Webware

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is taking on the issue of inadequate education for youth by extending its OpenCourseWare (OCW) program to include secondary level students.

Susan Hockfield, MIT's president, announced the initiative at an event to celebrate OpenCourseWare's fifth anniversary Wednesday evening.

MIT's OpenCourseWare, which has the motto "unlocking knowledge, empowering minds," has offered free access to MIT course syllabi, assigned readings, and lecture notes since its pilot program in 2002 and official opening in 2003.

MIT President Susan Hockfield

(Credit: Candace Lombardi/CNET News.com)

"The new initiative, Highlights for High School, will be a customized portal into OCW designed to specially meet the needs of high school students and teachers who have interest in and hunger for these materials," said Hockfield.

MIT was inspired to introduce the initiative after it found surprising statistics. About 15,000 high school students per month download OCW MIT course work.

"Remember OpenCourseWare is MIT course work. And it was a bit surprising to us to learn about the use by high school students and high school teachers. But many schools have cut back on the 'Gifted and Talented' programs, and we've heard that high school teachers are using it to supplement their gifted students who are missing out," said Hockfield.

MIT believes there is a need for these materials. Educators in the U.S. and around the world struggle with low budgets and cut programs. Students hungry for information often don't have access to it.

"In the eyes of many, including myself, this is a national crisis," said Hockfield.

Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist, and author of the best seller The World Is Flat who gave the keynote at the event, agreed with Hockfield's sentiment but was more optimistic.

Thomas Friedman at MIT's OpenCourseWare anniversary event

(Credit: Candace Lombardi/CNET News.com)

While our country may be suffering from a "dumb as we want to be" Congress, in Friedman's words, the stacks of letters from educators, students, and companies asking the Times columnist to come see their latest innovations and collaborations points to a story of people inspired.

"How an institute or school empowers the individual imagination will be the single most competitive edge," he said.

"This era of globalization is based around individuals...I'm not sure economics has fully been able to capture far below the firm level. I call it gross individual product," Friedman said.

The Highlights for High School program seeks to help gifted students, but also inspire more high school students to pursue careers in science and engineering without intimidation, according to Hockfield.

OCW was originally designed to share MIT course work--there are MIT groups that have even translated the content into other languages--to make it accessible to the world.

Since the start of the initiative, the OCW site has received 40 million visits by 30 million unique visitors from around the world. About 60 percent of OCW users come from outside the U.S., and 50 percent describe themselves as "independent learners."

"As with anything at MIT, the faculty are really the stars of the show. Over 90 percent have contributed voluntarily to OCW," said Hockfield.

The courses that can be accessed are what you would expect from one of the leading science and technology institutions in the world. Linear algebra, differential equations, microelectronic devices and circuits, and computer system engineering are among the most popular. But OCW also has a wide collection of courses on topics like anthropology, women's studies, and literature.

Boston -- I moderated a panel entitled "Where Do I get My Web 2.0?" at the MIT Enterprise Forum's "Brave New Web" event this morning. We had four execs from companies that make Web tools (Phil Hollows, FeedBlitz; Brian Shin, Visible Measures; Scott Smigler, Exclusive Concepts; and David McRaflane, Nexaweb) and services on the panel, talking to an audience of entrepreneurs about business models, customer interaction, and start-up funding.

What I found most interesting about this audience was how quickly it steered the conversation towards big business. Out here, it appears, entrepreneurs want to reach the enterprise. In Silicon Valley I rarely hear this--we're more interested in building YouTubes and Diggs.

I was initially skeptical that fundamentals of Web 2.0, especially the viral aspect that's been so important to the growth of user-generated content sites such as YouTube, MySpace, and Digg, could apply to business-focused start-ups. But the panel saw it differently--not wholly surprising, since some of them make enterprise services. IT managers these days no longer get to push technology out to users. Instead, they're getting dragged into supporting what their users are bringing to work with them via their Web connections. After witnessing the success of Web-based applications in teams, some of these apps and ideas are infecting larger corporate projects.

Of course, issues surrounding security, regulatory compliance, and plain old reliability--there was a very unhappy Salesforce.com customer in the audience--are holding back adoption of Web 2.0 business tools. But my panel was convinced that enterprises don't see the application of Web-delivered services from smaller businesses as anathema to their operation. This is a fundamental shift in enterprise thinking.

A text report and audio recording of the panel is on CenterNetworks' blog.

BOSTON--So-called user generated content is being built into the business models of forward-looking media companies as they venture out onto the Web, according to experts who spoke today at the MIT Enterprise Forum's Brave New Web conference on Wednesday. (See this CNET News.com story.)

Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of online video company Brightcove, said that Web is a tiny fraction of the overall media industry but that's changing because media companies are starting to distribute video over the Web. Brightcove itself is building social media features to its video distribution system which will allow people to post content or chat online.

During a panel after Allaire's talk, experts in Web media said that media firms are trying new advertising models to make money online--and that includes embracing user-generated content.

"We see user-generated content as a farm league," said Laurie Baird, director of technology partnerships for Turner Broadcasting System. "Good content will come to the top and those who have an economic mind (will find ways to make money)."

JibJab, for example, made very funny satirical videos for the Web around the last presidential election that were very popular. Now it's doing that same work but getting paid for it, she said.

Of course, there is this little problem of copyright infringement in Web media. What is called user-generated content is often redistributed TV clips and the like.

So how are online media companies going to make money in this environment where the consumer is participant as well?

