Zipcast is a new service from Slideshare for conducting online presentations. Using Zipcast you can share your slides, talk to your audience, respond to your audience, and have your audience interact with each other in realtime on one page. The best part is you can do all of this without having to download anything.

If you’re already a Slideshare user, you’ll notice that when you’re logged-in and looking at one of your presentations there is now a “Zipcast”link at the top of your presentation. Click the Zipcast link to begin giving an online presentation. Using the free version of Zipcast your presentation can be private or public (a small ad is inserted at the bottom of your presentation). The premium version of Zipcast removes ads and allows you to password protect your presentation.

Learn more about Zipcast in the Slideshare presentation below.

Applications for Education
Zipcast could be a great way to offer online presentations to students and colleagues. Likewise, students can give presentations to virtual classmates around the world. If you’ve ever given a virtual presentation, you know that presenting online presents some challenges that you don’t confront during in-person presentations. As more and more businesses embrace web-conferencing, it will become important for students to develop not only their in-person presentation skills, but also their virtual presentation skills.