While PowerPoint slides may be hard to view on a smart phone such as the 3.5″ iPhone’s screen, the PhoneTopp application will let you zoom and, zoom out and scroll around the screen to be able to see the presentation in detail. A major feature of the application is that you don’t need to hassle with a complicated login. Once setup, PhoneTopp will call your phone at the time the conference is starting, log you on when you answer, and you will automatically be put into the conference.

PhoneTopp says that it will begin offering the mobile phone service in the first quarter of next year, for about $8 to $10 a month. I’m actually surprised that this type of software doesn’t already exist, and the lifespan for the PhoneTopp service may be limited. While it’s a great stop-gap for the current situation, Online collaboration services are bound to develop dedciated platforms. There’s already rumors, that Citrix is building an iPhone application specifically for it’s GoToMeeting service, and it’s all-too-likely that other web conference and video conferencing services will follow suit.

Jaduka’s new offering does have some restrictions, however. It only supports calls within the United States and Canada, and only allows 30 minutes of free conferecing a day. On top of these restrictions, Jaduka is not guaranteeing the service will be available to all users at any given time.

Jaduka representative:

While we have allocated a substantial portion of our conferencing resources for dukaUS, there may be times when all resources are being utilized by other Labs users. In this case, you will not be able to create a conference. This is a known limitation of our system resources and this small inconvenience is a fair trade off for giving our users free group calling.”

This solution may be great for short online presentations and conferencing, and the free service comes at a great time when many companies are feeling the effects from a tightening economy. However, for longer presentations, presenters might want to look at other solutions, because it wouldn’t be very professional if after 30 minutes everyone was just dropped from the conference.

Having a online PowerPoint presentation with your main points listed as bullets, means that the participants really don’t need to listen to your long-winded explanation of your message or idea, they read the important parts right there on your presentation! Bullets are boring to look to look at, and just make your presentation look like a list of things they need to remember.

Too much text in a presentation will quickly lose the attention of your audience, particularly when presenting an online presentation, where they easily do other things like check email, or surf the web without seeming rude. Save the bullets for your own outline that you can use to reference and instead use more images in your presentation to represent the ideas you speak about to keep the participants visually stimulated.

Too often, presenters make the mistake of just writing out their entire presentation word-for-word (or even just bulleted) on the PowerPoint slides. The purpose of PowerPoint slides are to add a visual aid to your speaking, not for an easy reference for your own notes. Exciting graphics that are explained and emphasized through your message will make for a more engaging and memorable presentation.

Packetel’s Web conferencing service addresses the communication needs of companies by offering a complete web conferencing solution at an affordable price. The Packetel Turbo Meeting web Conferencing technology is web based, allowing anyone to quickly set up a presentation, and all participants can just as easily join the meeting, without having to download additional software.

Meeting organizers can simply invite their guests to join the online meeting anytime without needing any special training on the software. Packetel also offers additional media rich features for Web conferencing such as whiteboarding and online PowerPoiint presentations at no additional cost. The Turbo Meeting Web conferencing technology is offered at a flat fee of $12.99/month.

Packetel offers users the ability to easily manage their online meetings and Web conferencing invitations via a personal Turbo Meeting Web portal, as well as check the ability to constantly check the Web conference status. Users don’t need any special firewall setup to create or attend a Web conference.

Nasscom CEO, Ganesh Natarajan

Initially there was resistance, but now they are being used round the clock. It’s difficult to find time slots for those rooms,” said Ganesh Natarajan, chairman of Nasscom and the global CEO of Zensar Technologies, which has eight videoconferencing rooms.

Online PowerPoint presentations and meetings are not only helpful tools in cost cutting, but also plays a big role in improving worker satisfaction. Employees who can now video conference with distant locations instead of traveling, they can now spend more time with their family and friends, striking a better work/life balance.

Online meeting and videoconferencing technology has allowed businesses to grow by 30 to 35 per cent, with the capital and implementation costs being the major obstacles for some smaller, skeptical businesses. However, many companies are now offering web-based services with very little initial cost and pay-as-you go options, such as InstantPresenter. These companies allow video conferencing, online presentations and online PowerPoint presentations, which can all be set up in a matter of minutes.

Most web conferencing companies that support online PowerPoint presentations actually convert each PowerPoint side into an image and then sequentially displays the images to look like a standard presentation. This conversion process however will render animations and video unusable, and will usually be displayed however it looks when the slide is first loaded. In developing presentations for the web avoid using animations or video.

