Prezi vs. Slideshare

We all know that professional attire can boost your credibility. Similarly, presentation also builds stronger credibility. You may prefer to use applications like MS PowerPoint and OpenOffice during your presentations. But at the same time, you could consider some applications that are available to you on the web which may be fun, fresh, innovative, teach savvy and–most importantly–free! Two of the presentation tools that caught my eyes are Prezi and SlideShare. This article features both the pros and cons of using these two applications.

1. The common features or functionalities of BOTH software

Prezi

Traditional slide-based presentations are just that: Traditional. You could have fantastic visuals, but no matter how fancy (or austerely minimalistic) each slide is, it remains a slide. Prezi (various prices, starting at free) tries to change this by turning your presentation into a wide-open canvas on which you can draw your ideas spatially, and then presenting them by zooming and panning all over the canvas. Used well, the end result feels cinematic and engaging in a way traditional presentations rarely are.

• Prezi offers over 50 templates to get you started.

To get you started, Prezi shows a list of templates you could use. There are an ample number of templates, but there is no way to preview what a template looks like except by starting a project with it. If you start a project with a template and find out it doesn't work for you after all, you can switch over to a different template midway through, but you will have to adjust things to work in the new template.

• Prezi uses a canvas, but makes it easy to see how a presentation flows.

Prezi's canvas-based nature means that you create the presentation where you'll be showing it. If you want to zoom and pan somewhere when presenting, you'll have to zoom and pan while editing, so you instantly get a feel for what your audience will see. Instead of "slides," Prezi uses "path points": saved states for your presentation, where the viewport shows a portion of the canvas.

• It is easy to insert images using a built-in Google Images search, or from your local computer.

As you present, you move through a progression of these path points, with Prezi automatically animating things as needed. If a given path point covers a small area of the canvas, Prezi will smoothly zoom into it, revealing new details as needed. If the next path point is all the way across the canvas, Prezi will smoothly pan there.

• Prezi offers built-in diagrams.

I found Prezi easy and intuitive to work with, without much of a learning curve. When I had to insert an image, it let me search Google Images right from within Prezi, and I could tell it to only look for images that are okay to use commercially. You can also embed YouTube videos, as well as content from your local computer. A recent Prezi feature is the addition of sound: You can now upload sound clips to go along with your presentation, or even narrate the entire presentation so that it can stand on its own.

Slideshare

The SlideShare is also an online presentation tool. What makes it different from Prezi is that it has a community based hosting service. It started as a way to share and upload presentations online. It allows you to upload presentations online in PowerPoint format or Openoffice format. Next, it converts your uploaded file to Flash format. Finally, you can view your presentation in a small window or a full screen. Many people may think that SlideShare is simply just a presentation tool for businesses and the corporate World. Many people may have looked past it because of this but after expanding and branching out more and more, the possibilities of SlideShare are endless.

• Time Saving

Creating a presentation on SlideShare is simple and really takes no time at all. With a built-in image library and easy slide formatting tools, it take no time at all to create stunning visual presentations.

• Easily Accessible

With SlideShare being available to download on mobile and tablets, the ease of access is a big feature of SlideShare. With presentation software such as Microsoft Powerpoint users are expected to download several apps and go through a complex download procedure to view presentations with questionable ease. SlideShare presentations are much easier to download and you will have no problem sharing your presentations with others. 

• Multi-Media

If you've been mistakenly assuming that SlideShare is all about slides, it isn't entirely true. They remain the most common format used on the website but PDF's, videos and a number of other formats can be used on SlideShare to bring your presentations to life.  The ease in which multi-media can be added to the presentations is a huge plus point for SlideShare, it takes a matter of seconds to include a video or a PDF in your presentation.

2. The differences of both software

Prezi

• You do not have to make individual slides.
• Rather than moving from one slide to another, it zooms in and out. This adds effects to your presentation and makes it more fun to watch.
• Registering for an account is easy. It only requires you to choose a type of license from a list of given options. Once you have chosen a suitable license and registered, you get a notification in your email. Then, you are ready to use Prezi.
• Prezi offers a number of packages. Among them is the free package called the public licensewhich you can access online.
• It is ideal for anyone who wants to create a presentation without slides.

Slideshare

• Once your file has been converted to Flash, you will not lose any picture quality from the original file.
• You can embed your presentation in your blog or website once your presentation is uploaded.
• The community aspect allows users to add each other as friends. You can also restrict your selected viewers from viewing certain content of your presentation.
• It is not as advanced and overwhelming as Prezi. So, it is better than Prezi for beginners.
• It is free of service and has a single, easy to understand version.
• It is useful to people who have large presentations to store.

3. Which software do you prefer? Explain your reasons

Between these two presentation software, I would prefer to use Prezi compared to Slideshare. Prezi is a new Flash based online presentation tool from Zui Labs, which lets you create extra ordinary “zooming” presentations. I know, you probably started thinking that “How is a gigantic scientific poster is more interesting than a ordinary scientific poster?”.

I totally agree, scientific posters are usually boring if not horrible, but this is not the case for Prezi. With Prezi, your scientific poster becomes a magical space where you can zoom in and out as you want to focus a piece of information on it, and where you can organize the transitions between these information holders to create the flow of your presentation. Also, because your presentation has the feeling of deepness, thank to ability of zooming in and out, you can even create presentation that feels like they are three dimensional. Please click on the image above or check the video below to see a living example.  

Prezi lets you control everything either with the menu at the top left corner of your screen, which consists of a bunch of hierarchically connected circles in different sizes, or with keyboard shortcuts (i.e. pressing “b” chooses square frame, and CTRL+Z undoes your last action) while editing. When you click on the “Place” circle in the menu (or simply press “p”) and click on an object on your presentation, a circular zebra pattern appears on top of your object, which helps you to move, rotate or resize the object with your mouse. Again, please check the video below for the usage. 

While presenting, you can control jumps between zooming sections via menu at the right bottom of the screen or use your keyboard. You can also reach a timing menu if you click and hold the right arrow on the navigation menu, where you can choose between 2, 10 and 20 second intervals. Presentations you’ve created with Prezi are also ultimately portable. You can download and run your presentation as a flash projector executable on any computer running Windows or OSX, even presence of flash on that computer is not necessary! 

I’m using Prezi not for a long time, but liked it a lot. I have tried other online presentation tools, including Slideshare, Zoho and Slide Rocket. Prezi is far more creative and innovative than any other tool I’ve used, and I’m sure they’ll change everyone’s mind about other presentation tools when they decide to open their doors to the masses.

4. What do you learn from this assignment

Through out this assignment, i found it so interesting because there are a lot of presentation software that I just found out. Even though Prezi and Slideshare are the only presentation software that i used to know, i would love to use another presentation software such as Clearslide, Slide Dog, Powtoon and others. There are still a lot of presentation software that is more interesting and not yet discovered by me.