What’s Hot.
It’s free; Presentation sharing capabilities; Very user friendly
What’s Not.
Site design could look more professional; Tags are poorly organized
The bottom line.
SlideSix provides much relief to those who frequently share presentations with others. The site makes it easy to upload all types of presentation files so that users can share everything from business plans to baby photos.
When I read the first line of SlideSix’s introduction, “Welcome to the greatest free presentation sharing community in the world,” I was skeptical. I thought, “Are you really that great, SlideSix, or are you just the only free presentation sharing community around?” In short, what Flickr did for photos and YouTube for videos, SlideSix has done for presentations. I’d say that’s pretty great.
SlideSix is a cross between a social network and a presentation library that is suited for personal and business use. If you have ever tried to email a presentation, you will certainly recognize what a wonderful gift SlideSix is. Members can upload PPT/PPS, PDF, ODP/SXI and MOV files to share publicly or with selected people. Whether you are interested in using the site for distance learning initiatives, product demos, technical presentations or personal photo album sharing, SlideSix allows you to do it easily.
Just think – instead of having to spend an evening at your neighbor’s house to experience another tedious slideshow about his latest “vacation” to the cornfields of Iowa, you can tell him to upload it (complete with narration) to SlideSix so that you can view, or not view, his photos from your own couch.
To see just how wonderful this SlideSix world was, I uploaded a ridiculous presentation. As promised, uploading a file was incredibly easy. Instantly, my presentation was online for me, and the rest of the world, to see. Oops – I should have guessed that it would be shared publicly since I didn’t register for an account. Note: should you post an inane presentation with your name on the cover slide, you will need to register for an account to delete it.
Once uploaded, my presentation opened automatically in my SlideSix library, which, among other things, provides a transcript field where you can add notes for each slide. When viewing a presentation, you can play the slideshow or flip through slides manually. Every presentation receives an embed code and a link so that users can put it on a web site or send it to others. Perhaps most helpful for businesses is the ability to create groups, which allows you to share a file with your colleagues easily.
If you’re looking for a particular presentation, you can search by keywords, groups or users from the library. Just like YouTube, members can leave comments or tag their presentations, although the tags would be more helpful if SlideSix organized them more read-able fashion.
Within SlideSix’s Management Console, users can embed their own audio and video and YouTube and Vimeo videos directly into presentations. Additionally, SlideSix includes features you would expect from a social networking site, like user profiles and bookmarks for just about every social site imaginable.
Since the site is relatively new, bug fixes and upgrades are ongoing, but SlideSix is impressive, especially considering that it’s run by a self-funded one-man-show. The site is a perfect forum for experimenting with your presentation sharing skills and your colleagues’ willingness to absorb such information online.
