SlideRocket: Finally, Mac-quality Animations in Windows?

March 24, 2008

OK, time to lay down some cold, hard truth. Anyone who has used both Apple Keynote and Microsoft PowerPoint for presentation work knows that Keynote absolutely, positively kicks PowerPoint’s trash to the curb when it comes to the quality of its visuals. Yes, PowerPoint has more widgets, gizmos, gadgets, and doodads, yet it still manages to pump out content that looks, well, sorta primitive. You’d think after all these versions of PowerPoint that Microsoft would finally figure it out. And I had high hopes for PowerPoint 2007. Apple had blazed a shiny trail with Keynote – surely Microsoft would, um, “pull a Microsoft” and duplicate it, right?

Sadly, I was doomed to disappointment.

Yes, there are some nice new features in PP 2007. Great features, even (layer management is a true blessing). Unfortunately, the “ribbon” interface continues to befuddle me. But ultimately, PowerPoint still doesn’t come close to Keynote in what really matters: its output.

Enter the new Web-based presentation builder, SlideRocket. SlideRocket is built upon Adobe’s AIR foundation and promises Keynote-quality slides and animations from a browser-based development tool.

So while creating online presentations isn’t necessarily of much interest to many eLearning developers (and to those who wail “Bah, PowerPoint isn’t eLearning!” I have a few words for you in a future post), imagine being able to snag some of these beautiful Flash-based animations, created quickly and easily without Flash skills via a Web-based tool, and insert them into your eLearning course via your development app of choice. Yes, it sounds delicious to me too.

My development app of choice, as I’ve mentioned before, is often Articulate Presenter (and Engage). Now, Presenter is limited in the number (and quality) of PowerPoint animations it can replicate in Flash. A limitation I had always attributed to Flash, not Presenter. In fact, despite my secret prayers for an OS X version of Presenter for Keynote (hey, a guy can dream), I always assumed Flash to be the weakest link, simply not able to allow Keynote-quality animations. However, seeing what SlideRocket is doing with Flash is truly impressive. My blame may have been misdirected. Or, to be completely fair, I should just say “the times, they are a changing.”

If PowerPoint + Articulate can’t give me the beautiful visuals I strive for, perhaps SlideRocket + Articulate can. And ultimately, what’s stopping a Web-based app like SlideRocket from eventually becoming an Articulate alternative? Why, nothing at all!

Maybe I can’t run Articulate stuff natively in OS X with Keynote-quality visuals. Not now. Probably not ever. But will a Web-based tool like SlideRocket someday give me that ability? Again, a guy can dream.

In the meantime, it’s Windows XP (Ack!) running PowerPoint (Ugh!) and Articulate via virtualization using VMware Fusion on my Mac. A kludgy and annoying solution. Visually less than refined. And hopefully not forever.

So check out SlideRocket. And perhaps even sign up for the public beta if you’re feeling like a trailblazer.

Sidenote: to the cynics who said Web-based apps would never equal desktop apps, prepare to eat much crow over the next few years.

Posted in Presentations, eLearning Design, eLearning Development Tools