Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com

Google updated their Applications suite today with the addition of Google Presentation. It was added to all of docs.google.com including Google Apps For Your Domain, which is what I use for the family's docs.

It's good to know it's there if I might need it, but I'd probably just use Notepad if I needed to present in a pinch.

Cool Things

• It initially LOOKS just like PowerPoint!
• You can start a presentation then give folks a URL and they can join up and watch like this: View Presentation.
• You can chat about the presentation being watched.
• Great Revisions support - many copies are saved all the time, so you'll never lose anything.
• Upload a PPT
• Save as a ZIP file! They'll create a "self-contained" ZIP with a single HTML file and the assets you need to run the presentation using any browser, also Eric Meyer's S5, except with less-pretty auto-generated markup.

Meh Things

• Can't link to pictures online, have to upload. It would be been cool to allow links to Flickr or Google Photos but that would mess up the whole "self contained" offline story.
• No spellcheck?
• No animations, shapes, auto-layouts, wizards, etc.
• No line spacing? Makes bulleted lists look odd and hard to lay out.
• Does as little as it can without actually being Notepad.exe
• It's cool, to be clear, but it's ultra-basic. If you're interested in a PowerPoint-like experience on the web, I'd either use PowerPoint's Save As Html feature (maybe you bought a $60 copy of Office! Insane!) or take a good look at Eric Meyer's S5 XHTML Presentation System (sample).
• JavaScript errors and other rough spots, particularly when trying to add Hyperlinks to Images.
• You can upload PPT, but you can't Save As PPT.

It's a nice addition to Google Docs, but the flagship product is still Google Spreadsheets, in my opinion.