Disclaimer: This is a paid posting, powered by trigami.
After my first paid review for the new Plazes system, I got asked for a second review/post about an online service, that converts your PDF (Portable Document Format) in a Flash application/tool that lets you browse the PDF like a real magazine or cover. On the first look I was very impressed by the final product and everything they had to offer. I applied for the review and got accepted. Here is now my post about Pagegangster.
They say to have the following features:
- Turn pages using mouse, keyboard or buttons
- Go to a specific page by writing a page number in the input field
- Zoom on pages
- Openings overview
- Download PDF
- Print a sample of pages
- Share with your friends
- Help
- Search publication
- Sound scape
- The publication can be found on Google
- Set a player language
The first thing I needed was a nice PDF to upload and convert. I decided to try CenterNetworks Startup Tips eBook.
The process to upload the PDF was very quick, you only needed to click 5 times (browse, name, email, confirm, interface language) and my PDF was queued to convert. As soon as the process was done they’ve sent me an email. The whole process to upload and convert took less than 3 minutes. This is very cool and I hope the team at Pagegangster can keep that speed.
The activation email says I cannot share my upload with other people, because I haven’t payed for the one year subscription (which is 199 USD including one year of hosting). But luckily there is a way they provided for this review so you can see the final product on Google Video. Sadly they are not offering another way to show you how it works. They have offered some links to some demos, which you can find here, here and here.
Isn’t that cool? Your PDF as a virtual magazine you can browse, zoom in, search or print.
So, what do you think? Is this useful? Would you pay the 200 bucks a year for this? I wouldn’t. The system is very cool and fast, but is it really worth 200 dollars? I see this more as a feature on a bigger product (like for ConceptShare) than as a product itself.
You can try it for yourself: Convert PDF to 3D and let me know what your experiences are. And if you want to create your own flipping magazines, you should take a look at PageFlip. The software is free and Open Source.