Echo360 is a hardware and software solution to capture any classroom lecture and convert it to a podcast, video or rich media to be retrieved by students from the school web site, portal, LMS, iTunes or even as RSS feedback.

Face 1 – Market Focus

Echo360 has a very clear focus on the Higher Education market. I believe this comes as a natural result from competition between academic institutes to offer innovative alternatives for students missing any class lecture or just want to revise the lecture as whole or selective essential elements.

Face 2 – Types of Offering

A clear infrastructure solution that is based on a hardware component – named the capturing appliance – which can be integrated with smart classroom equipments (podiums, smart board, document readers, audio/video peripherals) and the instructor laptop to capture the whole lecture experience. Supportive software application servers then handle the capture processing (converting to different publishing options) and then the streaming part.

Company also offers another nice solution called the “Personal Capture” where you can run your lecture from your laptop wherever you are, and this software will capture what’s on the screen together with the audio narration and your video if you’ve your web cam on.

Face 3 – Who is the buyer?

Another clear “Learning Bought for Learner” typical situation. Within the campus, people in charge of smart classrooms/eLearning technology purchases are the target decision makers.

Face 4 – Global Markets

The company had so far achieved quite an impressive track with clear achievements in the US market, in addition they have clientele from all other continents (except for South America)

Although they have developed localized versions of their application, but I think the reason for the global success is product’s user friendliness. Once it’s installed by the campus IT (who normally are OK with English based products in case their local language is not there), the end user (classroom instructor) will not need to do anything except step in the classroom and deliver his/her lecture. (the software has a scheduling module)

Face 5 – Development of the market

This products is built around special “patent” technology, this allows it to enter almost all markets and not only those which supports import. Local competition is rare and the demand is there.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

The core essence of this product is based on a live classroom lecture (classical type of f2f learning), so the model here I would say; “eLearning Works With A Well-Developed Learning System”. Although, in some – well, may be rare – cases, the product faces resistance from faculty member who just don’t like the idea of being “captured”  and exposed in such a semi-public way.

PBworks, formally called PBwiki, is a collaboration service that has taken advantage of the growth in popularity of wikis. Their website claims: “PBworks is the world’s largest provider of hosted business and educational workspaces. We host over 800,000 workspaces, serve millions of users per month, and 96% of PBworks business users would recommend PBworks to a friend.”

Face 1 – Market Focus

I actually had a little difficulty with this. What is their market focus? Public schools, higher education, or corporate training needs? Their service seems blended. Although, their website does indicate that their major markets would be higher education and corporate consumers. PBworks has separate services, such as “Project Edition” and “Campus Edition”, which seems to support this multi-market ambition.

Face 2 – Types of Offering

PBworks is mainly a service providing a product and infrastructure for managing course and students content; although, wikis can be used for numerous other things, including asynchronous communication.

Face 3 – Who is the buyer?

I see two options here, being:

• “Learning bought for Learner” – perhaps, for example, it is mainly for higher education courses where the instructors wish to include wikis in the course; and
• “Learning Bought Centrally” – perhaps, for example, a university or schools district has adopted the idea of wikis and wishes to provide this type of learning environment for the entire institution.

This seems evident in the various packages that they provide.

Face 4 – Global Markets

PBworks is mainly focused on “Wired Anglophone Countries, although there is a small market in other areas.

Face 5 – Development of the market

PBwork saw a niche in the market. MediaWiki and Wikispaces would be the two other major competitors; however, PBworks, perhaps seeing the growth of wikis in education and corporate use, simplified the enduser’s experience with wikis. The international market freely imports content and infrastructure, although I’m not aware of many (if any) local companies that produce wiki packages.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

PBworks would fit under the category: “Learning Technology Substitutes for Others Forms of Learning”. For one thing, their product and service may have to compete with the various LMSs, other Social Media platforms, such as NING, blogging platforms and other services, such as Google Docs. But that’s just “eLearning”. PBworks would have to compete with face-to-face appracs to collaborative approaches to learning.

Rosetta Stone  is a second-language learning software which pairs a combination of images, text, and sound with new language vocabulary. This removes the ‘translation’ step and allows the learner to attach the new language to real objects rather than their native language words.  This approach more closely mimics how people learn their first language as children. The projected total revenue of $245.0 to $248.0 million of 2009 includes their recent (April 15, 2009) IPO on the NYSE under the symbol RST. (from www.RosettaStone.com)

Face 1 – Market Focus

Rosetta Stone claims to be “a leading provider of technology-based language learning solutions”. A large portion of their sales is to retail outlets for consumer training but they offer online versions and various bundling options for schools and corporations.

Face 2 –  Types of Offerings

Rosetta Stone offers pre-packaged content for second language learners starting with beginner levels up to common conversational.

Face 3 – Who is the Buyer?

Retail buyers are purchasing the products directly for their own use.  Schools and corporations purchase licenses for their students or employees.

Face 4 – Global Markets

Rosetta Stone’s products are sold in 150 countries, teaching over 30 languages.  It has an international focus and fills wired Anglophone countries, European countries with English language skills, European countries requiring translation, and Asian countries with quality internet.

