Agility Presenter now Apreso

AnyStream this week shipped an updated version of its Agility Presenter software, now called Apreso for PowerPoint. (The new name is designed to roll off the tongue a little better: “Send me the Apreso” rather than “Send me the rich media presentation”, company officials say.) For those keeping score at home, the new Apreso for PowerPoint is version 1.5 technology. What is Apreso and what’s new other than the name? Apreso is a plug-in for PowerPoint (2003 and earlier) that is used to capture both the slides as well as an audio/video recording of the presenter and combines them into a browser-based presentation, complete with an index by slide (see a demo here). It’s a cool way to capture a presentation to give it legs beyond the live audience. Captured presentations can be burned to a CD or streamed over the Internet. The viewer just needs Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. New is the ability to create an audio-only version of a presentation that includes video. Audio only is more easily streamed over a dial-up connection. Also, users have more control over the look and feel of the final presentation. In addition, Apreso can export content to Microsoft Producer 2003, where content creators can do a little post-production editing of a presentation. One downside to Apreso: If you mess up in the middle of giving a presentation or upon reviewing the final version and finding something you don’t like, you have to start all over again from the beginning.

In conjunction with the new launch, AnyStream also announced a new hosting service for Apreso-generated content. Producers can output their work directly to the service from the Apreso application. The service is available as a free trial until March 1, 2004.