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Have any exciting plans for next Wednesday, February 17^th? Well, we do – and we’d love for you to join us!

SlideRocket founder and CTO Mitch Grasso will be onstage at The SF New Tech Meetup demo-ing some exciting new SlideRocket features.

We can’t let the cat out of the bag quite yet on what these updates are, but you’ll definitely want to catch the live demo onstage.

The SF New Tech Meetup is a networking event for people just like you who want to see the latest and greatest technologies coming from the innovators right here in our backyard.

The theme for Wednesday’s meetup is Working Smarter – that is definitely something we aim to help our users with here at SlideRocket and we are excited to be sharing the stage with other innovative companies.

The good news is that you can still get tickets to come join the excitement next week! But don’t worry, if you can’t make it, we will still let you know about our exciting news.

Who: You, SlideRocket and the whole SF New Tech community

What: The SF New Tech Meetup – drinks, demos & networking

When: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 from 5:30 PM – 11:00 PM (PT)

Where: 119 Utah Street here in San Francisco (Cross street is 15th. Look for the big black doors)

Why: Because it’s going to be a lot of fun, and even informative

Check out SF New Tech’s website for ticket information and we hope to see you there.

Did you get a chance to check out our hosted webinar this week, “The Backchannel: A Presenter’s Nightmare or Dream Come True” with author Cliff Atkinson?

For those of you who could not join the webinar, Cliff explored how backchannels (platforms for discussion created by users of social media) are being used during presentations. Take Twitter for example – have you ever posted a Tweet during a presentation? Was it positive or negative? Do you think the speaker would have benefited from seeing the Tweet?

Cliff brings up some really interesting points that I definitely agree with as to how presentations are changing and becoming more social with all the new web technologies. As Cliff pointed out, with social media, it’s all about doing everything you can to connect with your audience.

From what I have seen at conferences, the typical audience member is never without a laptop or smartphone, and is no longer sitting quietly while speakers talk – instead they’re using Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other tools to create this backchannel where they chat with one another, make comments about your presentation and broadcast their thoughts to people all over the world. Pretty amazing stuff! Cliff explained if audiences are happy, the backchannel can spread ideas far and wide, create buzz and keep the conversation going long after you’ve left the podium.  But, if audiences are unhappy, the backchannel can criticize your ideas and delivery, disrupt your talk and even derail your presentation completely.

Talk about information on-demand. It’s exciting to see how audiences are actively carving out a space to be engaged in the conversation, making presentations a two-way experience.

What do you think? Are you a frequent conference speaker or attendee? Is the backchannel yet another thing to fear when you give your next presentation or do you think of tools such as Twitter as a great opportunity to really know what people are thinking?

If you missed this seminar, you’ll want to check it out here for some best practices on how to best use Twitter before, during and after your presentation. It’s a great lesson in knowing your audience, doing your research before you make a presentation and using the right technologies to your advantage. Because, the days of one-way presentations are over.

If you like Cliff Atkinson’s web seminar on The Backchannel you may enjoy some of our other live and on demand seminars. Check them out on our SlideRocket Web Seminars page.

As the end of the year approaches and we begin planning for 2010, it is important to think about achieving and maintaining business success in the current economic climate. 

Step one in success requires that you offer a valuable product and service. 

Step two, and often the more challenging one, is consistently promoting your product with a clear message in a compelling and engaging manner so prospects understand and relate to the product’s value. We think SlideRocket offers a lot of value here. 

How can presentations help you win new clients, grow existing customers, and compete with competitors in the coming year? 

Take a look at our newly updated Customer Page. We have added two new case studies that provide details on how our customers Bowne Virtual Datarooms and GBS Corporate Trainingare using SlideRocket to achieve business success.

Of course, it’s not just Bowne and GBS that are seeing results by maximizing their presentations. This year, we’ve seen our hundreds of customers accomplish many things, including:

• Effectively reach out to customers in a cost-efficient manner
• Easily keep an entire organization on point with consistent messaging
• Give employees more hours in a day to focus on their job and NOT building slides thanks to the Slide Library.
• Get viewing analytics on presentations to know what customers are interested in your product.
• Build audio presentations for informatively communicating product upgrades and product trainings
• Impress prospects with innovative sales pitches
• Expand business with an on-demand platform that can span time zones and technologies

In sharing these stories, we realized that many of our customers’ business needs for 2010 follow a certain pattern: they all had similar goals (winning, growing & competing), they all required a more modern alternative to PowerPoint to connect with customers and get the right results, and they all saw rapid success by using SlideRocket.

We will continue to add customer success stories, so check back often. And, do share your success with us, if you haven’t already. We are always up for a great presentation story.

Feeling overwhelmed with holiday shopping? Couldn’t stomach the Black Friday crowds and Cyber Monday mayhem?

Don’t forget that it’s the time of year for giving. Here at SlideRocket, we are not only revolutionizing presentations, but also making your holiday shopping easier. Don’t miss your chance to win two ultimate presentation holiday packs.

