#1 Slides With Friends

#2 Poll Everywhere

#3 Slido

#4 Mentimeter

#5 MeetingPulse

#6 Vevox

#7 Genially

Slides With Friends Cont’d

Now let’s go over its key features, pricing plans, and what real users are saying about Slides With Friends:

Live Quizzes for Active Learning and Review

When you’re training a large group, you need collaborative tools to make your sessions memorable. Traditional presentation software lets you add questions, but calling out people individually can make them feel uncomfortable.

Slides With Friends lets you create interactive quizzes, tests, and training evaluations that involve your audience from their phones. This helps you turn your hard-to-learn module into gamified activities that motivate your audience to participate. 

Here’s what you can create from our intuitive tool:

• Multiple-choice questions: Ask a question with up to 6 answer choices. Your audience taps an option on their phones, and responses are recorded instantly.

• Text-answer prompts: Ask open-ended questions. The system checks answers against up to 6 correct versions you set, and also accepts minor typos.
• Open-text voting: Let participants send in their answers, then vote on each other’s responses in real-time for group-driven input and fun.
• Answer roundup: Reveal answers right away or save them for the end. Use a summary slide to show them all at once, like a trivia wrap-up.

This keeps your group focused, shows who’s following along, and turns passive listening into active learning.

Live Word Clouds for Collaborative Idea Sharing

Brainstorming sessions with a large group can be chaotic and one-sided. 

Slides With Friends offers word clouds that allow your audience to participate and share ideas without raising their hands. Participants type responses from their phones, which appear on the screen in real-time. 

If more people submit the same words, those words grow larger. This gives a real-time snapshot of group consensus that evolves dynamically as answers change. 

Live-updating word clouds makes every input feel collaborative rather than forced. 

Icebreakers for Personal Connection and Team Bonding

Most meetings begin in silence. People sit and listen like spectators rather than being active participants. Whether you’re presenting at an event or want to improve online team building, you need to make sure your audience follows through.

Slides With Friends offers pre-made icebreaker games that you can add to your slides. You can choose themed questions, word clouds, photo prompts, or “get to know you” questions, all designed for real-time participation.

For example, you can use the photo sharing icebreaker, where each person uploads a picture of their weekend highlight, and the group can react to each photo in real-time.

These decks invite every voice into the room right away. You get laughter, conversation, and connection, allowing you to set the tone for a more collaborative and energized session.

Game Trivia Builder for Fun Activities

Slides With Friends offers a built-in trivia player and builder that lets you create and host fully interactive games for meetings, classrooms, and events. This turns your presentation into a full gamified trivia experience.

You can start with a ready-made trivia deck or build your own using formats like multiple choice, live polls, open text, and word clouds. Our tool lets you add images, audio clips, music, or video to create a more immersive experience. 

Everything runs directly in your deck, with players joining from their phones.

Slides With Friends supports live leaderboards, countdown timers, and soundboards to keep the energy high. You can engage your audience through real-time challenges, interactive feedback, and friendly competition. 

Avatars, Soundboard, and Emoji Reactions to Keep Audience Engaged

Many presentation tools let you add quizzes, but they can feel repetitive after some time. Slides With Friends offers interactive features like avatars, soundboards, and emoji reactions that participants can use in real-time during your session.

The audience can choose usernames and avatars to represent themselves on screen. During live sessions, players can tap into the soundboard, which features pre-set noises, music snippets, and sound effects. 

Users can also react to results with emojis. This allows attendees to punctuate moments with laughter, applause, or surprise. 

QR Code Access for Frictionless Joining

Slides With Friends simplifies joining with a simple QR code or a shareable link for every session. Simply click “Start the event” in the upper right corner of your panel, and our tool will generate the QR code for you. 

As your participants scan the code from their phones or iPads, our tool redirects them to a mobile-friendly browser site where they can choose an avatar and type usernames. No need to download any app or sign up.

If any participant disconnects mid-session, they can rejoin without needing to restart.

Slides With Friends also allows anonymous participation, so people feel comfortable joining in, even if they’re introverts.

