Needing to develop a large PowerPoint presentation, I went looking for PowerPoint templates on the Net and literally stumbled on Prezi. Intrigued, I allocated about 8 hours today to thoroughly evaluate Prezi. The desktop version wouldn't install on my Windows 7 machine, so I reverted to my Vista machine, where it did install.
I went after several of my biggest concerns; the workflow for developing a presentation and the use of video. Along the way I came up with at least 20 "if it could only do...", several of which I referred to your documentation and your support forum only to be either left with no answer or "we don't support that feature”. But in the end it came down to Prezi, while really amazing, doesn't seem to be usable in a business presentation environment, in my opinion of course. I'll have to pass on Prezi for the reasons I give below (and I am disappointed by that decision), but I offer the following for your consideration.
1. There seems to be no way to place a logo on the view surface and have it "stick" in say a corner of the view surface. Of course, it's important to "brand" business intellectual property with logos and even copyright statements. Not many businesses are going to accept an inability to keep their logo in view. I'm surprised that need wasn't covered in the design of Prezi.
2. I like the simplicity of the workflow, but that seems to come at the high price of not having control over important navigation attributes, such as the speed of the pan and zoom.
3. There is a severe lack of color and font attributes which forces a user to accept a color and style pallet that is not likely to be consistent with the preferred (or official) corporate theme. As such, a Prezi presentation is not likely to look like it belongs to the company, but perhaps an afterthought, albeit a cool afterthought.
4. I can't accept video running continuously on the view surface. Video playback must be triggered when the object is navigated into, else it would be unwise to zoom out for a "contextual" view of the presentation with all those moving doodads flickering away. That, to me, defeats the point of Prezi when video is used.
5. Those frames really really need to be hidden from the audience if the presentation designer so chooses. The audience shouldn't have to see a bracket or circle unless the Prezi developer wants such to be visible.
6. After having built a suitable test Prezi today, it occurred to me that I can't reuse the presentation for another presentation. I imagine it's rare for a business to want only one Prezi presentation ever. The ability to use parts and components of a Prezi would be helpful to a) maintain consistency from one Prezi to another and b) to reduce work - I wouldn't want an employee repeating work.
7. I don't have a problem paying $159 for Prezi (desktop) as a single license payment (as is still the norm for software). However, I am opposed to paying $159 every year for a couple of reasons. First is that your development seems very slow as suggested by "we're working on that feature" posting in this support forum 9 months ago with the feature still not implemented. Second is that I feel a yearly payment is sort of a trap, where I might find myself with dead and useless presentation assets unless I keep paying. One could look at it this way: "I paid $159 in the year that I made the presentation, and now I have to pay every year to not lose MY work." I think you'll find that that will tend to suppress the serious and long term use of Prezi. I think society is going to be highly resistant to adopting subscription-based software as a service. Ok for virus scanners perhaps, but not ok for software that creates reusable IP assets such as presentations in this case.
All in all, Prezi is not ready for serious business use, in my opinion. It seems to me that Prezi was not designed with the business user in mind. It is most certainly cool and innovative. But I question if Prezi can be more than cool, for the time being at least. If I may stick my nose in where it may not be welcome, I think you folks need to get really serious about Prezi for business use before it's copied (and it will be copied). In fact, we're very close to pulling off this type of contextual presentation now with a bit of coding know-how of the Microsoft Silverlight with its Deep Zoom capabilities. With a little coding knowledge of .NET, we'll see something like Prezi before long. Even the Adobe products could do something like Prezi such as AfterEffects and others.
In summary, a very cool product indeed and I admire the innovation. But the lack of theming and lack of features that target business users will keep Prezi from moving in on the PowerPoint space (with PowerPoint 2010 making it all that much harder). The online Prezi models are most certainly not for business users (except very small presentations) and the desktop annual pricing is much too high considering that improvements to Prezi don't seem to be rapid enough to keep the annual investment attractive (as well as the risk of losing the use of one's work in subsequent years). Prezi will never take over PowerPoint, but with PowerPoint so badly used for so long, audiences worldwide will love a refreshing alternative. That alternative could be Prezi, but not until it’s designed for serious business use.
