In May, I wrote about Present.me, a cloud-based tool that lets you create audio-visual presentations combining a slide deck with a video you record to make an online presentation that your community can watch on demand, any time.
As the creators say, think of Slideshare meets YouTube.
Finally I found a moment to actually use it: I’ve created a video presentation of “The Big Online Picture,” the presentation I gave to a meeting of South West Corporate Communicators in Bath on June 25. Take a look:
http://present.me/view/18051-the-big-online-picture
(If you don’t see the video embedded above, see it at Present.me)
While there are other tools you can use to create such combinations of talking-to-webcam video and a PowerPoint deck – Camtasia Studio comes readily to mind – I find Present.me the easiest one I’ve used so far. Plus it’s entirely browser-based, with nothing to install or set up on your own computer; it’s very easily sharable via the social web, and you can make it available to anyone for embedding and their own subsequent sharing if you wish to.
If you use WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, you can install plugins that make embedding your Present.me video a breeze. I’ve used the WordPress one here. There is also a Present.me app for the iPad so you can view your presentations when mobile; the creators say versions for iPhone and Android are coming soon.
One thing I’d like to see improved is video quality – it’s pretty low resolution with some pixelation as you can see from this video. It would be good if you could produce video in higher definition: maybe there is a way to do that but I couldn’t find an option on Present.me’s website nor reference to video quality in the help system or knowledge base.
Still, I plan to use this tool more for public presentations I give – useful content, I hope, especially for anyone who wasn’t at an event but wants to get far more from a presentation session than only going through the deck on Slideshare.
I might even create Present.me versions of some recent presentations where only the decks are publicly available. Apart from anything else, I suspect it would be good to self-critique in public how and what I present to help me improve how and what I do.
Check out Present.me for yourself.
Seeing the presenter telling his or her story can be a pretty powerful experience.
And if you have any questions or comments about the SWCC video presentation, above, well, I’d love to hear your feedback.
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15 responses to “Presenting a video and slideshow mashup”
[http://t.co/vb7rb8dE] Presenting a video and slideshow mashup http://t.co/lemAoCqE
RT @jangles: Presenting a video and slideshow mashup http://t.co/AheekGiF
Presenting a video and slideshow mashup http://t.co/Rm0838c5
Presenting a video and slideshow mashup http://t.co/LLLHvq98
Hobson: Presenting a video and slideshow mashup: In May, I wrote about Present.me, a cloud-based tool that lets… http://t.co/d28ANxbp
Slideshare meets YouTube! @jangles leads the way http://t.co/AUFfJi1m innovative – must see
@sinclair300584 It went well thanks, @jangles is awesome: you can see the presentation on http://t.co/AUFfJi1m @lauraeduggan good to meet u
[…] Presenting a video and slideshow mashup In May, I wrote about Present.me, a cloud-based tool that lets you create audio-visual presentations combining a slide deck with a video you record to make an online presentation that your community … […]
Video / Slideshow mashup! http://t.co/cYQPDwgf #dpcontent
RT @dianarailton: Slideshare meets YouTube! @jangles leads the way http://t.co/AUFfJi1m innovative – must see
Presenting a video and slideshow mashup via @jangles http://t.co/2x3bBL8o
Hi Neville, thanks for showing off Present.me – and thanks for the positive comments too. You mentioned video quality as a concern – currently there is no way to improve video quality if you’re using the webcam recording option. We’ve kept it at a level whereby most people will have enough bandwidth to record, and that’s still a fairly low data rate, and so the recording quality suffers. For those that want high quality video, you can upload a pre-recorded video and sync it using the visual sync tool – so it’s a trade off between the speed & ease of the webcam recording option versus the quality and slightly longer process of using the upload option. Note to self that I need to explain this in our support pages! All the best, Spencer, CEO, Present.me
Thanks for that clear explanation, Spencer. Makes sense what you say re webcams. Look forward to reading more in the support pages ;)
@dianarailton @jangles @lauraeduggan great to hear! hopefully i can get along to meet you guys another time
Clever stuff: serves a clear purpose. Have signed up and will check out with interest. Thanks for the tip, Neville.