Worried about losing your PowerPoint presentations? Here are ...

When it?s time to create a business presentation, most of us automatically turn to Microsoft PowerPoint. For as long as computers have taken up space in cubicles, PowerPoint has dominated the world of visual-based business presentations.

However, PowerPoint does come with a significant disadvantage: If your hard drive or thumb drive should get corrupted, you might lose that presentation on which you spent hours working. And when that happens, there?s no avoiding that sinking feeling in your gut.

The good news is that there are several Web-based alternatives to PowerPoint. Because you?ll be storing the presentations you make in the cloud, you?ll no longer have to fret over losing or corrupting the drives containing your presentations.

Here, then, is a look at three Web-based alternatives to PowerPoint.

1. Google Docs Presentations: You knew that Google would have its own answer to PowerPoint, and it does with Google Docs Presentations. This program works much like its better known competitor, allowing users to add text, graphics, videos, and links to presentations.

Google Docs Presentations is free, a nice feature, and it?s easy to share presentations online with other users through Google Docs.

2. SlideRocket: Unlike Google?s offering, SlideRocket isn?t free. There?s a reason for this: This is a powerful Web-based presentation program that stands up to Microsoft PowerPoint. It?s far from a clone of PowerPoint and allows users to comment and answer polls in real time. The program also comes with an analytics feature that gives creators at least some idea of which slides are most effective.

This collaborative program also works well with sites such as Flickr or Google Docs. This makes it easy for creators to incorporate live data and content into their slide-show presentations.

3. Zoho Show: Like other alternatives to PowerPoint, Zoho Show comes with all the functions you need to create a solid visual presentation. However, it does offer a neat feature that its competitors don?t: live audio chat. This makes it easy for users to give presentations to clients who are sitting in meeting rooms across the country. It?s also easy for Zoho Show users to embed their presentations in their blogs or Web sites to share the information with a greater number of users.

Like Google Docs Presentation, Zoho Show is free for personal use.

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