Customizable Presentation Tool With Plug-and-Play Templates

Traditional presentation tools only give you basic editing and animations for a branded experience. 

Slides With Friends is built for easy branding and design, giving you full creative control with interactive features and customization options.

Here’s how it helps you build branded and engaging presentations: 

• Easy import: You can import slides from your PowerPoint, Google Slides, or PDFs, and layer in interactive elements like polls, trivia, and text prompts.
  
  
• Premade templates: Or choose from our 100+ premade templates, ranging from happy hour games to employee training and holiday activities. Then tweak the content to fit your needs.

• Build from scratch: Use the on-slide editor and drag-and-drop tools to create personalized, interactive slides. No design skills needed.
  
  
• Pick and personalize slide types: Choose formats like multiple choice, open text, rating scales, and word clouds, or upload your visuals and media.

• Customize branding and layout: Adjust fonts, color schemes, logos, background images, and overlays to reflect your brand or event theme.

• Add rating scales: Use emojis, numbers, yes/no options, or Likert scales to collect feedback, then view results as bar charts or averages.

If you’re using our ready-made deck, you can easily adjust fonts, color palettes, logos, avatars, reactions, and reporting options from a simple drop-down menu.

• Dual-screen preview: See exactly how each slide will appear on both the presenter screen and your audience’s devices.

• Create branded join links: Set up custom event codes for conferences or virtual events.

Slides With Friends allows you to reinforce your brand and theme, making your presentation memorable to the audience.

Get started free and turn boring presentations into fun, interactive experiences.

Built-In Analytics to Track Audience Engagement

Most presentation tools don’t support built-in feedback and analytics, forcing you to switch between apps. 

Slides With Friends provides a real-time feedback mechanism and built-in analytics. As soon as you end your session, our tools display an automatic feedback page on your audience’s phones. 

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Your participants can send personalized feedback notes or just give a single click emoji reaction. 

You also gain slide-by-slide engagement metrics, including reaction counts, response rates, and real-time behavior stats from your “Past Events” dashboard. 

Here’s what you can track and export:

• Attendance records: The platform logs participant names as they join, so you get a built-in attendance list, no manual tracking needed.
  
  
• Downloadable results: Export all event responses and engagement data as a .csv file for reporting, analysis, or record-keeping.
  
  
• Private feedback: View individual feedback and participant comments directly in your dashboard after the session ends.

This makes it easier to identify which content resonated and plan improvements for next time. 

Slides With Friends Integrations

Slides With Friends allows you to present your slides on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other online video conferencing platforms. 

Simply share your screen and click “Start the event” on the Slides With Friends interface. Your interactive presentation will appear right in the call. 

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Slides with Friends Pros and Cons

Slides With Friends Pricing

Slides With Friends offers one free and two paid plans: 

• Free Plan: Host up to 10 people with access to all interaction slides and custom fonts/design.
  
  
• Starter Plan ($8/mo billed yearly): Host up to 50 people with unlimited events, 10+ interaction types, and custom event codes.
  
  
• Pro Plan ($24/mo billed yearly): Host up to 250 people with full branding, PowerPoint imports, data exports, and all Starter features.

What Real Users Say About Slides With Friends

Here’s what users say about Slides With Friends:

• Easy to use and set up
• Branding flexibility
• Great for live trivia and games
• Engaging for remote and hybrid teams
• Polling and voting features are intuitive
• Encourages connection and collaboration

Here’s what users don’t like about Slides With Friends:

• Doesn’t support offline use

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Slides With Friends Rating

• 4.8 stars on G2

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Let’s take a closer look at how Poll Everywhere works, what it offers, and what users like (and don’t like) about it:

Live Votes via SMS and Browser

Poll Everywhere allows your audience to respond instantly using either text messages (SMS) or a web browser, giving participants flexibility based on their device or environment.

Each activity generates a unique text code or link that attendees can use to submit answers. This speeds up participation, whether they’re in a classroom, meeting, or large event. 

Responses also appear live on screen, helping you gather feedback or opinions in real-time.

Response Moderation Management

Poll Everywhere gives you control over audience responses through features like moderation, participant registration, and attendance tracking. 

