My son is working on a Ph.D. program at Harvard. He says Powerpoint is “soooo nineties” now. :-) “Everybody is moving to Prezi.com,” he says. Now first of all, please remember: He’s like 25 or so. Your mileage might vary. But the truth is, it IS a compelling solution for doing a presentation. Allow some time though. It’ll take you a while to understand how much cooler it is than your favorite presenter software.
The price? It’s free. You can pay a small fee to get some premium features. But you don’t have to.
ALCON,
I went to the Prezi site and reviewed the tutorials. I was impressed with the software and the capabilities. Awesome product!
My primary concern with the product relates to security. If an end user prefers the free version, their Prezi Presentations remain public. In order to maintain a level of privacy, the end user will need to purchase mid-level or Pro.
For my friends working in restricted access areas, be aware of this security issue.
All the best,
Dr. B
As a PP presenter who also attends events where PR is used, I must disagree. Talks done with PR leave me confused and the retention rate low. If it is done really badly, I’ve heard people say it leaves them feeling sea sick. It is very hard to follow the logic and flow. Also, if I wanted to, it is not that hard to emulate PR style with PP. Hoping that speakers who use PR, will get better and make it really work for them. Retention of well prepared content by the audience should be the focus, not the wow factor.
I’ve had students who used Prezi, to great effect. Like PPT, a lot depends on whether (or not) one uses the various “features” both sparingly and only where needed to contribute to the message.
Where we’ve had difficulty with Prezi … lack of immediate share-ability. I can present a PPT, then hand it off to someone right away. Prezi does not (yet) have this ease-of-use.