I want to share with you an excellent resource for presenters–Indezine.com. This site is run by a great friend of mine, Geetesh Bajaj, and includes a vast amount of information on PowerPoint, presentation tools, and more. It also offers a huge number of backgrounds, both for free and for purchase.
Recently, I interviewed Geetesh about his site.
EllenFinkelstein.com: When did you start Indezine.com and how did you conceive of it then?
Geetesh: Indezine.com started as a repository of content that I wanted to share with everyone.
In those days, newsgroups worked within news programs rather than as in-browser discussion groups. When users had questions about PowerPoint, they just went ahead and asked their questions because there were not as many search options to look for similar questions that other people had asked before them. You thus ended up with the same questions being asked several times a day. Rather than type in the answers repeatedly, I set up Indezine.com and would type in the URL that contained the answer users were looking for.
Thereafter, Indezine.com just evolved into a community. Today we have over 175,000 subscribers and millions of visitors from all over the world.
Ellen Finkelstein.com: How have you added to the original concept as time has passed?
Geetesh: It wasn’t very planned in the beginning in the year 2000 when the site went live. In the next few years, I just kept adding content as I felt the need. Since it was a small site, it worked — but by 2005, the site was huge and I knew that things had to change. Indezine.com then was incorporated as a company and I set up an office with full time staff.
Nowadays, we need to plan every small detail. I have a team that helps me with the site content and layout. Although Indezine.com is a huge site today, the concept is the same as its original raison d’être. We still are a site about PowerPoint and presenting.
EllenFinkelstein.com: Could you give us an overview of the resources on the site?
Geetesh: There are tons of resources — and they are geared to two distinct audiences.
- For the basic PowerPoint users, we have thousands of templates, sample presentations, graphics, etc. These are all free and anyone can download and use them.
- Advanced PowerPoint users who come to Indezine.com are looking for some other content though — for them we have interviews with presentation industry stalwarts and book authors, CEOs of companies that create presentation products, and other professionals. We also have so many reviews of PowerPoint add-ins, a huge learning section that shows PowerPoint techniques with plenty of screenshots. We also have a newsletter and a blog.
EllenFinkelstein.com: Why do you think the site has attracted so many visitors?
Geetesh: Primarily because we cover so much ground. Also, many users come here not only because they found us through search engines, but also because their friends and colleagues asked them to come to Indezine.com — probably I should not answer this question and let the readers answer this — our testimonials page has all the responses that you may want! Go to http://www.indezine.com/info/testimonials.html.
EllenFinkelstein.com: Do you have any special plans for the future?
Geetesh: As of now, no special plans are in place. I want to consolidate the site content, streamline what we have, and add to the Learn PowerPoint section.
Nice interview! Thanks. –Joy