Brainshark Enhances Multiuser SlideShark App

Brainshark, a cloud-based provider of online and mobile video presentation software, has added a number of features to SlideShark Team Edition, a multiuser mobile app that powers on-the-fly PowerPoint presentations on the iPad.

Sales and marketing teams can take advantage of a newly added folder management functionality, which allows account administrators to create, modify, or delete folders and to organize presentation content based on parameters like topic or region.

New permission-based access controls determine who can upload content or view presentations in a specific folder. For instance, a designated Sales Management folder may grant sole access to heads of sales teams, but a General Sales folder might include both sales reps and sales managers, according to David Klein, senior director of product management for Brainshark.

"We're dedicated to making interactions with PowerPoint on the iPad easy—whether you need to view or present a deck, ensure content is current and easily accessible, or track who's viewing and sharing your presentations," said Brainshark CEO Joe Gustafson, in a statement. The company reported that SlideShark Team Edition, which was first launched this February, has gained particularly strong ground in vertical markets like pharmaceuticals, technology, insurance, and financial services.

The most recent update to SlideShark v1.7 also yielded support for Apple TV Airplay, which enables wireless streaming of presentations when a monitor or projector is hooked up to an Apple TV device. When an iPad 2 or iPad 3 user is in SlideShark Presenter Mode on their tablet device, they are able to follow along and review timers, slide notes, an animation counter, and slide thumbnails during the presentation.

In addition to the SlideShark enhancements, Brainshark announced last week that Blackboard Learn—For Sales, a cloud-based learning management solution integrated with Salesforce.com, selected the company to provide rapid content creation solutions for the platform. When creating sales training collateral or other content for professional development, users can now use Brainshark to add voice, video clips, surveys and questions, or attachments to PowerPoint decks and documents.