What’s the Business Model of MOOCs Such As Coursera?

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The booming popularity of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in 2012 has dramatically changed our ideas about the potential of online education. The New York Times called them “the revolution that has higher education gasping” and the Chronicle added that MOOCs question “the future of teaching” and even “the value of a degree.” What exactly [...]

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Can I Trust Wikipedia? A Social Web Case Study

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”Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” These oft-quoted words from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales demonstrate an interesting paradox: how can an information source be lauded as a modern-day Library of Alexandria while at the same [...]

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Dropbox: a Social Web Business Case Study

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Note: This is an article in our Social Web Business Case Studies series, a close look at the strategies of innovative companies that are using the tools of the social web to transform their industries. With just about everyone in agreement that the future of computing is “in the cloud,” the personal cloud storage market, [...]

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Is Siri a Threat to Google and Search Engines?

With Google’s current dominance over search, it’s natural to speculate about possible threats. Microsoft’s Bing, for one, is investing big time resources in hopes of gaining market share, and up-and-coming services such as DuckDuckGo are also intriguing. But the strongest competitor might not be a traditional search engine at all, but rather a fundamental new [...]

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Spotify: a Social Web Business Case Study

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Note: This is the first installment of our Social Web Business Case Studies series, a close look at the strategies of innovative companies that are using the tools of the social web to transform their industries. To keep up with new stories, subscribe to our updates. The mission statement on music company Spotify’s website is [...]

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Why is the Kindle Fire So Cheap? Thoughts on Amazon’s Strategy

Q: I saw that Amazon’s new tablet computer is being sold for only $199! The iPad 2 starts at $499. How is Amazon able to make their product so much cheaper? Tablet computing is one of the hottest topics today in technology today, and the major companies are jockeying for position as prices fall and [...]

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