Ads, said Alex Laats, the CEO of Podzinger, which makes a search engine for audio and video content. The trick is aggregating several niche communities to create a volume that becomes interesting to advertisers, he said.

"Once ads can deliver campaigns against user-generated content, then the copyright issues go away," Laats said. "Copyright issue will be solved by business models as opposed to pulling the content down."

Boston -- I just saw a new company that lets you listen to podcasts on your phone: Foneshow. It's a two-person company, but I'm impressed by how well the small team has thought through the mechanics of taking audio shows and porting them to a phone.

It works like this: you subscribe to a podcast either from the Foneshow site or from the podcast's home page (if the publisher has put a Foneshow sign-up on the page). Then, whenever there's a new episode of your podcast, the system sends you an SMS message with a unique phone number. Most phones will let you easily select the number and dial it. Foneshow uses that number in combination with your caller ID to then play your podcast over the phone.

The Onion -- on your phone!

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Once you're listening the podcast, you can use voice mail-like keys to pause or rewind the playback, unsubscribe from the show, or forward it to someone else. Coming soon: the capability to speed up the podcast (without raising the pitch), which will be great for interesting but slow-speaking 'casters. Maybe to come after that: advertising, as in, "Press No. 5 to be connected to Ronco!"

I did a "Real Deal" podcast with Tom Merritt that I found on the site here. The Foneshow crew needs to put some work into its site design and usability, but the core functionality looks good. One problem: since Foneshow streams podcasts over the air, I can't use it to listen to podcasts on my cellular-free subway ride to work.

By the way, if you want to record podcasts from your mobile phone, check out BlogTalkRadio, GCast, HipCast, and PodoMatic.

Expo TV: Video reviews of luggage, and a lot else.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Boston -- Expo TV is a relatively new video-sharing site devoted to product reviews. Users videotape their rants or raves about products, and post them for all to see. Videos earn their creators money: 1 cent per view.

The site is great fun. As a rule, people don't tend to post videos about products they are ambivalent about, although the bounty on content means you do get some oddball reviews in there (glue sticks? OK). You'll also find reviews on tech products, toys, luggage, and more. Unfortunately, some categories have cheesy infomercials in them, a legacy of ExpoTV's other business, which is aggregating paid product pitches onto video-on-demand channels for cable TV.

Expo makes its money by syndicating its content to other sites, like Buy.com (see New York Times article). Potential reviewers might want to know that the penny-a-view bounty does not apply to content served on Expo's partner sites.

Boston -- I'm at the MIT Enterprise Forum's Brave New Web event today, and later I'll be moderating a panel about starting Web 2.0 businesses. But this morning we're all listening to Brightcove CEO (and local hero) Jeremy Allaire talk about how to start a technology business today.

He said that unlike a lot of current Web 2.0 businesses, he started a business that "we knew would require a lot of capital." He raised $6M early on, far more than most current Web start-ups have in the bank when they get going.

Jeremy has a history of success, so raising money was easier for him than it would be for a college student with a clever idea and Ruby on Rails chops. But his point is important: If you can start a business on your Visa card, somebody else can too, and they can compete with you directly and immediately. There's a lot to be said for solving expensive problems. "It's radically easier" to build products today, but that is not necessarily to the benefit of the entrepreneur who wants to build a business. Money is a natural barrier to entry, and if you build a company that doesn't need much of it, in some ways you're just making life difficult for yourself.

On the other hand: Digg launched at a cost of $2,000.

A detailed blog post on Jeremy's talk is on CenterNetworks.

Do you remember the old-fashioned college days when a friend would call you by cell phone to let you know when "he" turned up at the library? Or maybe you figured out someone's class schedule, so you could just happen to be walking by when "she" got out. Technology, once again, is changing the game.

The Senseable City Lab at MIT released a free desktop application on Wednesday with real-time mapping and instant-messaging features. iFind, as it's called, works by detecting which Wi-Fi access point a person is near. Because MIT has over 2,800 Wi-Fi access points on its sprawling campus, iFind can pinpoint someone's location within feet. Not only can it identify the building or outdoor area, but also the floor and room in most cases.

(Credit: MIT)

Of course, MIT students will have to come up with an excuse for that special someone to share their info. As with regular instant-messaging programs, users have to accept an invite to be on someone's buddy list and map.

The program plots buddies on a virtual map of MIT with mini avatars. The avatars move around the virtual map in real time. Hovering over an avatar reveals the person's name and location, while clicking on the avatar starts a chat session.

Because iFind is in-tune with MIT's network, users do not have to be logged in to the network to be "seen," according to the site. They only have to have an enabled Wi-Fi card. The program, according to François Proulx, the iFind software architect, is expected to be particularly popular among students, but anyone with an "mit.edu" e-mail can download and use it.

To avoid privacy issues, Proulx said, the client was specifically developed to work peer-to-peer instead of via a centralized network. For this reason, the program is not capable of retaining personalized data. However, it does work with iSpots, another MIT program that tracks general usage statistics of MIT Wi-Fi access points.

As with regular instant-messaging programs, users can choose to be temporarily invisible to a specific buddy or all buddies. iFind also allows users to reveal online status, while keeping their location private.

The program was developed under Carlo Ratti, the Senseable City Lab director responsible for Real Time Rome, a real-time mapping programs that tracks people by cell phone signal. Under the GNU General Public License, the open-source iFind client will be made available for any other group that wishes to construct its own iFind network.