You can monitor responses live, manage who can participate (anonymously or registered), and control when results are shown. 

After each session, you can access detailed response data, export reports, and analyze trends slide by slide or poll by poll.

Other Features Include:

• Word clouds: Let participants submit words that appear live, with duplicates growing larger.
• Ranking polls: Ask participants to rank options in order of preference to help them participate.
• Q&A with upvoting: Let the audience submit and vote on questions in real-time.
• Grading and participation tracking: Track individual scores and participation for assessments.
• Integrations: Connects with popular platforms like PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides, Zoom, and Slack.
• LMS integrations: Integrate your existing learning management systems like Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle.
• Team and user management: Manage shared activities and permissions of your account across teams.
• Custom branding and response URLs: Add your logo and use custom poll links to your slides.

Learn more: Poll Everywhere Alternatives

Poll Everywhere Pricing

Poll Everywhere offers five pricing plans, starting from $10 per month per user for up to 700 audience size. 

Poll Everywhere Reviews

Here’s what users like about Poll Everywhere:

• Offers real-time feedback
• Flexible integrations
• Helpful for gauging audience understanding
• Allows grouping of custom polls

Here’s what users don’t like about Poll Everywhere:

• Limited features in the free version
• UI for editing is unintuitive
• Admin portal lacks options for transferring polls
• The design interface has scaling/display issues
• No control over open-ended responses

Review #1: “Beautifully designed interface, lots of option to make a choice to make class or meeting lively, fun, and enjoyable.” – Md. Mizanur R.

Review #2: “I dislike how customizing can create challenges with onscreen presenting of polls. I think the editing could be a little more intuitive.” – Corey S.

Poll Everywhere Rating

• 4.5 stars on G2

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Here’s a full breakdown of Slido’s tools, pricing options, and what users like (and don’t like) about it.

Live Q&A With Upvoting

Slido offers live Q&A that lets participants submit questions in real-time and vote on the ones they find most important. 

You can allow anonymous submissions, moderate questions before they appear, and highlight top-voted queries during the session. 

This keeps your discussions relevant, transparent, and participant-driven.

QR Code Access and Analytics

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Slido allows participants to join your session by scanning a QR code displayed on the presentation screen. 

This gives them easy, app-free access to polls, Q&A, and other interactive features using any mobile device.

The platform also offers analytics tools that let you review engagement data after the session. 

You can export poll results, see participation trends, and use insights to improve future presentations 

Other Features Include:

• Quizzes: Host interactive quiz games with timers and leaderboards during the session.
• Word cloud polls: Visualize audience responses dynamically as they come in for brainstorming ideas.
• Surveys: Collect structured feedback using multi-question surveys before, during, or after events.
• Co-host collaboration: Co-hosts can manage polls and Q&A alongside the host during live events.
• Custom themes: Match your slides’ visuals to your brand colors for consistency.
• Group questions: Automatically group questions into topics once you reach 20 submissions.
• Integrations: Slido integrates with multiple platforms, including PowerPoint, Google Slides, Zoom, Teams, and Keynote. 

Learn more about the best Slido Alternatives in 2025.

Slido Pricing

Slido offers three pricing plans, starting from $12.50 per month for up to 200 participants. 

Slido Reviews

Here’s what users like about Slido:

• Live polls and quizzes engage audiences
• No app or login needed
• Clean, beginner-friendly interface
• Upvoting makes Q&A more democratic
• Reliable with large audiences
  
  

Here’s what users don’t like about Slido:

• Free version limits slide count
• Poll design lacks visual customization
• Hard to edit or reuse polls
• No sound or animations without a premium plan

Review #1: “Slido makes it very easy to set up quizzes, polls and questions. The participants remain really engaged and enjoy these interactive elements.” – User.

Review #2: “One downside about slido is with the basic (free) plan you can only use 3 slido slides per presentation. It is also not very intuitive to use, as far as adding it to your presentation, editing it, or erasing the answers so it can be reused.” – Chaya C.

Slido Rating

• 4.8 stars on G2

Let’s take a detailed look at Mentimeter’s features, plans, and what people say about using it:

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Smart Surveys for Feedback

Mentimeter’s survey feature collects feedback before, during, or after your presentation automatically. 

