Web and Document 2.0: the future of document sharing ?
Web 2.0 brings a lot of affordances for sharing documents with other readers - not only documents that are created online via specialised tools (Googledocs is one of the best known example), but also native Office documents such as Powerpoint documents and others that you have created offline and want to share – just like a Youtube video. This allows you to share your documents with the widest community (all web users) with all of the typical 2.0 features: reviews, recommendations, etc…
Digital Inspiration writes a very good comparison of a number of Powerpoint hosting options: Slideshare, Scribd, SlideAware, Splashcast and Zoho Show all let you upload Powerpoint presentations and embed them in Web pages. The article gives good recommendations as to which one to use depending on your requirements.
Others are not mentioned, such as ThinkFree Docs, Authorstream (I am probably missing a few others as this field is evolving constantly). Other mainstream document formats are also supported, e.g. by Scribd’s iPaper, SplashCast, and probably many others, which can embed PDF, words, or even mp3.
The real question is - will this particular model of free/universal document sharing catch up ?
I have my doubts. Those types of documents are usually not generic enough to be of general interest and aimed towards mass distribution. Powerpoint and other Office documents are aimed with a specific purpose and audience in mind. Compared to pictures and videos, web pages, or blogs, documents are much more complex, focused, and targeted in my view, which make them less compelling to a vast community than a more elementary picture, blog entry, or video.
Plus these types of documents are often by nature intended for a more restricted distribution – one major step forward could be to add permissions and access control – but that is not really in line with the Web 2.0 spirit. And, because of their complexity, they are best delivered with a talk track (which is not conveyed in those tools).
I’ve personally used Slideshare and Scribd for almost a year now and have to admit that except for a few exceptions, the content is not universal and is difficult to find.
Hi Francois,
I’d like to point out that we are in the process of getting ready to release our next generation functionality, which addresses a lot of your questions. In particular we have videos that show off the ease of creating a presentation with a talk track directly from a browser.
Take a look at http://www.slideaware.com/features.html , especially the rich media content example.
Vijay
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