Day: July 29, 2013

Posted on

Unhangout From MIT Media Lab Seeks to Harness Google Hangouts For Large Live Events

Unhangout is an open source platform for running large scale online un-conference-style events using Google Hangoutsto create many simultaneous small sessions. Think of it like a classroom with infinitely many breakout rooms. We provide a text-based chat experience that can support hundreds of participants chatting or watching a live video stream together. When you want to create more opportunity for participation, you can break out into up-to-ten person Google Hangout sessions that create opportunities for peer learning instead of just top-down information transfer that is typical in large scale online education.

via Unhangout.

This is worth keeping an eye, especially if it manages to tame the wild world of Google APIs a bit to make Hangouts more useful for real events. Unhangout is written in Javascript and is powered by node.js and Redis. You can get the code for this open source project on GitHub at https://github.com/drewww/unhangout.

 

Posted on

Look Ma, No VCs! YouVersion Bible App Has 100 Million Downloads And It’s a Non-Profit

While YouVersion is on the radar of Silicon Valley investors, it’s a deal their funds can’t touch. YouVersion is part of the church, so it’s set up as a non-profit that doesn’t generate revenue or have exit plans. It’s funded entirely by donations, $3 million was donated to sustain the app last year, and by LifeChurch.tv, which has poured $20 million into it.

via YouVersion Bible app has 100 million downloads – Business Insider.

This is just the sort of thing that education needs: a well funded non-profit dedicated only to producing top quality educational materials.  What the edu space needs right now is more non-profit thinking and less venture capital money.