New Empressr Blog

The Empressr blog can now be found here

Empressr to participate at SXSW

Empressr will be in Austin for all three shows, stop by the Empressr booth say hi, and enter to win a cool prize.

Empressr to participate in VizThink conference

The VizThink conference is taking place in San Francisco at the end of January 27-29 and Empressr will be there. I feel there is great synergy in what we are doing and what the conference is all about, visual thinking. Empressr is a great tool to express your thoughts in a visual way. Take a look at the VizThink website, if you feel your a visual thinker, you should attend, if your not a visual thinker but are curious, you should attend. We have a discount code if you would like to go it will save you $100 off the price of admission. Use the code PCE02 when you check out.

I'm pretty psyched about the conference, so much that I'm bringing my daughter, who is a visual thinker like myself. I am also bringing my wife, who is also a visual thinker. (it also happens to fall on my anniversary, I'm no dummy)

I hope to see you there.

MejorNegocios Covers Empressr

MejorNegocios a Major independent magazine in Madrid Spain, covers Empressr in their online and print versions!

INC Magazine includes Empressr in "Beyond Powerpoint"

In the November issue of Inc Magazine and online, Empressr was included in a peer review of the strength of several online applications that go Beyond Powerpoint. Empresr was classified in the category of "Best for...Handling multimedia Web presentations" Check out the full article here, we are on the second page of the story.

Ready to be Empressed! v3 Released

Emails are going out this week to let everyone know that Empressr is ready for Public Beta!

We are really excited about the v3. It has been re-imagined!

We know there will be a lot of questions, and yes some bugs :) and we encourage all comments and questions. We will be posting some screen casts to the Web site at the end of the week to help you get empressed.

The New Flex Empressr Composr is more interactive and full of new features.

• Choose the size of your Empressr
  
• Snap to grid, object and guide
  
• Customize grid spacing
  
• Zoom to align objects with greater accuracy
  
• Use a different background for each slide
  
• Select transitions between slides including 3D effects
  
• Arrange layering
  
• Copy and paste objects from slide to slide
  
• Drag and drop images, videos and Flash assets from the Library
  
• Robust text tables and charts
  
• Add transparency effects on all objects
  
• Capture images from your Webcam right into the Library
  
• Tag media assets 

Requires Flash 9 plugin available for download at the Adobe Web site. For Mac OS X 10.5 users, please download the newest release candidate from Adobe Labs

Create new Empressrs
To create using v.3 simply click "+Create New" or "+Quick Show"

Modify past Empressrs
Your existing Empressrs will not be converted to v.3. You may still edit them using v.2.

A few known issues to be aware of:

• Linking to content outside of our domain,(such as flickr, etc) is not fully implemented, we will have that working tomorrow. 
  
• Some of the styles that you set are not being retained, this is at the top of the list to fix. 
  
• Thumb-nailing is not working on flash files yet, and sometimes the thumbnails on the videos do not generate. 
  
• Some transitions are chunky at less than their original size, works perfect full size and full screen. 
  
• Fonts, the upload your own font feature has not been implemented yet and we have a small font selection available to work with for now.

That's the big ones, and we should have most of these taken care of in the next few days.

Have fun and remember, this is a Public Beta!

Bryan

Empressr covered by Techcrunch

Thanks Mark for the nice writeup

Empressr was chosen as the "Technology Pace Setter"

Empressr was chosen as the "Technology Pace Setter" at The New New Internet Conference in Reston VA. It's a great honor that the distinguished Judging Committee of industry experts and venture capitalists chose Empressr over the other companies in the group. I gave a 5 minute talk on Empressr and our strategy for its creation, to the packed hall of over 500 attendees.

Empressr v.3 Private Beta Invites

Sign up now for the private beta. We will begin inviting people in a few weeks.
**Update, Private beta is over, everyone can sign up now.

Roadshow: This week, Techcrunch40 then Flashforward

I'm at the third show of the Empressr Fall roadshow. It has been a hectic week, Monday and Tuesday in San Francisco for the Techcrunch40, where Empressr was part of the demo pit. Then the red eye to Boston Tuesday for the opening of FlashForward. Today is the second day of Flashforward and I have been demoing the new Flex interface of the Empressr Composr. The Composr is where you create and edit presentations. It looks great, everyone I've spoken with loves it and can't wait to start using it. It looks and performs like an application that resides on your computer, but is 100% browser based. We have greatly expanded the media capabilities and added a ton of new features, I'll follow up with a post shortly covering the new features.

Check out the "Sneak Peek" empressr of the new interface that I posted a few days ago.

We are planning a private beta release in about 4-6 weeks. If you are interested in being part of the private beta sign up now. People that sign up before the end of September will have the opportunity to participate in the private beta of Composr.

Empressr at Flash Forward 2007

Here's our new booth setup pictured here at Flash Forward. We're expecting a ton of traffic. Stop by and say hello if you are there.

Empressr at Techcrunch

Just got back from Techcrunch 40 today. We had excellant time and received great feedback from the demopit of our new rich media presentation editor that we call the Composr. We're off to FlashForward in Boston where we'll be a major exhibitor as well.

Sneak peak of the New Flex Empressr

This is a screencast of the New Empressr Composr Flex interface that we will be showing at TechCrunch40 next week. Launching to Private Beta in October.

On Deck: The New Flex Interface

I haven't written anything about the new Flex/Flash interface yet, I think it's time to catch everyone up on what's been going on behind the scenes at Empressr.

You have seen the new features being added to the web site, but not much to the editor (Composr). Launching this September is a completely rewritten Flex based editor for v3.

The main reason for the rewrite is to make the user experience a much more engaging one, we think we nailed that! The user interface is intuitive, beautiful and quite elegant, it works more like a desktop app, and the speed has been increased by using remote procedure calls.

Empressr's strength has always been how it utilized rich media; we have been expanding those capabilities and the new Composr takes true advantage of this, with quick searching of your library, expanded meta data, drag and drop from the Library to the Stage, and quick filtering by media type. All these features make Empressr a dream to create with. We'll update you on the new and updated features that will come with the new Flex UI in the coming weeks.

Link: From Interesting Web Site Collection

Cool site, lots of links to useful web applications, as well as Empressr

Roadshow: Adobe MAX 2007

Join us at MAX 2007, the annual Adobe user event, Sept. 30-Oct. 3 in Chicago, IL. This year's event offers world-class training, unparalleled networking opportunities, and hands-on access to the latest technologies.
Over 200 technical sessions
Adobe leadership keynotes
After hours lounges (New!)
Case studies
Full-day hands-on training
Hands-on workshops
Community pavilion
Learn more at http://www.adobemax2007.com/na/.

Roadshow: FlashForward2007

Empressr has signed up to be a sponsor at the FlashForward2007 conference in Boston. The conference is September 19-21, 2007 at the Marriott Copley Place, Boston. If your going we would love if you stopped by the booth and check out Empressr.

Mashable includes Empressr in The List of Online Presentation Applications

Wow the list is growing! When Empressr launched their was only three companies in this space. Take a read here http://mashable.com/2007/08/12/online-presentations/

On Deck: Powerpoint Upload

The next feature release will give you the ability to upload your PowerPoint file to Empressr, we will extract out the slides as images and build a image based presentation. This will allow you to share work that you have previously created in PowerPoint with your friends and colleagues.

Like the Quick Show feature once you create the PPT Show, you can open it in the Empressr Composr and add addition media like videos and animations, images, text and charts.

The Roots of the name Empressr

The word Empresser, that we shortened to Empressr comes from middle English impressen, to imprint, from Old French empresser, from Latin impressus. I think that's pretty cool.