Death of PowerPoint? Slideshare and more Google Docs

I’ve been involved with a bit of head scratching and social media thinking recently, partly as research for this blog.

Following an unhealthy passion for Google Docs Spreadsheets (see the Travel Twitter list here) I’ve now discovered Slideshare, and Google Docs Presentations.

Slideshare is a website that allows you to upload PowerPoint, or other types, presentations for all to see.

I recently came across this one from Matt McAlister, from the Guardian, explaining the newspaper’s web strategy (below).

Now this absolutely fascinated me on two levels: First, the actual content. There are some really interesting nuggets of information, soundbites and quotes, in terms of how news is distrbuted.

Secondly, the fact that such a presentation is in the public domain. To me, that’s an example of real web 2.0 in action. Having access to such well-thought presentations is a real help, and this was just the first I’d come across on slideshare.net. There’s another Guardian one about its “Open Platform” allowing people access to its API, but I’m not quite ready for that yet.

Google Docs Presentations was also a great find for me last week – if you and several colleagues need to work on a presentation, simultaneously, then this is a great way to do it.

If you create a presentation, you then invite people by email to be collaborators.

So no saving things to a USB key, no software problems – it’s all online and looks fairly professional.

So not much travel stuff here, but thought I’d share a couple of things, that could make your working life a tad easier.