Neal Caidin from Duke CIT, Todd Stabley and I met with Peter Luscko, Account Executive with BrainShark. This is a hosted, cloud based, software as a service (SaS) tool that allows its subscribers to upload Powerpoint presentations (Keynote is not currently supported) and then annotate them with their voice and play them back as a self-contained movie with user navigation. This is similar to tools such as Camtasia or Adobe Presenter, but since it is cloud based, it offers some unique features like being able to dial a phone number, enter a pin and then record your annotations via telephone. This is a bit different than using the free DukeCapture Mobile solution to record yourself as you switch through your slides in that you can add audio one slide at a time.
The system seemed quite well developed and currently seemed to be targeted to remote groups of corporate marketing people although they said that some educational institutions were using. For their enterprise users, you can also have a branded website where people can find your presentations.
The system can also deliver to different mobile platforms and adding video is something in the works. There is integration with Active Directory for security as well. Videos can be embedded into websites or LMS such as Moodle. If you were to leave the service, you’d have the ability to download your presentations in Flash format.
I won’t share the cost right now, but it seemed relatively high for the enterprise model because it assumed a high level of adoption across the enterprise. There is a free version available as well as “pro” versions for $9.99/month and $19.99/month for individuals.