Annotate your presentations with video

Developer KnowledgeVision Systems has launched a free online service called Knovio that lets small businesses annotate PowerPoint presentations with video and voice commentary.

The idea is that you can leave these presentations as sort of a calling card on your Web site to explain your company's value proposition or use it to help share presentations or production demonstrations on social media sites or social networks. A Knovio presentation might also serve as a follow-up to a sales meeting or conference session. You could also use the tool for internal presentations that help educate your team on new products, services or company policies.

"Everyone knows that robust content can be instrumental in attracting people to a Web site and projecting yourself as bigger than you are," said Michael Kolowich, CEO and cofounder of KnowledgeVision.

The interface screen grab below gives you a sense of how you or someone on your team would manage a recording session.

There are three steps involved with annotating a presentation:

1. Upload a PowerPoint presentation
2. Focus your Webcam on the person doing the talking and hit "Record"; when you're done, press "Stop"
3. Select where and how to share the presentation (this can be done via email, in the private spaces that are offered on the Knovio site; or in social networks including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+)

Kolowich said your team will receive notifications when the presentation is viewed. You can use the private spaces to collaborate on presentations, offering suggestions for changes or modifications to the messaging.

Knovio has been in a beta test for the past several months, and KnowledgeVision will use the wider release to gauge which features should be added for an advanced version of the service that will probably carry some sort of subscription fee. The service is a pared-down version of KnowledgeVision's KVStudio online content production toolset.