I’m a very long time Prezi Pro subscriber and over the years have both loved the concept of Prezi and sometimes hated it’s implementation. I’ve had heart stopping technical issues (corrupted presentations) on the eve of big presentations any one of which should really have stopped me using it forever. Like a moth to a lightbulb I keep getting drawn back in because the concept is so great.
I just logged in and found that Prezi Next is a thing. This is quite exciting. It looks like it is built on the right technologies this time. Unfortunately that excitement lasted about 5 mins, dowloaded the App, logged in and:
There is nothing wrong with my connectivity, the same Prezi plays just fine from the web browser, loads of bandwidth and all outbound TCP connections allowed without proxy to any destination. Have seen same message as this in other failure modes where Prezi (classic) says “check your internet connectivity” when it means “sorry we corrupted your Prezi on the server”.
5-mins into Prezi Next and it seems to be as buggy as Prezi Classic which is a real shame. But it did make me stop and think. Before I decide whether to invest some more of my life in Prezi Next rather than just bale and go off and use something much less pretty, but more stable, I have some questions for folks who have been using it for a while and Prezi reps:
- Maybe my initial experience is just bad luck. How are folks experiences of the reliability Next so far. Much more stable than Classic, about the same or worse?
- Looks like there is no migration path from Prezi Classic for Prezi’s, or templates. Coupled with the fact that Classic is now a deprecated product (no new subscriptions) that means it will be come abandonware. Will we get a way of migrating Classic Prezi’s at some point in the near future?
- Whilst I would naturally assume that Prezi Classic users are being migrated onto the new product from the deprecated one, there is lots of (deliberate?) ambiguity around this. Apparently I have been granted a “complimentary” licence for Next which runs for a couple of months, whereas my actual Prezi subscription expires in about 6 months. Can Prezi guarantee that if I start creating content in Next, they won’t then do a “bait and switch” later and try to charge me more for the “double” subscription, reduce benefits etc, or will I be able to access both sets of content for a cost no more than my existing subscription? Reassurance on this is key.
- I’ve noticed here that someone else mentioned that they had lost access to real-time support on Next, and a rep reply that yes, that was true because the subscriptions weren’t equivalent you got less for the same money with a Next subscription. This isn’t a deal breaker for me but the only reason I’ve used support over the last 7 years is when Prezi has thrown me under a bus and corrupted a presentation. Hopefully those days are gone, but I don’t think I want to pay lots of $$ for an unsupported product.
Would love to get some answers to the above before I decide to commit time to migrate content to this new platform or instead save myself the grief and migrate to something less beautiful but more sustainable.