You can use the Quick Form slide to build short surveys with custom questions, email fields, dates, and multiple-choice options. Share a voting link or code, and your audience can respond in real-time or asynchronously.

Every answer is instantly visualized using charts, bar graphs, or segmented views, so you can analyze and compare your responses.

AI Presentation Maker

Mentimeter’s AI Menti Builder helps you generate engaging and interactive slides in seconds. You can prompt AI with a topic, and it will draft a complete presentation filled with polls, quizzes, and questions. 

The tool lets you customize these slides to match your audience preferences or branding needs. This saves you prep time and improves live engagement from the start.

Other Features Include: 

• Live polls & surveys: Run real-time multiple-choice, ranking, and scale-based polls to gather instant feedback from your audience.
• Q&A sessions with upvoting: Let your audience submit questions and vote on the ones they care about most.
• Emoji reactions: Your participants can send basic emoji reactions during mid-session to stay engaged. 
• QR code access: Generate QR code for every new session with instructions slide for the audience. 
• Slide customization options: Add and combine different content types, like text blocks, images, and videos, to build visually engaging slides.
• Mentimote remote control: Use your smartphone or another device to control your slides remotely and view presenter notes.
• Insights dashboard: Access a post-session summary of audience engagement data, including participation levels and response breakdowns.
• Anonymity settings: Allow anonymous responses so your audience can give honest feedback.
• Sentiment analysis: Understand your audience’s sentiment based on engagement analytics for future improvements. 

Mentimeter Pricing

Mentimeter offers three pricing plans, starting from $10 for educators for unlimited participants. 

Mentimeter Reviews

Here’s what users like about Mentimeter:

• Easy for non-tech users
• Works across devices and browsers
• Great for classrooms and meetings
• Perfect for icebreakers and warmups
• Reliable, stable during presentations

Here’s what users don’t like about Mentimeter:

• Many features are locked behind a paywall
• Live results sometimes lag
• No integration with LMS platforms
• Design customization is very limited

Review #1: “Easy to use and a very useful, quick, and animated response. I use it mainly for polls around content while teaching classes. Sharing results is also easy to do.” – Eduardo P.

Review #2: “Results are slow and a bit clunky, you sometimes have to wait for results to update, which can be frustrating in live situations.” – Mattias H.

Mentimeter Rating

• 4.7 stars on G2

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Custom Branding and Privacy Controls

MeetingPulse lets you fully customize the look and feel of your sessions to match your brand, including logos, colors, and messaging. 

You also get granular privacy controls, including access codes, anonymous modes, and GDPR-compliant data handling.

These features are useful for internal meetings, corporate events, or sessions in regulated industries where trust and professionalism matter. 

You can control what participants see and share for a consistent brand experience while protecting sensitive information.

Pulse Sentiment Analysis​

MeetingPulse’s Pulse™ Sentiment Analysis lets your audience share how they feel in real-time using emojis like “Confused,” “Excited,” or “Bored.” These reactions show up instantly on a live timeline, so you can see when energy spikes or drops as you speak.

It gives you a live emotional read of the room, helping you adjust your pace, clarify points, or shift tone on the spot.

Instead of guessing how your talk is landing, you get clear, visual feedback from the people listening.

Other Features Include:

• Live polls & surveys: Instant polling, smart surveys, and audience voting to gauge opinion and guide decisions in real-time.
• Q&A sessions: Real-time moderated Q&A with upvoting and filters to capture audience questions efficiently.
• Quizzes & raffles: Interactive quizzes and raffles to gamify sessions and maintain audience energy.
• Voting & governance tools: Compliant voting features (ranked, secure, auditable) for decision-making in meetings.
• Integrations: Integrates with Zoom, Teams, Webex, Vimeo, YouTube, PowerPoint, Slack, AI tools, and offers iFrame/API support.
• Analytics & reporting: Live dashboards and downloadable reports with response data, sentiment trends, engagement tracking, and CSV export.

MeetingPulse Pricing

MeetingPulse pricing starts from $309 per month for up to 250 attendees per meeting. 

