myBrainshark

Introduction
About myBrainshark
Using myBrainshark
Pricing and Support
Conclusion

Introduction

Almost everyone these days is comfortable creating PowerPoint slides but tell those same users to create online presentations or eLearning content, and you'll find they are not too happy. myBrainshark is a free online application that makes it easy to create on-demand online presentations with just your PowerPoint slides and a phone connection to add voice-overs. It works very intuitively, and you can create your first online presentation in less than an hour.

So how does myBrainshark fare? Read on to learn more.

About myBrainshark

myBrainshark is from Brainshark, a company based in Waltham, MA, United States. Our contact at Brainshark for this review was Jay Wilder. Thank you, Jay.

myBrainshark is a free online application that enables you to convert your PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and photos into voice-enriched Flash presentations. With myBrainshark you can easily upload your presentations to share and deliver e-learning courses, company or product overviews, and more.

To get started with myBrainshark, you'll need to use your telephone, a web browser, and some PowerPoint slides. You upload your presentation to the myBrainshark site and dial a telephone number thereafter to record your synced voice narration while your slides and slide notes appear on screen.

Although we mention a PowerPoint presentation in the preceding paragraph, you can also upload other formats, and do more. Here are a few scenarios:

1. Upload a PowerPoint presentation, tag it, and add voice to each slide and animation.
2. Upload a Word, Excel or PDF Document, tag it, and add your voice to narrate.
3. Upload a video or screencast, apply tags, and add your voice.
4. Browse and upload your photos to create a Photo Album, tag it, and add voice to each photo.
5. Produce a podcast.

Voice can be added in two ways:

1. Call a myBrainshark number, and record your voice.
2. Browse and upload your MP3s.

Using myBrainshark

Follow these steps to use myBrainshark:

1. Open the myBrainshark site in your web browser, as shown in Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: mybrainshark home page
2. Create a new account if you don't already has one. Thereafter, login to your account.
3. Click the prominent Upload Content button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, below.
4. 
   Figure 2: Upload Content
4. Doing so opens a tabbed page with options to upload a PowerPoint presentation, Word document, video, or to upload photos to create a Photo Album, etc.
5. 
   Figure 3: Upload Options
5. For this review, we choose to upload a PowerPoint presentation.
6. Clicking the Upload a PowerPoint button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3, above, opens a window from where you can choose the presentation you want to upload.
7. Thereafter, while the conversion of the uploaded presentation continues, you can provide description, tags, and specify a category for the content, as shown in Figure 4, below.
8. 
   Figure 4: Conversion Process
8. Once the presentation is converted, you'll see information on adding audio, as shown in Figure 5, below. If you want you can add the audio right away by dialling the telephone number and code provided, or else skip it to add later as required.
9. 
   Figure 5: Add Audio Option
9. At this point of time, your presentation is ready to be shared with others.
10. 
    Figure 6: Uploaded Presentation

Once the presentation is uploaded, you can continue working with it:

• Make the presentation active or inactive
• Edit the presentation info
• Manage slides
• Add attachments
• Add survey/poll questions
• Add video, URLs, documents, PowerPoint presentations, and photo slides
• Print slides
• Share the online presentation
• Manage audio (if added)
• Add audio using phone, or by uploading MP3 files
• Add background audio using MP3 files
• Delete the presentation
• Track viewing by number of views, percentages viewed, and location(s)

Subject Matter Experts can apply to price eLearning content on myBrainshark as a “Learning Provider”. Also, myBrainshark is SEO optimized so presentations come up at the top of search engine results.

Pricing and Support

myBrainshark is a free service. Upgrade paths start at $49/month to provide the ability to add a guest book to your presentation, make links private, see detailed viewer-by-viewer reporting, and more.

Support is through e-mail, online FAQ, and telephone.

Conclusion

myBrainshark is an amazing platform with no storage limits that benefits from Brainshark's years of experience in maintaining a larger enterprise-level platform. Now that this sort of service is available for free to everyone, there's no reason why you should not take a look to decide if this works for you.