authorSTREAM.com, a PowerPoint sharing platform, is rolling out a premium service that’s ideal for enterprise clients. Similar to SlideShare, authorSTREAM is a web-based free platform for sharing PowerPoint presentations through blogs, websites, and on sites like YouTube or an iPod. authorSTREAM is giving one month of its Premium membership free to the first 100 TechCrunch readers who use this code P1304TC when signing up to buy the premium service here.
authorStream’s premium version, which costs $9.95 to $29.95 per month per user, has added a few interesting features which makes it worth a look. The platform adds support for creating animations in the slide presentation, allows users to upload 200-500 private presentations (depending on the type of premium membership), and lets users access unlimited video credits, to extend video length, when presentations are converted to video. Each credit allows you to create a video of up to 45 minutes (Free account users can only create videos with a maximum duration of 5 minutes). One useful feature the premium service allows for is the ability to create a branded presentation player. You can also earn money with Googe AdSense revenue sharing off of the branded page.
authorSTREAM lets free users create their own “channels,” for PowerPoint presentations and is like a personalized Web page where you can showcase your presentations. Free users can create up to 2 channels (but videos are embedded with ads) but premium users can create ad-free videos and up to 10 channels, depending on the type of membership. Both types of premium services let you embed your brands’ logo in all videos.
authorSTREAM is a direct competitor to popular slide sharing site SlideShare, which doesn’t have a premium service offering. authorSTREAM’s feature to create branded channels could be useful to businesses. And the ability to convert slides into video format and share to YouTube is very useful for marketing purposes. And the ability to monetize via AdSense on presentation pages also makes authorSTREAM’s services compelling. SlideShare has also rolled out some nifty features recently like mobile support, and the ability to embed YouTube videos into their flash-based presentations. SlideShare also launched an impressive new cloud-based feature that ties your native PowerPoint client your SlideShare account. Other players in the slide sharing space include SlideRocket, Scribd, and DocStoc.