MeetingPulse Reviews

Here’s what users like about MeetingPulse:

• Easy browser access
• Reliable during live conferences and events
• Sentiment tracking with reaction timeline
• PowerPoint integration for real-time responses
• API access for custom experiences

Here’s what users don’t like about MeetingPulse:

• Limited free plan for larger meetings
• Custom link branding requires paid plans
• Very expensive for small teams
• Limited styling options for results display

Review #1: “The functionalities of MeetingPulse are very satisfying and easy to use. What impressed me most is the easy setup of a meeting.” – Julian M. 

Review #2: “Sometimes I experienced glitches in my slides involving the links, it is also very expensive.”  – Haley P.

MeetingPulse Rating

• 4.3 stars on G2

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We’ll now go over Vevox’s feature set, subscription plans, and feedback from actual users:

Q&A with Moderation and Anonymity

Vevox’s Q&A lets your audience ask and upvote the questions. You can turn on anonymity to help everyone feel comfortable speaking up.

The platform also lets you control what gets shown by reviewing and organizing questions before they go live. After the session, you can download all Q&A data and improve your presentations based on it. 

Attendance Tracking

Vevox makes it easy to track who’s attending your classes, meetings, or training sessions. The platform can record attendance as participants join and engage through polls, quizzes, and Q&A.

You can view participation levels live and export attendance reports for reliable records.

Vevox also supports LMS integration for systems like Canvas, Moodle, and Blackboard. This allows you to sync engagement data directly into your learning platform to measure learning progress and improve outcomes. 

Other Features Include: 

• Live polling: Ask real-time questions and collect instant audience responses.
• Word clouds: Visualize audience input with live word clouds that highlight popular ideas.
• Surveys: Collect honest feedback through anonymous pre- or post-session surveys.
• Speed scoring: Give more points to faster correct answers to make quizzes more competitive.
• Team quizzes: Group participants into teams for collaborative quiz sessions.
• Emoji reactions: Let attendees react with emojis to show how they feel in the moment.
• Custom branding: Match your slides' visuals to your brand with logos, colors, and themes.
• Moderation tools: Review, organize, and control live questions before they appear on the screen.
• MS Teams app support: Run polls, quizzes, and Q&A directly inside your Microsoft Teams.
• Session archiving: Store and reuse session content and data for future use.

Vevox Pricing

Vevox has custom pricing plans. According to user reviews, the pricing starts from around $7.75 per month per user for up to 250 participants.

Vevox Reviews

Here’s what users like about Vevox:

• Works well for large or small groups
• Integrates smoothly with PowerPoint presentations
• Offers multiple poll and quiz formats
• Stable performance during live sessions

Here’s what users don’t like about Vevox:

• Question and answer slides are separate
• No built-in prompts for reading questions
• Lacks deeper post-session analytics
• Limited branding and display customization

Review #1: “I really like how there are different features which can all be used for different purposes to encourage active student participation and to increase engagement...” – Stephanie H. 

Review #2: “The user interface is difficult to find at first. Some of my students had trouble knowing where they needed to click and how to join the word cloud, etc…” – Mominul I.

Vevox Rating

• 4.8 stars on G2

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Gamified Quizzes

Genially lets you create interactive quizzes with timers, music, scoring, and team play to improve your audience’s energy and focus. 

As your participants answer, the tool uses a leaderboard to rank who’s performing well and to increase competition. 

Storytelling Layouts 

Genially provides storytelling layouts, allowing you to build non-linear content. You can use prebuilt templates to create slides that link to different outcomes based on audience choices. 

Each clickable path directs participants to a different part of the story, scenario, or training sequence. You can design these guided experiences with clickable buttons, slide links, and navigation menus. 

This gives your audience more control, making the experience feel more personalized and engaging.

