Ready for Its Video Close-Up? SlideShare Adds Live Web Conferencing.

Today SlideShare, the presentation-sharing site with 45 million monthly uniques, is launching its take on improving Web conferencing.

In general, this arena has been prone to complicated setups and frequent glitches for users.

The two possible highlights of SlideShare’s offering, called Zipcasts: They happen within a browser without additional software, and there are no limits on the number of meetings or the number of participants in meetings.

There are also some tweaks like allowing watchers to flip through slides at their own pace.

While users will still need to call each other on the phone to have a two-way conversation about the slides, presenters can also include live Flash video–powered by TokBox–of themselves to give a more personal connection.

Users who want to create something like a public Webinar can use Zipcast for free with advertising, but those who want to make their meetings private need to pay $19 or more per month. premium users can also get two-way audio through a partnership with FreeConferenceCall.com.

In other SlideShare news, Ross Mayfield, the co-founder of Socialtext, recently joined the company as VP of business development.