Face 5 – Development of the Market

In the case of Rosetta Stone the “Market Supports Export Oriented Learning Technologies and Substitution of Imports” is the most representative.  Other companies can (and do) make language-learning software but Rosetta Stone is a leader in many markets.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

As a prepackaged product, Rosetta Stone products are often a substitute for other forms of learning. In a school or corporate setting the technology may be used to support other systems of learning.

http://www.lynda.com/
Lynda.com is a major provider of online training. They offer prepackaged video and interactive tutorials for nearly all of the popular software applications that are used in the design and development environments. This ranges from basic lessons in writing a Word document, to complex and intricate lessons on texture and lighting in 3-D modeling applications.

Face 1: Market Focus
Because Lynda.com has so many resources that cover so many applications, they have a very broad market focus. They mainly differentiate the markets based on pricing and access to their resources. For instance, public schools would most likely invest in a few lessons for the applications that they use, but at a multi-user price point. Higher education and corporations may look at larger site licenses, or they may opt to have the end users purchase only what they need.

Face 2: Types of Offerings
Lynda’s offerings are mainly pre-packaged content, either available online subscription or by purchasing hard copies of the software or videos.

Face 3: Who is the Buyer?
Again, because of the large market focus, there are many types of buyers. Single package licenses are available for individual learners, right up to large corporate site licenses, where all employees have access to all of the available resources on company computers.

Face 4 – Global Markets
As they are produced in English, the main users of Lynda’s resources would be wired Anglophone countries, European countries with language skills, and possibly, thanks to the closed captioning, European countries requiring translation.

Face 5 – Development of the Market
Lynda would fall under the category of “Market Supports Export Oriented Learning Technologies and Substitution of Imports.”  It is assumed with this sort of resource that the market is always ready to accept the newest technologies, and that end-users will need training to run them effectively, or more importantly, competitively.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning
Because of its prepackaged nature, the resources that Lynda provides would be a substitute for other forms of learning. These tutorials and videos could be used in addition to other forms of instruction, but there would likely be a lot of redundancy. That being said, these resources may not meet the learning needs of everyone using them, so having a proficient instructor would be important for success, especially in that K-12 environment.

Second Life (SL),  owned by Linden Lab, is an online 3D world created and maintained by its users (residents).  Click here for a short video. Although not originally intended to be, the Second Life platform is emerging as a learning technology.

Face 1 – Market Focus

The SL platform offers opportunities to all three market sectors on the cube. Higher education institutes like colleges and universities have raced to establish themselves on the SL grid to offer distance/blended course offerings and to create virtual learning spaces. The corporate world serves as another market because companies, both private and government, can establish a presence in SL and use the platform for training and development. To a lesser extent, the K-12 sector represents another market focus. Although the potential is there for profit from the K-12 markets, growth has been slower due to several restrictions and barriers.

Face 2 – Types of Offerings

As a learning technology, SL offers infrastructure as a mechanism for providing online learning opportunities. Although general membership and participation in SL is free, those wanting to create learning opportunities must purchase land and pay other service fees.  Content and subject matter is the responsibility of the users/clients. Varying levels of technical support only is offered by SL to its paying customers.

Face 3 – Who is the Buyer?

Typically, SL as a learning technology is purchased by corporations, school districts, and higher education institutes. According to the cube, I suppose it is either “learning bought for learner” or “learning bought centrally” depending on how the purchaser intends the technology will be used and whether the use of SL is imposed on learners and institutions. Interestingly, there is an opportunity for revenue from individual learners once immersed in the learning technology because SL has its own currency system and market that entices users to make purchases, sometimes costing real world funds.

Face 4 – Global Markets

The SL platform is best suited for regions with excellent Internet infrastructure. Regions where Internet and bandwidth is limited or restricted will experience far too many problems using SL as learning technology. In fact, broadband Internet and above average computer hardware are minimum recommendations for using SL. Regarding the issue of language, the SL platform is available in English, French, German, and Chinese. This could be viewed as a restriction, however, because SL is created and maintained by its users creative ways to translate the interface have been used including an in-world translator.

Face 5 – Development of the Market

I’m hoping this face of the cube allows for some blurring of the boundaries because I’m not exactly sure where SL as a learning technology fits in regarding development of the market. As previously stated, poor Internet infrastructure, potential language barriers and poverty creates unfavourable market conditions for selling SL as a learning technology in some regions. It simply is not a good fit in some countries. However, generally speaking, the global market freely imports  and exports learning technologies. Potential buyers are free to consider using SL. While SL does face a small number of competitors in the virtual world market, its popularity gives it a slight edge.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

SL is a learning technology that “works with a well developed learning system”. SL is likely going to be used to enhance teaching and learning by those who have chosen to explore the benefits of the engaging environment of 3D virtual worlds. In some cases, however, I could see that the use of SL as a learning technology could be imposed on a system as a cost and time saving means of delivering instruction and training. Corporations, for example, might make it mandatory for employees to enroll in professional development delivered in SL as opposed to the more traditional means of expensive face to face training sessions and conferences. In this case, drawing from the cube, the technology is “imposed and competes with existing learning systems”.