Google launching an Online Presentation App at Web 2.0 | Hacker News Reader

Google launching an Online Presentation App at Web 2.0

webware.com

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What are you guys thinking? Of course this is another Kiko situation. Google's new app is going to be the talk of the town when it launches. And Zenter is not even public yet.

I would think Zenter had a chance if they were already available for public use, but think about it. They are still closed beta with no customers, etc....

This is a prime example when you have a good idea (such as Zenter) but take way too long to execute. Zenter should of went from concept to public app in 3 months time. Then they might of had a chance against Google.

Ugh. I really hope Zenter doesn't get Kikoed. Hopefully they've got some additional features over the Google offering.

I think Zenter may need to come up with a new idea.

Google has marketing clout and web presence like no other (this is obvious). They also have incredible staying power, so if I am investing time into using an application, and I have 2 alternatives that are similar functionally, I would take the one with the best chance of future survival, and that is clearly Google. I guess the option they have is to create some amazing functionality that Google doesn't have in their version, and sell it to Google if Google's app is any good.

I guess we won't know until Google launches what they have. Zenter - Launch First and soon!! Very soon.

Btw: At Startup school, a guy from Google asked us about our startup and what we were doing, etc. It was clear they were looking for ideas there.

"Btw: At Startup school, a guy from Google asked us about our startup and what we were doing, etc. It was clear they were looking for ideas there."

That sounds more like an interested hacker from Google who was genuinely curious about your project (like everyone else there), rather than a planted corporate development spy itching to report his scoops to home base.

Ideally IF google really wanted to send someone to spy, it would be someone who is SEEMINGLY a hacker:D

Not that I think google is out of ideas. They probably have too many ideas.

Actually, the guy seemed more like a manager/business type than a hacker. The first thing I asked him was "are you spying for Google", and he hemmed and hawed actually. He gave no indication at all that he was interested in doing a startup himself, but wanted to figure out what we were doing.

Google doesn't have managers! Everyone there is 10 feet tall, types 200 words a minute, codes in a new version of Lisp called GLisp and can beat up Chuck Norris. You must have been mistaken.

I hope the same and believe they've still got a shot. They could not have entered the space without knowing this is something Google's probably working on.

I agree. I doubt anyone will be surprised to find out Google's working on something that would compete with Wufoo as well.

Interesting how google announces these days and not just release like before..

This is a big blow to all the online presentation apps just like Google Calendar was to all the Web 2.0 Calendars. It won't be an 'Office Killer' however, until all of their apps can work together well. When you can make a chart in Google Spreadsheets and then copy it into Google Docs or Google Pres(??) easily. Then we'll have an interesting fight on our hands.

YouTube beat Google video by a mile.

Not everything Google does turns to gold.

Initial reaction: Zenter is dead in the water even if it has more features. Google's brand name alone will be enough to propel it to the top and Google obviously has the technical muscle to make up ground pretty damn fast.

I disagree. Calendars have a large social component; creating presentations does not. If Zenter has features that appeal to people who create presentations, then it will do well.

Using the same calendar system others use helps. Using the same presentation system mostly doesn't.

That may be true of how people currently use presentation software, but inside of organizations people share decks and slides very frequently and it's a pain. Presentation software probably should be highly collaborative even if existing options are not.

I agree, but how does Google leverage their existing products and promote collaboration with presentation software? Google Calendar worked because planning and sharing events/meetings makes sense to be integrated with GMail.

As I've said before, I think this is going to be a different story because, while collaboration brings a lot of value to presentation software users, I can't see a killer app that Google can leverage beyond Image Search that would make their product a must-have. Zenter has done a great job making a connected presentation app with a very slick Google Search-based image import tool.

Pound for pound, I think Zenter has a fighting chance as long as it keeps innovating on the feature front. Don't forget that collaborative presentations will likely give rise to a slide sharing community (i.e. slideshare.net), so there's more to online presentation software than the app itself.

Weird how I got downmodded for furthering the discussion. I've been noticing a lot of this in the past week, don't know if it's related to the rush of new users in the past month. Small thing, but kind of annoying.

Good point, but as long as Google provides the essentials for creating online presentations, it will win easily. Just ask someone out on the street who they'd trust more to do a good job with their presentations: Google or Zenter? My money is that the majority (by a large amount) will say Google simply because of the name. In reality, everyone on YCNews and TechCrunch are startup obsessed, tech obsessed early adopters. We have no problem choosing Zenter over Google if Zenter is a good product. Normal people, however, will, more often than not, gravitate towards Google.

It is not that the average person will trust google over zenter, as much as the average person, will not even know that zenter exists. Its hard to give someone a chance, if you don't even know they exist.

I think you're thinking in the right direction. You may also consider how e-mail and calendar use cases are tied closely together.

I'm not sold on how Google can leverage their offerings (aside from better image searching) to make as strong of a case in presentation software as they did with online calendars.

Great point. I hope it's true for Zenter.

Zenter guys, launch NOW! Launch as soon as you can! Launch BEFORE Google and create some buzz before Google launches so that when people see Google's Presentations, they will think it's old and has been done before.

I have no idea what features this app from Google has, but from what I have seen so far, Zenter kicks ass! It's not about which app has "more" features, it's about how effectively one can present using such an app.

Definitely! Google seems to be over-reaching. They have a lot of apps and many people just don't know about them. And I thought they were going to concentrate on finishing apps not creating new ones! big wtf.

The company they aquired:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060819233054/http://tonicsystems.com/

"Java PowerPoint® Specialist"?

While it doesn't mean too much that website is pretty bad. Maybe Zenter does have a chance.

From here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/were-expecting.html

"Our due date is this summer."

You can't win on brand name alone.

Zenter has some tough competition ahead of it but I'm sure they expected it.

If Zenter can be as cool as KeyNote is on OS X, they have nothing to fear from Google.

I don't think emulating Keynote is the right play. Any online presentation app should be designed to exploit the inherent advantages that web applications have, i.e. collaboration, information retrieval, etc..

I don't think the goal is to replace Keynote or Powerpoint but rather provide software the lets people easily develop bring presentations for a web audience.

As a former iWork engineer, I think some of the stuff Keynote has can't be replicated effectively in a web application.

Schoudha's right -- the killer edge for Zenter is making a connected presentation app that leverages the web. Remember the annoying task of importing presentation images? Why not make that easier since you're already in a browser? Things like that.

Oh I didn't mean that it shouldn't try and exploit the advantages of web apps, I just meant that it should make presentations look better, by default, than those awful PowerPoint presentations we always see.

What does this do for zenter.com?

BOy boy. Zenter. I still would not care. Google is just bluffing right now. And it hurts me how many people cannot see that the big Giant has lost its way.

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