The community response to the YouTube SlideShare embedding feature has been awesome. We’re glad that our users are liking this. Here’s something else to know…

VideoSlides in Second Navigation: To help you see the latest examples of YouTube videos inside SlideShare presentations, we have introduced a new navigation link called VideoSlides. Screeshot below. This will expose you to all the cool things the community is starting to do with with this.

Autoplay of the video: This is not supported at present, but we plan to add that in … stay tuned.

Many of the questions you have about this will be answered in the FAQs that we have put up on this page. The FAQ is reproduced below for the readers of this blog.

FAQs
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Q: How many YouTube videos can be embedded inside a presentation? Is there a limit?
A: At present, you have a limit of 5 videos per presentation. As this feature stabilises, we will enhance this limit, or even remove it altogether (depending on user feedback).

Q: How can I insert the videos at the desired position? Isn’t it complicated?
A:Trust us, this is a breeze! Our software automatically detects how many slides your presentation contains and displays all possible positions in the dropdown selector. Something like - “Before Slide 1″, “After Slide 1″, “After Slide 2″, “After Slide 3″ etc. Just choose whatever position you want.

Q: You mention that the inserted YouTube video will show up in a separate slide inside the SlideShare player. Do I have to add a blank slide to the presentation file that I upload to SlideShare?
A: Not at all. The separate slide for the video is automatically inserted for you. You should upload your presentation file as it is.

Q: YouTube is great, but I use another video site? Can I embed other videos as well?
A: At present, we support only YouTube videos. We plan to extend this to other popular video sites. Let us know which ones you need and we’ll examine its feasibility.

Q: The YouTube video plays fine, but there is some latency if multiple videos are embedded in a presentation. Why is this so?
A: SlideShare is using YouTube’s APIs for the video embedding feature. We think embedding 1or 2 videos in the presentation should suffice for most use cases and should work absolutely smoothly. We have also tested with larger number of videos- this works as well, though you might get some loading latency or instability, specially if you click through the slides very quickly. Go at a gentle pace, we promise you- it will be fine. Rest assured, we shall improve this as time progresses.

Q: The limit of 5 videos per presentation- is there a restriction about where the videos can be inserted? Can I insert all 5 videos between two specific slides? Or do they need to be spaced out throughout?
A: You can insert the 5 videos WHEREVER you want to- they could all be bunched up together between two specific slides as well.

Check out this example. This slide deck has one presentation slide followed by 5 YouTube videos one after the other. Thus you could make this work like a multivideo player for YouTube if you wanted to (maybe interspersed with some text on slides in between).

Q: Will the embedded videos also show up in presentations embedded in blogs?
A: Absolutely.

Q: Your mention that embedding a YouTube video inside a SlideShare presentation is just like embedding a video inside a blogpost. How is that?
A: While building this feature, we tried to mimic the way people embed videos inside blogposts (since everyone knows how to do that). You first compose the blogpost, publish it and then add the embed code to the blogpost wherever you want the video to show up and update the post. Correct?

Similarly, just publish your presentation on SlideShare as you always do. Then add the video URL (using our simple interface) and the presentation gets updated with the video. You can add the video(s) anytime and also remove them whenever you want to. Your uploaded presentation is independent of the videos and will get updated with your latest actions in a jiffy.

Q: Can I add a video to a presentation that I uploaded to SlideShare one month ago? One year ago?
A: You can add the video to any SlideShare presentation irrespective of when it was uploaded to SlideShare.

Q: What player controls can I use? Will Youtube’s video controls be retained? Can I make the video full-screen when it plays?
A: Use the SlideShare player controls to advance slides as usual. When you get to a video slide, use the YouTube player controls to play or pause the video. Video full-screen works as usual.

Q: If there is more than one video in the presentation can I start playing all of them? Will it buffer multiple videos?
A: No, the player will allow you to play only one video at a time. If you advance past a video slide while paused, it will continue to buffer that video. If you start playing a second video, you will lose your position in the first!

SlideShare is recruiting a Web Designer for its Delhi office. Details below….

Job Description

- Web/Graphical Design of SlideShare: its GUI, HTML/CSS, visual design of graphic elements (e.g. forms, logos, banners, blog themes)
- Ship products of the highest quality through strict attention to visual and interaction details
- Requires working in tight co-ordination with a top notch software development team

Desired Candidate Profile

- Degree /diploma in Web design, Graphic Design or Visual communications
- 1 to 4 years experience in similar role (preferably in internet/web company)
- Excellent Web design skills: XHTML (through dreamweaver & coding), CSS, Javascript, basic Ajax
- Good knowledge of W3C web standards, tableless layout, cross browser compatability (IE & FF), SEO friendly markup, graceful website degradation
- Excellent graphic design skills using Photoshop, Illustrator
- Basic knowledge of Macromedia Flash animations (using timeline)
- Ability to troubleshoot HTML/CSS design issues using Firebug, browser plugins & developer tools

Bonus Points

- Candidates with experience in designing/coding blog themes (Wordpress/BlogSpot), Facebook or OpenSocial app interface design, widgets, skinnable media players

Send resumes to ‘amit AT slideshare DOT com’ & ‘rashmi AT slideshare DOT com”

SlideShare is recruiting software developers for its New Delhi (India) & San Francisco (USA) office.

