference from three different geographical locations smoothly.

Where Octopz excels is its simplicity. It's incredibly easy to pick up and use. It reminds me a lot of Acrobat Connect, a product Adobe launched in January, although sans screen sharing.

Octopz comes in at $99 per month per license, which is twice the cost of the standard version of Adobe Connect. However unlike Acrobat Connect, Octopz lets businesses create an unlimited amount of rooms and users, something you don't even get with Adobe's professional level of Acrobat Connect service.

See also: Vyew, Conceptshare, and Webex for Web-based collaborative tools.

Update: Fixed pricing clarification regarding comparison to Acrobat Connect. Also, Octopz was picked as one of our Top 5 favorites from the Web 2.0 Expo earlier this month.

You can add stickies to the canvas, and mark up the page with a drawing tool.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

For more screenshots of Octopz in action, keep reading.

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Fax machines, couriers, and e-mail are old news. Today's reviewing and meeting apps use the Web to share desktops, photos, and live video.

ConceptShare is a neat reviewing tool. We have reviewed ConceptShare before. VH1 used the professional version of this tool to redesign its Web site. ConceptShare's demo was really slick, showing the crowd a step-by-step brainstorming session on a design for a business card. ConceptShare focuses on asynchronous communication, meaning users note suggestions and changes without the need to have people in the room. It's almost like passing around a story among copy editors. It's less of a net meeting, and more of a sharable whiteboard for documents and media.

SlideAware is a PowerPoint add-in that lets you publish and share PowerPoint presentations via an Office add-in. Once you've clicked the Publish button in PowerPoint, you have the option to control how people can use your presentation, either by limiting how long it will be hosted, or how many times the presentation can be viewed. Think of it like DRM for your presentation. There's also a drag-and-drop interface to customize the order of your slides, depending on who is viewing it. To follow suit with the group theme of these presentations, SlideAware also has online collaboration to create and manage shared presentations with others. We'll have a hands-on look at this soon.

Spresent is a Flash-based presentation creator that comes in both browser and desktop flavors. We got our hands on Spresent in December, and today it's releasing its third version. It uses vector graphics for text and clip art, meaning you can zoom and scale presentations as needed without a reduction in quality. It's marketed as "High Definition" and as a presentation tool for mobile devices.

Vyew is a synchronous and asynchronous collaboration and conferencing product. Presenter Christopher Peri took a bold move and invited Under the Radar attendees to join his live Vyew presentation to show off the product. It was also a brilliant move as nearly everyone who joined had a hands-on demo right in front of them. Peri also showed that Vyew presentations can be embedded in various places like Netvibes and MySpace, something that in all honesty seems like more of a gimmick and less of a needed feature for a presentation tool. Check out our previous coverage of Vyew..

Zoho, makers of more than a dozen office and productivity tools, have announced a new meeting app called Zoho Meeting. It's currently in private beta and will be available to all Zoho users next month.

Zoho Meeting is screen-sharing without the need to install an application, as we've seen with Vyew, Yugma, and others. It also integrates Zoho Chat, allowing participants to talk without the need for a separate phone solution, although an integrated VoIP solution is said to be coming soon. What may be the standout feature is the ability to record, save, and share meetings for free. This opens up a wide range of uses for the tool, especially in the field of education and training tools for small groups. Just because somebody can't make the meeting doesn't mean they have to miss it or spend time having it relayed, wasting someone else's time.

Zoho meeting has integration with other Zoho apps. In particular, Zoho Show (previous coverage) has added a new type of slide that automatically launches a Zoho Meeting within the presentation. There's no need to open a separate window, it just starts up. Likewise, users will be able to embed their Zoho meetings on blogs and Web sites, which can be handy if you intend on creating Web archives of meeting notes or demonstrations. There's a whole lot of potential here.

Zoho will be one of the many presenters at tomorrow's Under the Radar Office 2.0 event. Stay tuned for a hands-on and live coverage. In the meantime, Zoho has put together a three-minute overview, which I've embedded below.

Earlier this week we checked out Buddy Shopping, a collaborative Web browsing tool for shoppers. And today we got word of Yugma, a more general-purpose screen-sharing product. Best of all, it's free and cross-platform. Yugma runs in Java and acts almost like an app outside of the browser.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

In Yugma, drivers and passengers can trade place at will--you can swap which desktop is in view. There also are some basic drawing tools, so you can doodle on the screen. (But for serious design review work, you might want a specialized tool like ConceptShare)

Like other screen-sharing and presentation products, Yugma sets up a meeting room of sorts, with a chat box. The messaging isn't quite instant, as there's a second or so delay. Considering how much information is being exchanged, this is acceptable, but the delay could increase with additional users.

Yugma has four different tiers of service, with the free version still being pretty generous at 10 attendees. The paid versions add access for more users at once and business-centric options like networked storage, scheduling, and keyboard and mouse sharing for attendees. Yugma may work as a voice conference tool in the future, although in the current version this function is disabled. The developers apparently are "revamping" voice conferencing, but Skype and Google Talk (or the phone) can still be used in the background.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The one thing we like about this service is the Widget creation tool. You can create about a dozen various buttons to insert into e-mails, Web pages or e-mail signatures. Clicking it will take you to the user-specific conference joining page. This is much easier than sending people to a URL or having to give them log-in instructions.

There are many similar Web conferencing options out there (see Vyew and Unyte), but Yugma offers several levels of service for business users, and Widgets to simplify the joining process. The user interface and the desktop "swap" tool both are implemented very well. You know it's a good app when you don't need to think about how to use it, and Yugma does just that.