SlideShare continues to roll out new features aimed at businesses. Today it launched SlideShare Channels, which are basically microsites within SlideShare that companies can use to promote their content.
The channels can take two forms. First, they can be built by specific companies -- that's what Microsoft has done with the Office Parent Toolbox, where users can browse and upload presentations and documents about parenting (most of them created in Microsoft Office, presumably). SlideShare has also built its own channels around specific topics, such as this one about virtualization, that companies can sponsor.
Both types of channels fit into chief executive Rashmi Sinha's broader idea that the presentations and other business content uploaded on SlideShare can be seen as a form of advertising. Singha said businesses should think of these Channels as another part of their social media campaigns, with the advantage that SlideShare reaches a business-centric audience of 25 million unique visitors per month.
"It's a social media campaign rather than advertising directly," Sinha said. "It's what the company is doing on Twitter, which now it can do with more longform content."
The channels also tie in with the services that SlideShare announced last fall, Singha said. For example, after a company creates a channel, it could promote the presentations on that channel using AdShare (an advertising program within SlideShare), then collect information about the people viewing those presentations with LeadShare.
SlideShare has plans for more business services in the coming months, Sinha added.
The company brought in $3 million in its first round of institutional funding, led by Venrock, in 2008. It has offices in San Francisco and New Delhi, India.