Crunchies '09: Vote for Prezi!

We have decided to nominate for the Best Internet Application category at this year's Crunchies Awards and we need your support!

Please vote for Prezi on the Crunchies website or just click the badge below!

You have more than one chance to send Prezi to the Crunchies hall of fame: competition rules let you click our badge once every day till December 4th 2009 at Midnight PST.

Vote and share!


Once you have nominated Prezi in the Best Internet Application category, you are able to share your nominations through Twitter and Facebook, or you can embed the badge yourslef or link to the nomination.

Your votes help Prezi to receive more attention, which helps us to make the tool even better. So please spread the word!

Crunchies is an annual competition and award ceremony created by TechCrunch the globe's most important technology blog, to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year. Winning here is a really big deal, and the decision is partly based on

How to Make a Good Prezi - For a Corporate Website

Prezi is more than a zooming, slideless presentation tool that lets you deliver stunning visuals from the stage. Many authors use Prezi for education purposes or to create embeddable web contents. Nevertheless, there is another ever growing field of prezi use that we want to focus on today. More and more companies decide to advertise their services, or introduce their products on their websites using Prezi.

Creating such a content means even more fun with Prezi. There are companies who embed prezis on their front page like online telephony firm 3Jam, and others who create a video version to tell their stories. Oakland based software company Skytide sells online business solutions and now describes them with a prezi creencast. "We wanted to provide an interesting overview that they could watch in just a few minutes" - says Partick Hurley, VP of Marketing, who have kindly answered our questions about hows and whys.

What is the prezi is about? what story does it tell?

We wanted to create a very short, pithy video that quickly conveyed the benefits of our latest product, Skytide Insight for Flash Video Players.

Why have you decided to use Prezi on your website advertising your service?


Prospective customers often don't want to wade through a lot of web pages or marketing materials, so we wanted to provide an interesting overview that they could watch in just a few minutes.  And since our customers are executives that work in the digital media industry, we thought it was apropos to showcase what we do in video form.

How do you think Prezi helps your possible clients understand your points and goals?


Eyes often glaze over when you begin a Powerpoint presentation.  Prezi allows us to presenting a far more arresting, attention-holding way.
 

Why do you think Prezi can be a good medium to embed content to your site?


For one, it is unexpected.  When you see a good Prezi for the first time, it blows you away. It's also easy to do so that small and medium-sized businesses can do it with ease.


What were the most attractive Prezi features when you first tried it?


The ability to create a sense of movement and scale, especially through the zooming function.  It allows me to use text as a powerful graphical element.


What are your benefits using Prezi?


I like the flexibility and visual dynamism of Prezi.  I don't feel hemmed in like I do with Powerpoint.  Prezi is more free form and allows me more control of the narrative in the story that my colleagues and I tell.

How much time did it take to create the final video?


It probably took me a dozen hours but..... that was because I was just learning how to use Prezi, was scouting for stock photos and music, reviewing the early drafts with my colleagues, et al.  I expect that my next one will take me just a few hours.


How did you make/embed it, what tools did you use?


•    First I created the prezi
•    I then used Camtasia screen recording software to capture the presentation.  I didn't use the auto-presentation option because there were some areas of the prezi that I want to skip through quickly and others that I wanted to linger on.
•    I added stock music to Camtasia and outputted the final video as both a Quicktime file and as HTML to embed on our site.  I then provided it to my web designer to embed on the site.
•    I also uploaded it to many video sharing sites.

Prezi Video Introduction by Technology for Learners and Teachers

We have just found a very cool video introduction of Prezi on BlipTV. The show is a part of a showcase for websites and other technology that aid the learning and teaching process. It's made by a group of instructional designers, the series called: Technology for Learners and Teachers (T4LT). The two hosts, Emily and Allen work at the Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, IA. In their series of videos they share examples of how to use tech tools for teaching and learning.

The review is thoughtfully edited and fun to watch. It does much more than just introducing the tool. T4LT team also shows Prezi's advantages against slide-by-slide presentation tools.

This is awesome, thanks guys!

How to create better presentations with Prezi in 3 steps

This screencast shows the method of creating a nice prezi about baking cheesecake. No slides, no bullet point lists or boring charts here. What you see instead are zooming images, relations being built up similar to your thinking when you decide to bake that cake for a family birthday party on a Sunday afternoon. Beyond looking good and being new on the market, Prezi helps you deliver your thoughts more effectively than any other presentation tools.

Here is a shortlist on why:

A. With Prezi you can see the big picture and the details easily, so you can make sure that the content of your presentation makes sense.

B. Prezi’s spatial layout help you to convey message better, since our brain is wired to think large spaces rather then slides.

C. As a presenter, you can avoid long boring monologues (death by bullet points), and encourage audience involvement by moving across the canvas.

If you simply follow these 3 steps we’re convinced that you’ll have stronger presentation:

1. Start creating your Prezi by just throwing in your main ideas


2. Develop each idea by zooming into each topic (use word, images or video you find on the net, Google searches does it all)


3. Edit: make important topics large, create relations and remove redundant stuff

A teacher's success with Prezi at TEDIndia

We have introduced the class of Rob Newberry, a Canadian teacher working at the Ramrudee International School in Bangkok before. He started using Prezi for education a few months ago, and made it the native story telling tool for his students since. He is also open to share his experiences and thoughts with us and fellow prezi authors on various social networks at any time. So we were happy but not very surprised to learn that Rob has successfully submitted his topic to this year's TEDIndia, where he delivered his talk about technology in the classroom a few hours ago - using Prezi to aid his speech! TEDIndia shares "ideas worth spreading" about the unmistakable shift of influence to the east this year.

Rob arrived to the conference venue yesterday, and sent over a few nice images he has taken there. He also promised to send more, so keep an eye on this photo gallery for new entries!

Congratulations Rob, looking forward to embed your TED prezi here on the blog soon!

Rob Newberry talking at TEDIndia 2009

Rob's pass for TEDIndia. Talk to me about....Prezi!

Click for more photos!

TEDIndia happens 4-7 November at the Infosys campus in Mysore.

Entrance of the venue. TEDIndia's tagline this year is: 'The Future Beckons"