Slideshare is a rather popular 2.0 service which somehow manages to not attract a lot of attention. It’s a sort of under the radar service that everybody uses, but nobody hypes it. Maybe it’s because of the somewhat dull design or the fact that the founders don’t trash parties in the Valley (Oh wait, they do! See pic).
SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinha and undersigned at Web 2.0 Expo SF party
Anyhow, the service does have a large following – for instance, 1113 people have subscribed to their corporate blog. Moreover, everybody who wants to share a presentation online seems to embed it on Slideshare. That’s probably the reason why they raised $3 million in May this year.
So let’s give these folks some well-deserved attention. They’ve just released a new “more professional, clean, clutter-free” design. Part of the change is a focus on navigating the site. There’s a more visible search option, the categories are right in your face and the menu at the top is larger.
But most importantly, Slideshare has dropped the “beta”. Yes, the service has matured and isn’t in some informal test phase anymore. Under the radar, but oh so successful.
Maybe the option to embed Slideshare presentations onto Facebook will help them become more visible as well. I’ve only seen media/tech people use slideshare until now; would be good if more people use it. Because it’s such an easy way to share presentations online.
True, Slideshare just existed all of a sudden. But it’s a great service and it deserves all the attention! Keep up the good work, and nice picture EJ :)