P.S. You folks are to be congratulated for using GetSatisfaction.com. These hard working folks have created a high quality tool to foster open communication.
I went after several of my biggest concerns; the workflow for developing a presentation and the use of video. Along the way I came up with at least 20 "if it could only do...", several of which I referred to your documentation and your support forum only to be either left with no answer or "we don't support that feature”. But in the end it came down to Prezi, while really amazing, doesn't seem to be usable in a business presentation environment, in my opinion of course. I'll have to pass on Prezi for the reasons I give below (and I am disappointed by that decision), but I offer the following for your consideration.
1. There seems to be no way to place a logo on the view surface and have it "stick" in say a corner of the view surface. Of course, it's important to "brand" business intellectual property with logos and even copyright statements. Not many businesses are going to accept an inability to keep their logo in view. I'm surprised that need wasn't covered in the design of Prezi.
2. I like the simplicity of the workflow, but that seems to come at the high price of not having control over important navigation attributes, such as the speed of the pan and zoom.
3. There is a severe lack of color and font attributes which forces a user to accept a color and style pallet that is not likely to be consistent with the preferred (or official) corporate theme. As such, a Prezi presentation is not likely to look like it belongs to the company, but perhaps an afterthought, albeit a cool afterthought.
4. I can't accept video running continuously on the view surface. Video playback must be triggered when the object is navigated into, else it would be unwise to zoom out for a "contextual" view of the presentation with all those moving doodads flickering away. That, to me, defeats the point of Prezi when video is used.
5. Those frames really really need to be hidden from the audience if the presentation designer so chooses. The audience shouldn't have to see a bracket or circle unless the Prezi developer wants such to be visible.
6. After having built a suitable test Prezi today, it occurred to me that I can't reuse the presentation for another presentation. I imagine it's rare for a business to want only one Prezi presentation ever. The ability to use parts and components of a Prezi would be helpful to a) maintain consistency from one Prezi to another and b) to reduce work - I wouldn't want an employee repeating work.
7. I don't have a problem paying $159 for Prezi (desktop) as a single license payment (as is still the norm for software). However, I am opposed to paying $159 every year for a couple of reasons. First is that your development seems very slow as suggested by "we're working on that feature" posting in this support forum 9 months ago with the feature still not implemented. Second is that I feel a yearly payment is sort of a trap, where I might find myself with dead and useless presentation assets unless I keep paying. One could look at it this way: "I paid $159 in the year that I made the presentation, and now I have to pay every year to not lose MY work." I think you'll find that that will tend to suppress the serious and long term use of Prezi. I think society is going to be highly resistant to adopting subscription-based software as a service. Ok for virus scanners perhaps, but not ok for software that creates reusable IP assets such as presentations in this case.
All in all, Prezi is not ready for serious business use, in my opinion. It seems to me that Prezi was not designed with the business user in mind. It is most certainly cool and innovative. But I question if Prezi can be more than cool, for the time being at least. If I may stick my nose in where it may not be welcome, I think you folks need to get really serious about Prezi for business use before it's copied (and it will be copied). In fact, we're very close to pulling off this type of contextual presentation now with a bit of coding know-how of the Microsoft Silverlight with its Deep Zoom capabilities. With a little coding knowledge of .NET, we'll see something like Prezi before long. Even the Adobe products could do something like Prezi such as AfterEffects and others.
In summary, a very cool product indeed and I admire the innovation. But the lack of theming and lack of features that target business users will keep Prezi from moving in on the PowerPoint space (with PowerPoint 2010 making it all that much harder). The online Prezi models are most certainly not for business users (except very small presentations) and the desktop annual pricing is much too high considering that improvements to Prezi don't seem to be rapid enough to keep the annual investment attractive (as well as the risk of losing the use of one's work in subsequent years). Prezi will never take over PowerPoint, but with PowerPoint so badly used for so long, audiences worldwide will love a refreshing alternative. That alternative could be Prezi, but not until it’s designed for serious business use.
P.S. You folks are to be congratulated for using GetSatisfaction.com. These hard working folks have created a high quality tool to foster open communication.