Prezi releases add interactivity to presentations

New releases out this week from presentation platform Prezi may change the way businesses create - and consumers interact with - online presentations. Rather than showing only static slides, the Prezi platform allows viewers to see a 'roadmap' of where the presentation is going and to dig deeper into the content available.

by Kristina Knight

"Many people describe Prezi as a visual journey, which helps the audience to better grasp the concept behind the presentation," said Peter Arvai, Prezi CEO. "Viewers start to connect the different ideas behind a presentation. From the audience side, they can see the 'big picture' of a presentation, they can also drill down to individual facts, figures in the middle of the presentation."

Additions to the Prezi platform include 3D and Fade-In Animation. Presentation creators can choose from ready-made, customizable templates or create their own animation sequences from scratch. These additions add nicely to the existing Prezi Meeting, a collaboration feature allowing up to 10 team members to collaborate on a presentation, and Prezi Explore, which allows users to search the Prezi database to find additional information about a subject.

"If you, as a presenter or teacher, have the ability to address concerns rather than simply showing statistics, you have better engagement," said Arvai. "You have a better ability to tell the story in an engaging way; tablets allow users to pan and zoom and click through quickly so interactive presentations can keep that conversation going rather than just clicking through static slides without interaction."