Google presents …

With nary a fanfare (as far as noticed, at least) Google have added another string to their online office’s bow. Presenter. Some of you will have – no doubt – heard of, or even been using Google Docs for creating share-able documents and spreadsheets. If not, have a play – think of the options as an online version of “word-lite” and “Excel-lite”.

I’ve had only the briefest of plays with the presenter software – and you can see my prototype presentation here – I’ll make it prettier when I’ve got more time but it’s enough for you to get the idea, I hope.

So what’s it like? Well, to be fair, this isn’t technology to set the world on fire but it’s never-the-less got pretty much everything you’d need to write yourself a (basic) presentation.

You can change font and insert images in an obvious and intuitive way and – as is obvious because you can read it – you can publish online. And that’s where I think it’s going to have its main use: if you’re thinking of using it to use in the same way as you’d use PowerPoint, OpenOffice or Keynote you’ll find it not as fully featured. (There’s also the risk that your net connection will go down when you’re presentation is on! Murphy’s Law should never be underestimated. :) )

This “simplicity” is it’s basic weakness, because as soon as you start to use this program for creating something online, it isn’t long before you realise that you can get all the sophisticated transitions and animations of PowerPoint online, simply by creating a PowerPoint deck, exporting it and uploading the resulting file to your website.

Google is also (AFAIK) unable to cope with sound – and if you’re going to create something online these days that might be a critical weakness: it depends on what you’re after, I suppose.

Does Google’s offer have any advantages then? Sure. The interface is more friendly than PowerPoint – or at least more intuitive for me. It’s also free – a big plus. And of course there’s the added advantage that because you can’t do flashy things with it, you can’t be tempted to waste your time and your audience’s attention by trying to do flashy things! :) Self discipline imposed from the outside… Sharing also looks pretty simple and effective.
It’s certainly something I’m going to keep an eye on with a view to using when I’m away from my office PC at the very least. Perhaps a more common use will eventually turn out to be for giving online presentations, with this as a way of showing slides while the presenter does the verbal stuff.