Working at SlideShare can be a hugely rewarding experience. Building social software is a whole lot of fun- the technical challenges, the high-involvement nature of the work (we are a consumer internet company- chances are your friends and family would be slideshare users as well), the fast changing internet landscape, and the constant feedback from users, make it a different ball-game than the usual technical work.

Benefits include:

- Experience with cutting edge open-source technology
- Working with a team of hackers & geeks, in a “No-BS” environment where you can focus on building great technology that is used by millions of people everyday
- Opportunity to play a decisive role in building a global website
- Competitive Salary + Stock options

Candidate profile:

- Experience : 1 - 4 years, preferably in an internet/web company
- Strong coding skills in application development using Ruby on Rails, PHP, Python, Javascript, AJAX, LAMP, web frameworks etc
- Candidates with exposure to Web 2.0 technologies (blogging, social networking, RSS, XML, APIs, Mashups etc) are preferred
- Must be comfortable working in a small but fast growing startup

Bonus Points

- Prior experience building applications/widgets for social graph platform (Facebook OpenSocial, iGoogle) is an added advantage
- Prior exposure to Amazon Web Services (S3, EC2, SQS), CDNs and its management is as advantage

Send resumes to ‘amit AT slideshare DOT com’ & ‘jon AT slideshare DOT com”

Just wanted to drop a quick note that the voting for the World’s Best Presentation Contest got over on the 14th of August as scheduled. This has been a gorgeous contest - 2561 entries with 22744 votes cast. We’ve had contestants from over 120 countries spread across 5 continents. And to think that the contest is going on while the Olympics are being held in China - it couldn’t have been better.

You’ll need to wait a few days more to know who the winners are. The entries are being examined, the votes are being counted and the judges have gotten together into their huddle… Lets see what their decision is going to be. Stay Tuned….

Any guesses who the winners are going to be - First, Second & Third prizes???? any takers ?

Today is the last day for voting in the World’s Best Presentation Contest. Voting closes 12:00 PM PST. We are in the home stretch now. We hope to have the results for you within a week of closing (we’ll try sooner).

We have again been receiving complaints of voting misdemeanors during the last few days. Be rest assured - once voting gets over we are going to go over the voting data with a fine eye and weed out any irregular voting patterns. In case there is evidence that some entries have been purposely voted up, they could end up getting disqualified as well. Also, remember that the end result is really dependent on the judges (not the votes!).

Lets hope the contest a successful closing!

We just rolled out a bunch of new features & enhancements.

File Size 100 MB: Now you can upload files upto 100 MB in size. Woot! This is a 100% increase in the allowed size (earlier it was 50MB).

Speaker notes in Presentations : This has been one of our most requested features till date… now speaker notes in the presentation will be captured and displayed in the comments section. You will have to upload the ppt/odp file for this (not pdf). This should help many speakers who have valuable accompanying commentary in the notes section… this now gets shared with the audience as well. Screenshot below:

SlideShow page clean up: The slideshow page has been cleaned up a bit to reduce clutter; some of the GUI elements have been reorganised.

Tell us how you liked these changes.

This is a reminder that the entry submission in the World’s Best Presentation Contest is in the home stretch… you just have 3 more days (till 7th Aug). So in case you have been procrastinating, this is probably your last chance.

The voting on the contest will be open for one more week (till 14th Aug).

Looking forward to a grand finale to this gorgeous event. Stay tuned….

World’s Best Presentation Contest

Want to join the team that is building SlideShare? We are recruiting ROR/PHP hackers both in San Franciso & New Delhi.

Working at SlideShare can be a hugely rewarding experience. Building social software is a whole lot of fun: the technical challenges, the high-involvement nature of the work (how often can you show your friends & family what you did at work last week?), the fast changing internet landscape, and the constant feedback from users, make it a different ball-game than the usual technical work.

Benefits include:

- Experience with cutting edge open-source technology
- Working with a team of bright, enthusiastic people where you can focus on creating great technology that is used by millions of people every day
- Competitive Salary
- Generous Stock options

We are recruiting for the following positions:

Server side hackers:If you’re a open source junkie, and love hacking Linux systems, deep algorithmic work (search, recommendation engines, etc), SQL tuning and optimization, and modifying open-source code to your own twisted purposes, then you might be a good fit for a position with our server side team. Experience in scalability of large web applications is an advantage.

Front End Developers: We’re looking for web-savvy hackers who know JavaScript and Flash and PHP, and can use them to full effect in creating amazing web applications. Prior experience in application development in a internet firm may be an advantage.

Technologies/Platforms: We work on ruby on rails, linux, freebasd, debian, Amazon S3, MySql etc. Candidates not having experience in ROR can apply- if you have worked earlier on PHP, Python, Perl etc, thats fine as well.

Send resumes to ‘jon AT slideshare DOT com’ & ‘amit AT slideshare DOT com’.