SlideShare, a popular site for sharing presentations online, updated its service this week to instead of converting uploaded presentations to Flash-powered, embeddable presentations it is now converting them to HTML5. The update was discussed in the SlideShare blog. The benefits are outstanding:
- 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.
I was recently apart of a discussion asking where people could upload slides for embedding on websites. With accessibility being an issue, using Adobe Flash was not an option. With SlideShare reengineering their service, it takes a greater step towards being more mobile friendly and more accessible.
All newly uploaded presentations will be converted to HTML5. According to an answer in the comments of that blog post, all current presentations will be converted to HTML 5 gradually.
In addition to the move to HTML5, or perhaps complementary to, SlideShare also has a fully functional mobile website that is in place of an Android or iOS app. You can see it in action at http://www.slideshare.net/mobile