Flypaper’s easy-to-use Flash presentation maker goes pro

Anthony Ha The great thing about Flypaper is the range of presentations — or, as the company dubs them, “stories” — you can create using a simple editor that’s reminiscent of Microsoft PowerPoint. The stories are much cooler than a simple slideshow. There are interactive, rich media presentations, of course, but also interactive brochures, movies and portfolios. You can share them on the Web, and also embed them in social networks. You can see a showcase of different Flypaper stories here; I’ve also embedded a video demo below. One of Flypaper’s drawbacks, as others have noted, is that you have to download the application, rather than just creating a presentation in-browser. Flypaper Pro should make the application a more tempting option for business customers. For $195 per year, businesses get analytics tools to see how popular and effective their stories are, interactive forms, animated Flash charts and 1GB of storage space (with the free version, users get 100MB). Phoenix, Ariz.-based Flypaper Studio has raised $3 million in venture funding from Sierra Ventures and SCF Arizona. It launched at the DEMO conference in January, where it took home a “DEMO god” award. Sprout, another company that makes it easier to create content using the Flash format, won the same award at the conference, but where Flypaper focuses on presentations, Sprout emphasizes interactive widgets.