{"id":764,"date":"2010-06-09T09:14:07","date_gmt":"2010-06-09T09:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/?p=764"},"modified":"2010-06-09T22:10:19","modified_gmt":"2010-06-09T22:10:19","slug":"who-needs-powerpoint-try-prezi-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/06\/09\/who-needs-powerpoint-try-prezi-instead\/","title":{"rendered":"Who needs PowerPoint? Try Prezi instead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well to be honest I do\u2026 but thanks to Eileen Brown <\/a>I\u2019ve now discovered a pretty decent alternative in Prezi<\/a>.\u00a0 As part of my job I often have to put together presentations for various strategies or projects.\u00a0 I\u2019m always quite conscious that traditional built pointed PowerPoints<\/a> are liable to bore people to tears, so anything that can help liven things up a little has to be good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So what is Prezi then?\u00a0 Well it\u2019s an online presentation tool, but the difference is in how you build up those presentations and what they look like when played back.\u00a0 Rather than write a long (probably inadequate!) explanation they\u2019ve got a decent intro video:<\/p>\n

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<\/embed><\/object><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

So as you can see it\u2019s a bit different from the normal PowerPoint type app :)<\/p>\n

I guess the closest I\u2019ve seen has been Microsoft\u2019s Office Labs<\/a> pptPlex<\/a> which is a free add-in that provides similar functionality inside of Powerpoint.\u00a0\u00a0 Prezi is just more like a \u2018Deepzoom<\/a>\u2019 sort of experience \u2013 which is odd given Deepzoom is an MS technology.<\/p>\n

Having played with it a little today, I reckon Prezi is a good little tool.\u00a0 It makes it much easier to tell a story in your presentations, and hopefully keep people engaged in what you\u2019re saying.<\/p>\n

The ability to embed external media like images and videos is well implemented and very useful.\u00a0 Indeed, I\u2019ve not tried it but I think you can even embed normal slides from slide share \u2013 though I\u2019m not sure why you\u2019d want to!<\/p>\n

Prezi has three options for getting access to it.\u00a0 You can sign up for free, but you only get 100MB of storage and all your presentations are public and branded with a Prezi watermark.<\/p>\n

There are then two costed options, \u2018Enjoy\u2019 at $59 a year and \u2018Pro\u2019 at $159 a year.\u00a0 Both have the option to make presentations private, and have the watermark removed.\u00a0 \u2018Enjoy\u2019 has 500MB of storage, and \u2018Pro\u2019 2GB and a Desktop editor so you can create and view presentations offline.<\/p>\n

The free versions inability to save a presentation privately is \u2013 in my view \u2013 not very user friendly.\u00a0 I can see why they\u2019ve done it to drive sales of the costed options, but even so you\u2019d have to careful what you post up, especially if they\u2019re work\/business presentations.<\/p>\n

Personally I feel that the costed options are a little too expensive.\u00a0 As good as it is, I\u2019m not sure that it\u2019s worth that much or that the offline app would be worth a $100 premium.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a balance really of whether you feel that the impact Prezi can potentially give your presentations is worth the cost.\u00a0 I think it has real potential, but there are a few niggles that it would be worth them looking at.<\/p>\n