Prezi

History

Prezi was founded in 2008 in Budapest, Hungary by Adam Somlai-Fischer, Peter Halacsy, and Peter Arvai.

The earliest zooming presentation prototype had been previously developed by Somlai-Fischer to showcase his media-art pieces. Halacsy, an engineer, saw one of these presentations and proposed to improve the software. They were joined by entrepreneur and future CEO Arvai with the goal of making Prezi a globally recognized SaaS company.

The company established incorporation on May 20, 2009 and received its first major investment from TED two months later. A San Francisco office was opened that December.

Early 2011 saw the launch of Prezi’s first iPad application, followed by $14M in Series B funding led by Accel Partners. A Prezi iPhone app was launched in late 2012.

In March of 2014, Prezi pledged $100M in free licenses to Title 1 schools as part of the Obama administration’s ConnectED program. November of that year saw the announcement of $57M in new funding from Spectrum Equity and Accel Partners.

Prezi for Android was launched in 2015, and in June of 2016, the company launched Prezi Business. As of June 2, 2016, Prezi reports 75 million registered users and 1 billion ‘prezi’ presentation views worldwide.

Prezi ZUI

The Prezi online and offline ZUI editors employ a common tool palette, allowing users to pan and zoom, and to size, rotate, or edit an object. The user places objects on a canvas and navigates between videos, images, texts and other presentation media. Frames allow grouping of presentation media together as a single presentation object. Paths are navigational sequences that connect presentation objects for the purposes of structuring a linear presentation.

Prezi Desktop

Prezi Desktop allows Prezi Pro or Edu Pro subscribers to work off-line and create and save their presentations on their own Windows or Mac systems. Prezi Desktop Editor allows users to work on the presentation off-line in a .pez file format. Users can have files up to 500 MB in size when signing up with a school-affiliated e-mail address. This storage capability doesn't affect when users use an appropriate third-party conversion software with FLV or SWF format.

Prezi Collaborate

Prezi Collaborate is an online collaboration feature that allows up to ten people (co-located or geographically separated) to co-edit and show their presentations in real time. Users participate in a prezi simultaneously, and each is visually represented in the presentation window by a small avatar. Although Prezi Meetings can be done simultaneously, that is not the only option. Participants can be invited to edit the Prezi presentation at a later time if they wish. A link will be sent and the participant has up to ten days to edit the presentation. Prezi Meeting is included in all license types.

Prezi Viewer for iPad

Prezi Viewer is an app developed for the iPad for viewing prezis created on one's Prezi online account. The iPad touchscreen and multi-touch user interface enables users to pan, and pinch to zoom in or out of their media.

Prezzip also offers templates for PreziU, with tool kits and visuals for file presentations.

Revenue model

Prezi uses the freemium model. Customers who use the product's Public license must publish their work on the Prezi.com website, which is publicly viewable. Customers who pay for a Prezi Enjoy or Prezi Pro can make their presentations private. Only Pro license users have access to Prezi Desktop, which enables offline editing. Prezi also offers an educational license for students and educators.

Business and conferences

Some users at the World Economic Forum are currently using Prezi for their presentations. Many TED Conference speakers have used Prezi, including TED curator Chris Anderson, who used a Prezi for his TEDGlobal 2010 presentation: How Web Video Powers Global Innovation. Michael Chasen, President/CEO of Blackboard, Inc., used Prezi to deliver the keynote at their BbWorld 2011 annual users' conference. FBLA members have recently started using this software.

Education

Prezi is used at Oregon State University, as well as at the Dwight School and elsewhere in primary education and higher education. It can be used by teachers and students to collaborate on presentations with multiple users able to access and edit the same presentation, and to allow students to construct and present their knowledge in different learning styles. The product is also being used in e-learning and edutainment. However note that Prezi is considered by Web2Access to be an 'inaccessible service'. Educators have been advised that Prezi is not ADA/508 compliant and that an accessible PowerPoint version of the presentation should be provided online for students where a Prezi has been used.

Information visualization

In July 2011, The Guardian used Prezi to publish a new world map graphic on their website, for an article about the newly independent South Sudan.

Platform compatibility

Prezi is developed in Adobe Flash, Adobe AIR and built on top of Django. It is compatible with most modern computers and web browsers.

Prezi Business is an HTML5 application which runs on JavaScript. It also is compatible with most modern systems.

Criticism

The company has acknowledged that the “zooming user interface (ZUI)” has the potential to induce nausea, and offers tutorials with recommendations for use of layout to avoid excessive visual stimulation. There has also been criticism of Prezi’s lack of font and color options. Notably, Presentation Zen author Garr Reynolds once stated that he had never seen a good presentation using Prezi and was looking for one; in a later post, he refers to Chris Anderson’s talk at TED Global 2010 as one of the best TED talks ever, commenting that it was a good use of Prezi.

As Prezi is a Flash-based online zooming tool, most elements of the presentation cannot be read aloud by users with disabilities by means of a screen reader (e.g. it is not possible to add alt attributes to images and iframes used for the page design, and templates have been built to work without accessibility options). Prezi is considered by Web2Access to be an 'inaccessible service'. American educators have been advised that Prezi is not compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA/508) and that an accessible PowerPoint version of the presentation should be provided online for students where a Prezi has been used.