SlideShare moves to HTML5

In an not an unexpected move, SlideShare, the presentation hosting service has moved from Flash to HTML5.

When SlideShare launched it used Flash to create an online slideshow of your presentation slides. It is a service I have been using now for over three years and have found it a useful place to put presentations, but then to also embed them into the blog or the VLE.

However as it was Flash based there were issues when people viewed them on a mobile device such as the iPhone or the iPad. They did fix this for viewing a SlideShare presentation on the SlideShare website and released an API. Last year I reviewed the Slide by Slide app for the iPad and was not impressed. However this wasn’t an official iPad app one that merely used the SlideShare API.

Even though you could view the presentation on the website on the iPad when the SlideShare presentation was embedded into a website, all you got was a blank space.

So it’s interesting to hear that SlideShare are losing the Flash and moving to HTML5.

  • Your slides will display flawlessly on an iPhone, iPad, Android and any other mobile platform. You can send a link to friends and colleagues, and they can view it on the go regardless of what device they are using.
  • Your slides will now load 30% faster. On the web, faster is better.
  • Your slides will be a part of the web. No plugins or downloads are required to view them.

They are certainly convinced that mobile is the way a lot of people will view presentations on the web.

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