For too long, the typical process has long been:

1. Publisher prints the slides to PDF and posts a link to the file on their site.
2. User clicks large file for download.
3. User waits several minutes.
4. User opens PDF.
5. User struggles with their PDF viewer's lousy interface -- zooming in and out, scrolling left and right. Horror and profanity ensues.

Ten minutes later, the presentation is already gathering cobwebs -- its file abandoned in some dark, subterranean temporary directory deep within the user's hard disk -- never to be shared, forwarded nor commented upon again. PDFs are a terrible way to share slides. Not only are PDFs unfit for human consumption, but the files are clumsy to forward and difficult to reference. You can't refer someone to a specific slide. And no one would dare view the show twice. Repeating a presentation download is more painful than multiple viewings of "SAW IV."

Slideshare.net ends this horror. I've been playing with this one-year old service recently, and it really is a paradigm-changing service. TechCrunch neatly summed it up as "PowerPoint + YouTube."

Slideshare is not only wonderful, it will leave you wondering: Why did it take so long for someone one to create such a service?

Ease of use is strong. Slideshow authors create an account and then browse for a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation on their local disk. Once uploaded, Slideshare chews on the presentation for a few minutes and then produces an elegant Flash movie that can easily browsed. There's even a full screen mode. The "share" in the service name refers to the fact that the slides can be tagged, shared, and even embedded on other sites. So here I can embed a show from our recent Web Executive Seminar on Online Strategy:

| View | Upload your own

You can even link directly to a specific slide. So, for instance, I could be writing about Jon Platner's wonderful discussion of usability testing as a component of his data-driven strategy, and then link you directly to that exact slide in his presentation.

One limitation of presentation slides is that they are often difficult to follow without the presenter. Good presentations feature brief bullet points and do not attempt to tell the entire story right on the slide. Bad presentations are verbose and weigh down the slide with dense, tiny type. Good presentations follow Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30" Rule of PowerPoint: 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 point. The slides should not say what the speakers is about to say, but merely list the basic points. The presenter should know their material and voice the details.

While this approach makes for an effective live presentation, it can cause befuddlment when the slides stand alone. But wait, Slideshare solve this too. A recent new feature allows you to synchronize the audio using a really elegant audio editor that looks like this:

At this point in time, I know of no real competitor to this service. Although surely ones will emerge soon. They better hurry as there are rumors that Google will be adding a similar service to its suite of online Office-like software.

I've been searching for worthy competitors to Slideshare but haven't found much that impresses me. (Zoho Show offers similar functionality and is worth a closer look.)

There are a few major limitations from Slideshare. First, there's no way to password-protect a slide show. Managed access is important when sharing slides from private events or from within an intranet. Second, animations and transitions are not supported. This is particularly problematic when slides "build." If you plan to post to Slideshare, don't layer graphics and text on top of one another. Third, Slideshare is only audio right now. Ideally, you you would be able to add a synchronized video track. I realize this last one is a non-trival enhancement, but having video would truly make it "YouTube + PowerPoint." That said, the audio content of most presentations are often far more critical than the video of the speaker standing still at a podium.

Despite these limitations, Slideshare certainly offers nonprofit web managers a quick, elegant, and easy way to add valuable content to their web site. It's even fun. And best of all, the Slideshare.net site radically increases the reach of your slide show to hundreds and even thousands of additional viewers that would never find it if it were only posted to your site.