After a long time coming (long in terms of our internet era time) Google has finally launched the third piece in their online office suite: Google Presentations (or Presently as some people are calling it), a presentation product that targets the needs of the audience using Microsoft’s PowerPoint.
Presentations can be imported from existing files or created using the new slide editor. They can be edited, shared, and published using the familiar Google Docs interface, with several collaborators working on a slide deck simultaneously, in real time.
When presenting the slides, participants can simply click a link to follow along as the presenter takes the audience through the slideshow. Participants are also connected through Google Talk and can chat about the presentation as they’re watching, which I found to be a really cool feature.
Personally, I really like its simplicity. It is a stripped down version of a presentations product with only the essential features needed to put together a number of slides, organize your content and then present it; and that’s exactly what I need for my presentations.
All the additional bells and whistles that PowerPoint has, I rarely ever use.
Will this take the place of Microsoft PowerPoint? I don’t know really, maybe not right now, and maybe never for power users, but for people who are connected most of the time they’re at a computer and who need simple basic essential features, I think this is a great option.
Check it out at Google Docs.
Sounds interesting. I don’t really love Powerpoint although I use it often (just because there is no other choice). It’s good to have choice 🙂