authorSTREAM: Conversation with Harman Singh

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Harman Singh (pictured to the left) graduated with a Masters degree in Computer Science at the NC State University in Raleigh, NC — here he did Masters Research in the field of eLearning and distance education. Under the guidance of his mentors, Dr. Steve Walsh and Dr. Tom Miller, he founded authorGEN Technologies in 2002 with the vision of providing teachers with tools to teach online. In this conversation, Harman discusses authorSTREAM, their slide sharing site.

Geetesh: Tell us more about the new improvements at authorSTREAM, including enhanced profile features.

Harman: We’ve experimented with a lot of things on authorSTREAM. The basic idea behind bringing in the new design was to increase usability, performance, navigation and PowerPoint uploads. We’ve introduced “Your Stuff”, “Like it/Dislike it”, “Active Users”, and updated the presentation page layout.

“Your Stuff” refers to users’ dashboard. Your Stuff is a single page from where you can see all featured presentations, active users, what’s up on authorSTREAM, and can easily access “Your Uploaded Presentations” page, Profile and the “Import contacts” page. Now you can add your web address and information about yourself to your profile. Your web address will be visible on your presentation pages and on your Profile page thus providing you as many link-backs as the number of presentations uploaded by you.

“Active users” is a way to acknowledge sincere efforts of dedicated PowerPoint uploaders who spend hours to create wonderful presentations. Recent updates on authorSTREAM include Guest uploads, a Facebook application, PowerPoint for Peace, and Present Live. Improvement efforts are still on, and you will see a lot of other features in the coming days.

Geetesh: How did these new features evolve – did they come about as a result of user feedback? Also, how can a user send feedback to authorSTREAM.

Harman: Well, some came from user feedback and support queries while the others are a result of brainstorming within the team. We always wanted that users should not feel restricted while sharing PowerPoint online. Why would you use PowerPoint if you don’t require animations, sound and automatic timings? You could rather share a document or PDF. We understand that sharing a PowerPoint presentation online should be exactly the same as you are watching a PPT on your computer within PowerPoint. authorSTREAM is the solution that addresses all such issues.

authorSTREAM offers the following features, which any PowerPoint lover would expect from an online PPT sharing platform:

• Animation, sound, timings, etc. are retained in the output.
• Your narrated or rehearsed presentations are also converted to video formats (video for iPod, video for YouTube). The ‘Send To YouTube’ feature lets you port videos to YouTube instantly from your dashboard.
• authorPOINT Lite – a free desktop tool to support hassle-free conversion and uploads.
• Present Live – Enables presenters to share a presentation with a select circle of friends or associates, live on the Internet. A quick and easy way of discussing a presentation using text chat and third party audio conferencing, this facility has opened up a new channel of live communication for use in business, education, entertainment and other sectors.

Users can send their feedback through the contact page.

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by rmarsiglia

Categories: authorstream, powerpoint