The day is fast approaching when we won’t need to buy software. We’ll find whatever we want free on the Web.

Think my head is in the clouds? Take a look at one of the latest examples of Web applications at 280slides.com.

This beta presentation application could some day seriously rival PowerPoint and Keynote. At some future point, we may look back and see it was a key development in the march away from Microsoft Office and other desktop software.

What is really startling is how robust 280slides is. This is not just a simple presentation app. You can create slides in multiple fonts with a decent choice of background designs.

If you want photos or video in your presentation, you can upload them from your computer or connect to them from Flickr and YouTube.

You can save your slideshow on the site. Then when you are ready to give your presentation, call it up on your browser — provided you have an Internet connection. You can also download your presentation and open it up in PowerPoint or embed your presentation in your blog or Web site.

Of course, you won’t get many of the more advanced features of PowerPoint and Keynote in 280slides, but for simple, straight-forward presentations, it’ll do the job amazingly well.

And did I mention it was free? Try it and let us know what you think.

Tags: 280slides.com, Keynote, PowerPoint, presentation application, slideshows, Web apps

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 12:13 am and is filed under Hawaii Hacks, Productivity, Technology, Web sites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.