• http://zentation.com/

Sites like SlideShare and Zoho Show are making it easy to post and share PowerPoint presentations via the Web. YouTube and Google Video, meanwhile, offer venues for video sharing. Now Zentation (Beta) is billing itself as the place "where video and PowerPoint meet on the web." The idea is that you get to watch both the presenter and the presentation. The process seems to involve uploading a video to Google and then using Zentation's web application to synchronize one's presentation to the video. The result is displayed in a stretchable four-pane arrangement: presenter video, chapter links, presentation and comments. The demos work the way they ought to. Of course, the presentation slides are conspicuously static. IT departments can typically bring weightier technology to bear on the same task; Zentation would not really be a viable way to create regular podcasts of class lectures, for example. But the advantage to academics of a service like Zentation is that it puts more publication control in the hands of moderately web-savvy individuals. Someone still needs to make the video, but small-scale projects might require little further institutional involvement. In theory, at least.