• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, September 10, 2010

Increasingly, video has become an educational and a motivational tool. Brainshark has developed a tool that turns PowerPoint decks into YouTube videos. The platform turns a presentation into a video slideshow formatted to upload onto YouTube with one click. The feature also adds voiceover and audio through a phone or a microphone.

When someone logs onto MyBrainshark, a free version of an enterprise product aimed at small businesses, they click to upload the PowerPoint document. The platform walks the user through options to add audio, similar to leaving a message on a voicemail system. One button allows the creator to upload it straight to YouTube.

Presentations have moved from the boardroom and classrooms to social media and video sites, optimized the content through metadata to share with others on sites like YouTube. When creating a Brainshark video the platform asks for descriptions, categorization options and title tags. The metadata helps to optimization the video, so others searching on the site for related content can find it. The title tags and metadata provide a method to optimization the searchable content.

Take the travel industry, for example. A small travel company specializing in exotic trips may want to create a video from a PowerPoint presentation and upload it to YouTube so potential clients can find it. As online video grows in popularity, more travelers go to video sites throughout the travel planning process to research business and vacation destinations, according to a recent study on the travel industry from Google and OTX. While search engines remain the No. 1 planning tool for vacationers and the No. 4 tool for business travelers, video and social networks have increased in importance when planning out a trip.

Business travelers are a bit more accepting when it comes to watching videos for planning trips. About 64% of business travelers say they watch video trip reviews from experts, compared with 55% of vacationers. And 61% of business travelers say they watch trip reviews from people like themselves, compared with 55% of vacationers; followed by 55%of business travelers say they watch videos made by people like themselves and 48% of vacationers. Watching ads gained the least acceptance with 49% of business travelers and 39% of vacationers watching travel-related videos.

Like it or not, search and social media have become tools for business and a source for news. On Thursday, Citi Analyst Mark Mahaney released a research note with comScore data demonstrating Facebook had passed Google in terms of time spent online.

Facebook remained the fourth-ranked site, at 148 million, up from 145.5 million in July. For the first time, Facebook took the top spot with 41.1 billion minutes followed by Google with 39.8 billion minutes, examining the total time spent on the top five sites in August. Yahoo fell to the No. 3 spot with 37.7 billion minutes. Also, Yahoo's share of time spent in Q3 QTD slid to an all-time low to 9.3%. Mahaney's published note points to the importance social media will continue to play for advertisers.