Monday, January 25, 2010

Prezi Improves Freestyle Presentations with Simpler Editing, YouTube Integration [Webapps]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/C0ZPqK__O3w/prezi-improves-freestyle-presentations-with-simpler-editing-youtube-integration

Prezi, the previously featured online editing tool that lets you make zooming, free-flowing presentations, has simplified its editing tool, improved its presentation controls, and made YouTube embedding much more simple in its latest release.

Prezi is the antithesis of the slide-to-slide PowerPoint style. Your presentations are mocked up on a large canvas, with bits of text, images, charts, and now videos embedded where you want them, and connected where it makes sense. You can set up a "path" to run through when giving a presentation, creating a kind of Disney-like rail ride through your points, but the real value comes when your audience has a question—zooming back to a point and expanding on it is easy and intuitive, and connecting two points doesn't require a slide hunt.

You can check out a demonstration Prezi below, embedded from the webapp's site:

As when it launched, Prezi's basic online editor and offline presentations (on Windows and Mac systems) are free, but removing the Prezi watermark, keeping your Prezi presentations private, and upgrading your storage require a paid plan. If you've used Prezi for a presentation, or like a similar non-linear tool, tell us about it in the comments—and feel free to show off your work by linking it.