Other Features Include: 

• Q&A and word clouds: Let participants ask questions and see group input visualized instantly during your sessions.
• Animations and transitions: Use motion effects to guide attention and create smooth visual flow between content blocks.
• Custom branding: Apply your brand’s fonts, colors, and logos to every project for a consistent, polished look.
• Templates and themes: Choose from hundreds of prebuilt designs for presentations, infographics, training modules, and more.
• Audio and video embedding: Insert YouTube, Vimeo, or uploaded audio/video files to enrich your content without switching tools.
• Analytics and insights: Track views, clicks, and interactions to measure engagement and refine your content.
• Collaboration tools: Invite team members to co-edit, comment, and work on projects together in real-time.
• Embed anywhere: Easily insert Genially content into websites, LMSs, emails, or other platforms using a share link or embed code.

Genially Pricing

Genially pricing plans start from $7 per month for teachers.

Genially Reviews

Here’s what users like about Genially:

• Easy to use and learn
• Custom branding and flexible design options
• Wide range of ready-made templates
• Can embed in websites or LMS
• Supports non-linear, clickable presentations

Here’s what users don’t like about Genially:

• Pricing is high for small teams
• Limited quiz types and formats
• Can’t switch templates mid-project
• Some designs don’t scale on mobile
• Limited layout customization

Review #1: “I love how easy and intuitive it is to use! Their training content is also really nice and I'm creating new things after just a week.” – User. 

Review #2: “Although Genially supports multiple-choice and true or false quizzes, it would be beneficial to have more diverse formats available…” – Julia M.

Genially Rating

• 4.7 stars on G2

The Full Comparison Table: 7 Best Audience Engagement Tools in 2025

What to Look for in an Audience Engagement Tool

Here’s what you need to consider when looking for tools for audience engagement:

• Interactive elements: Look for tools with polls, quizzes, word clouds, and anonymous Q&As to keep audiences actively engaged.
  
  
• Instant feedback: Choose platforms that show live results, rankings, or sentiment so participants feel heard in real-time.
  
  
• Quick joining: Go for tools that let users join via a QR code access or a simple link. This makes sure your audience doesn’t need to download or log in manually.
  
  
• Participation tools: Consider features like soundboards, emojis, or avatars that add personality and make interaction feel fun.
  
  
• Multi-device access: Make sure the platform works smoothly across phones, tablets, and laptops for flexibility.
  
  
• Fun-first design: Choose a tool that uses gamification, music, or visual effects to make sessions feel more like games than lectures.
  
  
• Audience customization: Pick a platform that adapts to different groups, students, employees, or event attendees, with flexible settings.
  
  
• Integrations: Choose a tool that integrates with other platforms, like PowerPoint, Google Slides, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams.
  
  
• Easy setup: Look for a tool that offers a drag-and-drop editor and prebuilt template library, so you can get started quickly with little training.
  
  
• Built-in analytics & feedback: Choose a tool that provides built-in analytics and a feedback mechanism to help you improve your presentations.

Audience Engagement Strategies You Should Know in 2025

Whether you’re a professional speaker or a team manager, you need to apply the right audience engagement strategies with your tools to get positive outcomes. 

Here are some strategies you should know to improve your audience interaction:

Start with Light Interactions to Warm Up the Room

Jumping straight into heavy participation can feel awkward. Use low-stakes interactions like icebreakers or simple voting polls on general topics to ease your audience.

Alternate Between Active and Passive Content

Once the group is warmed up, layer in more active moments. Alternate between passive content and quick engagement points, like a quiz after every few long content slides. 

Encourage Involvement with Fun Incentives

Participation grows when it feels rewarding. Use team scoring, live leaderboards, or fun prizes to motivate input.

End Each Section with a Feedback Pulse

Wrap up each section by asking the audience to send a quick reaction, like an emoji check-in or fast poll, to gather feedback while it’s still fresh. 

Bottom Line: Slides With Friends is the Best Audience Engagement Tool for Speakers & Event Hosts

Choosing the right audience engagement tools for presentations depends on your feature needs, audience size, and budget. 

Slides With Friends is the best audience engagement tool for speakers, event hosts, and trainers. It offers a wide range of interactive features, including Q&As, live polls, word clouds, image prompts, and a trivia builder with real-time feedback. 

Participants can join instantly via a QR code and interact with your slides through features like avatars, soundboards, and team scoring. This makes it easy for you to turn any session into a dynamic group experience.

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