Slideshare and Slidecasting

I've been using slideshare.net for about 3 months and have even been communicating by email with one of the founders - Rashmi Sinha. To friends, I've always described Slideshare as sort of YouTube for powerpoint. Here's how it works - you upload a presentation either powerpoint, openoffice or PDF - basically any format you might be using. As part of the upload you give the presentation a title, tags, description and have an option to allow or disallow downloads. Don't upload anything private - slideshare is completely public - anyone can see your slides. Once uploaded, you or anyone else can view the slides in a small inset viewer or in fullscreen mode. Users/viewers can (1) share the slideshow, (2) digg the slideshow (social news site digg.com), (3) subscribe to a user, (4) favorite with tags, and (5) comment. Here are a couple examples; one I've favorited and another I uploaded from the Enterprise 2.0 conference.

Flag as inappropriate

Select your reason for flagging this slideshow as inappropriate.

If needed, use the feedback form to let us know more details.

None Pornographic Copyright Violation Defamatory Illegal/Unlawful Other Terms Of Service Violation '));" type="submit">" style="display: none;" align="center">

Save to favorites

fuzzy tail (x) edit

Save to favorites

Enter tags (optional). Separate tags by spaces. Put multi-word tags within quotes, e.g., "palo alto"

Edit your favorites

While I really like this service and see great uses and potential for it, I understand why it has not become as popular as YouTube. Video is the current killer app! You can say and do so much with video - powerpoint or slideshows just don't get kids revved up. But ... what if you could add audio to the slides? Well - now you can! Slideshare has just launched a new feature called slidecasting. Here's how slidecasting works - upload your presentation, upload an mp3 audio file to a separate hosting service, link the two by adding the audio url to the slideshow, synchronize slides and audio, and finally save and publish. Here's a demo, some examples and an embedded example below.

Visit slideshare.net and search for some presentations and slidecasts that you like or find interesting and send them to at mqaissaunee@gmail.com.