Tool experience: SlideShare

When thinking about the forthcoming group presentation at the seminar, I became curious about the presentation programs and decided to take a closer look at SlideShare.

SlideShare is a slide hosting service: it allow users to upload, view, comment, and share slideshows created with presentation programs.

When visiting the site you are welcomed with a short description of SlideShare's abilities: 'Upload and share your PowerPoint & Keynote presentations, Word &PDF documents on SlideShare. Add audio to make a webinar. Capture leads with your presentations.' So SlideShare does not simply enable users to upload slides, it supports also other formats (including OpenOffice - a great advantage in my view). Additionally, users can add audio to their presentations, embed YouTube Videos inside presentations and make use of event functionality to send conference invites, etc.

SlideShare enables 100 MB per presentation, and this is useful when making an extensive presentation with many pictures. Documents can be made public, remain private or can be accessible only to those, who the author identifies as friends : when registration is completed, user is asked if he would like to import friends from existing email addresses, so SlideShare is obviously intended to works also as a social networking site.

After uploading a presentation to this slide hosting service, I had to to wait a while in order for the presentation to load completely. Then I could take a look at my presentation and the first thing I noticed was, that the site looks a lot like YouTube: the presentation on the left and on the right user information and presentation description. Beneath, thiere is a 'related presentations' section and under the presentation part are links to different social networking sites, blog platforms, etc. and a 'comment' section. I like the fact that a HTML code, which allows embedding it to a web site or blog, is available and situated in a visible spot.

Presentations are easy to manage and the site itself is easy to use. SlideShare users can also join groups by interests and debate about any subject they are interested in.

I like this tool, because it is user-friendly and really easy to use, there is no need for tutorials on the basic operations, but I intend to look deeper into its functions. Unfortunately, I can't make any comparisons yet, since this is the only slide hosting service I ever tried.

Well, here is the the result of my 'curiosity': (please note that this presentation of collaborative project is still in progress so this is a working version of my part only)

Collaborative Project - my part of presentation

View more presentations from potrpljenje.

iPad. vs. publishing, pt. 3

Just a short update this week: iPad's revolution of publishing newspapers is just around the corner! The New York Times will begin publishing daily on the iPad, offering readers around the world immediate access to most of the daily newspaper’s contents.

Techcrunch reports:

The New York Times on the iPad, as the electronic publication is known, contains most of the news and feature articles from the current day’s printed newspaper, classified advertising, reporting that does not appear in the newspaper, and interactive features including the newspaper’s crossword puzzle.

The iPad App is part of a strategy to extend the readership of The Times and to create opportunities for the company in the electronic media industry, said Martin Nisenholtz, president of The New York Times Electronic Media Company.

And how much does reading the Times on iPad cost?

Mr. Nisenholtz, publisher of The Times, said that initially, at least, no subscription or access fee would be charged for readers in the United States and that the iPad App would generate revenue from advertising. Readers who connect to the iPad App from outside the country will be offered a 30-day trial without charge, but will eventually face a subscription fee.

So reading newspapers using iPads could make the benefit mutual: newspapers get readership and readers get to read newspapers on iPads whenever and wherever they want to.

iPad. vs. publishing, pt. 2

Since iPad was just released, I decided to stick to this theme. Many (more or less) professionals are still wondering and trying to foresee iPad's impact on media production and consumption, but for now, we can only observe and discuss comments, published by early adopters. Ipad obviously has the potential to notably affect publishing industry, therefore, this week I will focus on potential changes iPad is about to bring to self-publishers and bloggers.

In his post, Paul Weinstein states:

that DigitalBeat Smashwords, a site that enables authors to publish their own eBooks, recently notified its authors via email that it has signed a distribution deal with Apple which allows writers to offer their works for sale to iPad owners. Smashwords already publishes eBooks for independent authors in nine formats and can distribute to a number of sites including Barnes & Noble and Kobo. So inking a publishing deal with Apple certainly makes sense and no doubt signals the beginning of numerous other independent and self-publishing services targeting the iPad's iBookstore.

Meanwhile, for bloggers and readers of various news feeds, Glasshouse Apps has developed what the Next Web called a “Gorgeous iPad RSS Reader.” The application, called The Early Edition, arranges stories on the screen just like newspaper, but allows the user to customize which news sources to pull from and where to place individual stories.

So Apple will take care of blog-loving customers, as well as those, who like to read books by independent authors. Since iBookstore enables users to buy books, but not for less than 10$, the price will surely affect the amount of books people will buy and especially affect the self-publishers, since iPad owners will be in position to decide what is worth publishing and how much it's worth. On the other hand, cosumers/ iPad owners will be able to store and access all their favorite books and other forms of media content in a small, user-friendly portable device.

Could this evolutions of publishing industry in turn affect the content of the medium? Could this mean that McLuhan was right, saying that “the medium is the message”?

In my opinion, iPad will affect the production and consumption processes, but I doubt that it could considerably affect the content, because the content of the message is in large part dependent on consumers' themselves, their interpretations, social contexts etc.

What do you think?

photo: www.apple.com