100,000 Edublog Hosted Blogs

Edublogs just announced they are hosting 100,000 Edublogs.

In fact we’ve currently got more like 103,000 blogs, separated over four sites (63K on edublogs.org and 39K spread across the student sites).

In September at edublogs.org alone we racked up 268,638 unique visitors, who dropped by 904,053 times enjoying 13,701,840 page views while sucking up almost 500Gig bandwidth.

And that's just that one site's blogs.

I guess this is probably enough to say that blogging has taken off as a tool for learning in educational environments.

Site Meter Removed - Google Analytics Instead

Just a quick note that I've been using SiteMeter and Google Analytics for a while now on my blog. As I've reached 500 visitors a day on the site, I've found that SiteMeter didn't really allow for the detail information I wanted. It was nice as a quick hit information source and I'd still recommend say it was good as a starter approach to getting statistics. On the other hand, it's tough to beat Google Analytics, especially for the price (free).

Web 2.0 - Consumer vs. Enterprise Use

Jack Vinson (in Web2.0 as opposed to Enterprise2.0) pointed me to Ben Gardner's post The difference between Web2.0 & Enterprise2.0 that discusses the difference in how Web 2.0 acts in the consumer space as opposed to when it's adopted in the enterprise. Ben tells us:

Web2.0 vs Enterprise2.0 [excerpt]

• User: Millions vs Hundreds
• Mind set: Fun vs Work
• Organisational structure: Flat vs Hierarchical
• Attitude: Sharing vs Hoarding
• Skill set: Digitally savvy vs Digitally averse
• Visibility: Anonymity vs Recognition
• Society: Public vs Private
• Cultural: Innovative vs Mundane

While I'm not really in agreement with all of how he describes corporate cultures and the attitude of people inside corporations, there are definitely differences in how these tools get used once you move them inside the corporate walls. And there certainly is an issue of adoption inside corporations.

I've talked about adoption of web 2.0 tools in the enterprise before in this blog:

• Adoption of Web 2.0 and eLearning 2.0 Revisited
• Enterprise 2.0 - What's the PU?
• Where Will the Change Come From?
• Facilitating Adoption of Web 2.0 Tools
• Emergence or Big System
• Web 2.0 Adoption in the Enterprise - It's Personal

The main points across these posts are:

• Adoption is first and foremost based on personal value (or more accurately perceived usefulness). If it looks like it's going to help me get my job done or do a better job, I'll adopt it.
  
• Innovation is happening first in the consumer space and then flows to corporate world.
• This wave of change is going to happen by personal and group adoption.

There are some things that are already pretty clear:

• Organizations should attempt to adopt tools in concert with what workers are adopting already. In other words, if facebook and del.icio.us are already being used, then try to align your strategies with these tools rather than trying to provide behind-the-firewall solutions.
  
• Organizations should provide clear definition of policies around web 2.0 use. These policies should be along the lines of IBM's blogging guidelines instead of being one of the 41% apparently ban Facebook and other such applications via firewall rules.
  
• Organizations should look to establish champions throughout the organization who can help lead incremental adoption where it makes sense. The champion will help others to recognize opportunities and value.
• Build new work and learning skills in the workforce
  

KM 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 & eLearning 2.0 Worlds Getting Closer

For a while, I've been trying to figure out how eLearning 2.0 relates to KM 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 - certainly there is a LOT of cross-over between what's being discussed. Well funny enough, it turns out that:

DevLearn 2007 & KM World 2007 are both in San Jose, Nov. 6-8. Even both in the downtown area.

Maybe we can recruit some of the KM bloggers who are attending to come join us for Beer and Bloggers on Nov. 7. Some of the folks I see listed are people I read all the time: Dave Snowden
Dave Pollard, David Gurteen, (apparently you have to be named David to work in KM), Ross Dawson (but since his name is Ross - now I'm not so sure about him).

If we don't do something, it seems like a horribly missed opportunity.

eLearning Startups - New Wave Coming

I'm not sure if other people are seeing this, but based on a bunch of conversations and calls, it appears that there is a wave of new eLearning startups being created right now and the trend is accelerating. Because of my background doing startup software development with leading startups, e.g., eHarmony (see Matching Algorithm), MyShape, LoanToolbox, etc., my background in eLearning, and the fact that I'm a CTO-type person, I may get more of these kinds of calls, so I'm curious if other folks are seeing this as well.

What's interesting about the new wave is that most are targeting outside of traditional eLearning Solutions. Traditionally, we've seen start-ups that focus on authoring tools, virtual classroom, learning management, content, services. When you look back at 2000-2002, companies getting VC funding were folks like Outstart, Hyperwave, Infocast, Element K, Pathlore, Vuepoint, Knowledge Impact. Some of that is still happening with folks like Cornerstone getting $32M. But a lot of what you see today is consolidation among players in these areas.

Today the startups in eLearning sit in smaller niches or by attacking tangential opportunities in eLearning. They are going after things like:

• specialized tools and content that meet particular industry or audience needs
• games and simulations
• web 2.0 approaches that leverage distributed content creation, social aspects as part of learning, collaborative learning and editing.
  

This is likely a natural outgrowth of the maturing of the industry. The larger players become focused on bigger and bigger opportunities. The bottom of established markets get eaten by lower-cost, e.g., open source players. And innovation comes from nimble start-ups who can attack smaller market opportunities. What's interesting though is how many of these "smaller" opportunities have the ability through network effects to grow very large.

One thing that was curious to me is that I can't find a good resource that shows what companies have received funding in our world? Where are the analysts? Is there a list somewhere? How could I find this out?