Using standard fonts will ensure that the online version of your presentation will look the same as it does on your personal computer. Foreign fonts will often be converted to a standard font that might not look right with your design and theme. Arial and Times New Roman are fonts that are supported by all computers.

Finally, and most importantly, make sure that the images that you are using in your presentation aren’t larger than they need to be. Many people download an image from an email or the web that are very high resolution. When you insert this image into PowerPoint, it will reduce the picture on the screen, but they physical size of the picture is still very large and will make your presentation larger than it needs to be. If you have a very large photograph, use any photo-editing tool to physically reduce the size of the image before inserting it into your presentation.

For most presentations, slide transitions shouldn’t be used. In certain cases a particular transition might be relevant to the slide or the content or go well with the overall theme, but the more wild transitions just waste time and can be distracting. If you do decide to use a slide transition, stay with a consistent one throughout the presentation. Everyone knows what PowerPoint has to offer, you’re not impressing anyone by showing them you know too.

Similar to slide transitions, animations can be a distraction. In some instances animations can be useful in illustrating growth in a chart or graph, and can provide a bit of humoring relief. While the occasional use of animations might be ok, use them sparingly and keep your audience focused on the content and your message.

Be aware though that many web conferencing companies that allow you to conduct online PowerPoint meetings can’t display slide transitions and animations. These systems often upload each slide as an image, so each slide will only display whatever it looks like when you first load it. Make sure to upload and do a test presentation before you begin your web conference so that you can be sure your presentation works properly.

Visibility and Readabiliy of Your Font

Make sure the font that you use is large enough for everyone to see on varying monitor sizes and screen resolutions. Try your presentation on a variety of machines, operating systems and screen resolutions before your presentation.

Key Messages

Use key messages and points on your slides. Do not write out every word you are going to present on the slides. It is your job to speak to the slides and keep your audience engaged. They will quickly lose interest if all you are doing is reading your slides verbatim.

Slide Titles

Make sure that each PowerPoint slide has its own, accurate slide title. Use a larger, bold font for your title so that the audience can instantly be aware of what issues that slide will cover. This will help the audience stay focused.

Keep Your Backgrounds Simple

Make sure that the colors of your fonts sharply contrast the colors you use for your background. Solid color backgrounds are best to keep from having text or graphics that are difficult to see.

Graphs and Diagrams

Graphs and diagrams can help keep an online presentation attractive and interesting. However, only use them when they are useful or relevant. Distracting, unrelated images will leave your audience distracted or confused.

When you start to edit your online presentation, you need to do it from the mindset of your online audience. Start by playing the presentation, imagining you are seeing it for the first time, and from the mindset of someone that isn’t an expert on the subject matter. Be careful not to use unfamiliar jargon and references that won’t be apparent to everyone, or at least most of the people who will be viewing the presentation.

If you can find someone to listen to your presentation (who again, isn’t the expert you are on the subject), get their feedback and make edits accordingly. If you are speaking over the heads of your audience, they will quickly lose interest, and if you speak below them, they might be offended or feel that you’re not providing them with anything they don’t already know.

Unlike YouTube (which Google recently aquired), which is aimed at the consumer market, Google video sharing for business is designed for sharing videos only within the company’s domain. The service is designed to be secure, so that training videos, speeches and sales meetings can be readily accessed throughout the company, but protected from being accessed by competitors.

Google Product Management Director, Matthew Glotzbach:

What YouTube did in the consumer world, Google Video for business is going to do in the enterprise.

The service will be available starting today as a free trial for the first 6 months, after which a $10/month fee will be charged for it’s usage. Unlike most video conferencing services that require specialized hardware and software installations in offices, Google Video for business users can simply trade web site addresses to view videos, similar to the way consumers trade links to videos on YouTube.

Nucleas Research Analyst, Rebecca Wettemann:

It’s for anyone who says, ‘I can’t remember how to do that step’. Google Video for business brings back some of the context to what we have lost by communicating with e-mail or IM.”

Also unlike YouTube, which typically limits videos to 10 minutes or less, Google Video for business can run for an hour or more to support lengthy training videos and sales meetings. The company has also developed an automated service that identifies scene transitions and creates a quick way to skip to specific segments of a video like chapters on a DVD.

Administrators of the service can give users the option to download videos to view offline or on portable devices for viewing on the go. Google Video provides three gigabytes of video storage per Google Apps Premier user.