Product Review – Sliderocket Online Presentation Software

Not to put too fine a point on it, I LOVE Sliderocket. If you have occasion to develop Powerpoint (.ppt) presentations I highly recommend you check out this product. Developed in Adobe’s AIR runtime environment, it feels like a .ppt/flash mashup.

In my daily web and marketing development work I use Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash pretty regularly. Possibly because of this, I found the tools incredibly intuitive. There was zero learning curve. In less than three minutes I was creating. For a new user to instantly feel comfortable with a program, that is just plain fantastic UI design.

I have used .ppt a handful of times and always found it very limiting, especially when you get used to the magic of Flash. Sliderocket feels more like a cousin of Flash than of .ppt. Sliderocket offers an extensive library of cool transitions and effects. Fly-in, materialize, dissolves, shadows, all the eye-candy is built right in. Sliderocket allows you to add and define these features with a click. And it all looks gorgeous: crisp imagery, smooth type, clean transitions and animations.

There is a whole host of things you can do with this product; collaborate, hold meetings, integrate dynamic data, secure access to your presentations, view presentation on or offline, even track analytics of your presentations. Really, what did they NOT think of? You can import your old .ppts and update them if you are so inclined, though once you try Sliderocket you may have to ask yourself, why?? Sliderocket is a Rich Internet Application (RIA) which lives online, so there is nothing to buy to get started. You can upgrade to Sliderocket’s fee-based business and individual accounts to take advantage of their advanced business feature set: meetings, analytics, administration, etc.

I built my first Sliderocket presentation about a month ago and another one this week. They are continually making improvements to the product, which they can do seamlessly because it lives online! I noticed several improvements and new features, clearly based on customer feedback. Did I know they needed them? No. Did they make the product better? Yup.

At Vestor Logic, we currently create presentations for two reasons: for client pitches and for educational presentations about social media and branding. I haven’t yet tried half of what Sliderocket is capable of, but I am looking forward to it. So much so, that I am trying to come up with other things to do with Sliderocket. Good products inspire that kind of creative thinking.

What are you creating presentations for? Have you tried Sliderocket? Are you a .ppt pro unwilling to give it up? We want to hear from you.