You don’t want to miss this awesome opportunity. You will have two chances to win these cool prizes:

• A brand new 13″ MacBook Pro
• A SlideRocket Business Annual subscription
• 250 SlideRocket Marketplace credits
• A SlideRocket T-Shirt
• A Pico Pcket Projector from Optoma
• A Flip Mino HD Camcorder
• A Kensington wireless handheld remote
• 5 great presentation books: Presentation Zen, Slide:Ology, Beyond Bullet Points, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs & The Back Channel
  

Just follow our 3 simple steps and you could win these incredible prizes just in time for the holidays. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Sign up for a free, no risk trial of SlideRocket (no credit card required).
2. Follow SlideRocket on Twitter. You’ll need a Twitter account for this, it’s free and you can sign up here.
3. Tweet about SlideRocket online presentations using the #sliderocket hash tag. You can tweet as many times as you like, the more you tweet the more chances you have to win!

You can check out all of the contest details here:

http://info.sliderocket.com/ultimateholiday.html

Remember – each tweet is considered an entry, so the more times you tweet, the more chances you have to win. Winners will be chosen at random. No bots or automated scripts please. No purchase is required, however the winner does need a SlideRocket account (can be Trial, Free, Individual, or Business) and be a SlideRocket follower on Twitter. Good luck!

The end of the year is synonymous with lots of things. Holiday parties, spending time with family, good food, time off… and lists, lists, lists! Whether it be shopping lists for holiday dinners, gift lists for Santa, New Year’s resolutions or the inevitable ‘best of the year’ recaps – lists are everywhere!

At SlideRocket, we are thrilled to be included in a very important end of the year list- the PC World 100: Best Products of 2009. It is an honor to be named, a credit to the work we have done in 2009 and great to be in the company of products such as the iPhone, Google Voice, Amazon’s Kindle and Facebook.

Featured in the top 100, SlideRocket’s “striking and easy-to-use browser-based presentation software” is praised by PC World. Based on our design, functionality, performance, and impact, we are so excited to be one of the cream of the crop, the 100 best of 2009. Here is the post from PC World:

SlideRocket.com (presentation service, basic service free) This striking and easy-to-use browser-based presentation software works with any OS and can be accessed from anywhere at any time. It may not drive a stake into Microsoft PowerPoint, but it’s versatile enough to pose a significant challenge to Redmond.

We couldn’t agree more with PC World’s assessment. This past year, we have been working hard, revolutionizing the approach to presentations in the office, the boardroom and the classroom. We have successfully created the only presentation application that allows you to create stunning presentations, manage them intelligently, share them securely and then measure the results. Bring it on, Redmond!

We aim to make the list again in 2010, as we continue to change how you work. Whether your line of work is in sales, marketing, support, design, events or education, SlideRocket’s complete presentation ecosystem should be in your must-have professional tool set.

Let us know how you think we did in 2009 by visiting our UserVoice site and telling us what you use presentations for. Does SlideRocket meet your needs? Are there any feature sets you are looking forward to in 2010? Share your SlideRocket wish list with us- we will try our best to provide for all of your needs across the entire life cycle of your presentation media, living up to our name as one of the best products of 2009!

We are super excited to announce this morning that SlideRocket is going to be the official presentation partner at SXSW in March, 2010! We are huge fans of SXSW – they really define innovative when it comes to events, and now they have taken another step by making SlideRocket available to all the SXSW speakers for their talks at the festival. How cool is that??  Just to whet your whistle about SXSW, we put together this presentation to tell you what it is all about (best viewed in full-screen mode):

Basically, this partnership means freedom for the presenters – they can create awesome presentations (or import their old PowerPoints) through the SlideRocket web app, and can update them at any time from any computer.  No more searching for the right file, or feeling trapped by the desire to make last minute changes, but no way to do so before a talk starts.  They never have to worry again about what computer or software will be available, as SlideRocket will maintain full fidelity no matter the platform.  As someone who has planned conference-type events before, I can say this is a huge relief for the event organizers as well! No more scrambling with multiple laptops, thumb drives, fonts that don’t display correctly, or countless other event stressors.

We think one of the coolest things about this partnership, however, is that essentially now SXSW can live on long after the festival is over.  Since SlideRocket presentations are embeddable, SXSW will be able to share them on their site post-event, and the presenters can also do so on their own blogs or websites.  Through the unique SlideRocket analytics, both SXSW and the presenters can see which presentations are captivating their respective communities.  We like to talk about how SlideRocket helps presentations become living, breathing documents that inspire connections and conversations. Now, by using SlideRocket, SXSW is able to extend its own life and maintain the energy and excitement of being at the festival 365 days a year.  We think this is just great.

All in all, we are just thrilled about this partnership, and can’t wait to see all the amazing presentations SXSW presenters create in SlideRocket!

If you are a SXSW presenter, we will be providing you with a free Business Edition account from now until the end of April, 2010. Please sign up to claim yours today, and we’ll be excited to help you get started in SlideRocket! You can also check out this presentation to learn more (best viewed in full-screen mode):

We’ve got some exciting news at SlideRocket today!  You may have seen the posts this morning on eWeek and NetworkWorld (if you haven’t, please check them out) about our new Sales and Marketing Edition.  We think it is pretty great!

