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Sway: A new presentation application from Microsoft

sway.com

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Re: Sway: A new presentation application from Microsoft

#21

Post by OrwellianChild »

Impressive for a number of reasons, many of which relate to the presentation/promotion of a Microsoft product:

  - Not a single Microsoft reference in the entire landing
    page
  - Broad use of Apple iPhone and iPad devices alongside
    normal PCs with no special acknowledgement
  - Product focus on readability/usability across many
    platforms, OS/device-independent
  - Broad integration of sharing hooks across Google, Twitter,
    FB, etc.
This represents a pretty dramatic departure from the siloed approach MS usually takes. It's pretty refreshing!

Re: Sway: A new presentation application from Microsoft

#23

Post by untog »

fiatjaf wrote: post #13

It is funny how "Seamless integrate with social networks" is considered a huge feature in any product or service anywhere, and it is a just a button to share some link to Facebook or Twitter, where it will be totally uninteresting.

It's also about controlling what photo goes on social networks, what the default share text is, blah blah blah. Like it or not, that stuff drives traffic.

Re: Sway: A new presentation application from Microsoft

#25

Post by johansch »

OrwellianChild wrote: post #21

Impressive for a number of reasons, many of which relate to the presentation/promotion of a Microsoft product: - Not a single Microsoft reference in the entire landing page - Broad use of Apple iPhone and iPad devices alongside normal PCs with no special acknowledgement - Product focus on readability/usability across many platforms, OS/device-independent - Broad integration of sharing hooks across Google, Twitter, FB…

Everyone likes an underdog. (Perhaps also ultra-rich underdogs.)

Re: Sway: A new presentation application from Microsoft

#26

Post by theboywho »

OrwellianChild wrote: post #21

Impressive for a number of reasons, many of which relate to the presentation/promotion of a Microsoft product: - Not a single Microsoft reference in the entire landing page - Broad use of Apple iPhone and iPad devices alongside normal PCs with no special acknowledgement - Product focus on readability/usability across many platforms, OS/device-independent - Broad integration of sharing hooks across Google, Twitter, FB…

Most companies nowadays have some kind of Machine Learning in place, it shouldn't be a surprise if Microsoft uses some of that knowledge to craft their ads. It's not necessarly that they "got it", but maybe just doing what the data says they should do.

Re: Sway: A new presentation application from Microsoft

#27

Post by ycitm »

Interestingly it looks like the "sways" do a lot of their layout calculations on the server. Resizing the window triggers a call back that returns what looks like a bunch of styling information (this div goes here, with this Z index, etc.) which would ordinarily be left to the browser.

Perhaps this allows them achieve more than they could with the browser's layout engine? Certainly an interesting approach.

(edit: wording)

Re: Sway: A new presentation application from Microsoft

#29

Post by philippotto »

fiatjaf wrote: post #13

It is funny how "Seamless integrate with social networks" is considered a huge feature in any product or service anywhere, and it is a just a button to share some link to Facebook or Twitter, where it will be totally uninteresting.

In the video it wasn't "a button to share some link" but it was a feature to search the social media and embed content in your "document".

And even if it supports simple sharing, I don't see why this would be "totally uninteresting [there]". It would probably be more convenient than uploading a powerpoint file somewhere or creating a separate website.

/edit: OK, there are two different mentionings of social media in the video. The first is about embedding content of social media and the second is about sharing the content you created.

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