Essentially, as we’ve grown over the last year (wow – hard to believe it has been almost a year since we launched…), we’ve seen an influx of Sales and Marketing professionals representing large organizations and teams who are looking for a better way to optimize their presentations – especially as those presentations have become such an important part of their businesses.  I have to say, I’m not surprised at all that SlideRocket is beloved by Sales and Marketing professionals; we certainly had that hypothesis going in, and built a lot of the product with them in mind.  Since we launched, these folks have loved the features we’ve offered around asset management, brand control, collaboration and analytics.  To create our new features, we worked really closely with a number of our larger customers who helped us immensely to think about what large groups need. To learn more, you can read below, or even better: check out this online presentation! (best if viewed in Fullscreen mode)

• Enterprise-level Sharing, Permissions and Controls: Complimentary to the existing security controls SlideRocket has always offered for shared presentations, the Sales & Marketing Edition adds enterprise-level sharing, permissions and control for when teams work together on one document. These new capabilities help companies maintain brand integrity and information accuracy across presentations.
  • Internal collaboration: Shared folders with new permissions ensure that employees always access the correct document with the most recent content. Controls added around permissions and capabilities, along with slide themes, color and fonts maintain content accuracy and brand integrity.
  • Slide Groups: New to SlideRocket are Slide Groups, a high productivity feature that allows users to create groups of married slides that can be easily searched for and added to presentations with a simple ‘drag and drop.’ Slide Groups maintain brand integrity, ensure accuracy of information and help teams compile and create compelling and targeted presentations in minutes, not hours.
  • Branded Templates: Companies can now maintain brand integrity when emailing presentation links to outside parties. The new custom emails look as if they are coming from inside the company and add another layer of brand control for enterprises.
• Portable Presentations: With the new SlideRocket Portable Presentation, users can easily present at major events and important meetings without worrying about connectivity or hardware compatibility issues and without the need for a specialized player. Users can export presentations and save the rich media presentation on hard drives, thumb drives, CDs or even send them as email attachments. Full fidelity and quality of the file is ensured, no matter the platform.
• Enhanced Analytics: SlideRocket’s unmatched analytics make it possible to know when a presentation is opened, if it was forwarded and on which slides the viewer lingered the longest. SlideRocket is the only presentation solution that measures what happens after one hits the ‘send’ button and allows sales teams to identify the specific area of interest for each lead.

We’ve rolled all these features into our exisiting Business Plan, and they are not limited to the number of seats your company has in SlideRocket.  We’re excited to continue to make SlideRocket better, more useful, and to provide needed features and functions that businesses can’t get anywhere else. We’d love to hear what you think!

First of all, I can’t believe it is September already – craziness!  Secondly, given that it is not only September but it is Friday September 4th, there are 2 very important things happening in the life of SlideRocket that need your help:

• Today is the last day you can vote for our SXSW panels. We’d love your support, as we’re super excited about these.
• Today is the final day of the Ultimate Presentation Survival Pack Twitter contest.  It is not to late to enter and win!  All you need to do is tweet using the hashtag #sliderocket, and each tweet is considered a separate entry.  If you need any more incentives, check out the prizes…

• A brand new 13″ MacBook Pro
• SlideRocket Business Annual subscription
• 250 SlideRocket Marketplace credits
• A SlideRocket training session
• A presentation makeover from Dan Marcolina
• A Pico Projector from Optoma
• A Kensington wireless handheld remote
• 3 books: Presentation Zen, Slide:Ology, Beyond Bullet Points

Pretty awesome, huh?  Well, don’t just sit there, get tweeting!

We just launched a contest we are super fired up about.  Given that summer is just about over (wait a minute, did summer even start???) for everyone–not just students–we want to give away 2 Ultimate Presentation Survival Packs to help ease students and professionals alike back into the real world.

And by Ultimate, we mean U.L.T.I.M.A.T.E. Check out what you can win!!!

The Student Ultimate Presentation Survival Pack

We are super excited about SXSW this year.  We’ve got a couple of panels in their panel picker, and we’d love your help in voting them into the Interactive Festival.

Here they are:

R.I.P PowerPoint: Why Online Presentations Matter

Why is one of the most ubiquitously used communication methods–presentations–the last to move online? Sales and marketing teams rely on online tools to measure effectiveness; bringing presentations online lets you integrate with this ecosystem and maximize your business. Come learn from the various online presentation providers, and say R.I.P. to PowerPoint forever.

We’re hoping to have some folks from Google Docs, Adobe Presentations and Zoho Show on this panel.  We think it will be awesome!

Sexy Sells: Makeover Your Presentation For Maximum Sellability

As Sales processes increasingly become remote and on-demand, the right presentation matters more than ever. One participant will receive a live presentation makeover – from look/feel to presenting tips. All attendees will learn the hottest technologies, killer presentation best practices, and how to deliver your message with sass and style.

This will be a joint session with us and Cliff Atkinson, author of Beyond Bullet Points.

Please vote for our panels today – we’d love your help!