Web 2.0 cynism

I just want to quote Dion Hinchcliffe (great weblog!) More Great Web 2.0 Software (web2.wsj2.com): "(..) I find the arguments that most folks have against Web 2.0 to be very similar to the ones that people have made against a similar software concept, Service-Oriented Architecture. As I pointed out recently, Gartner thinks SOA will underpin 80% of all software development by the year 2008."
I vote for Gartner! Web 2.0 and SOA are not going away! So you better jump on the train. More on this in my next post when i comment on the new plan of the Surf Foundation.

Rounding up some things

Would you allow me to do a little self-exposure and a little promotion for some great things happening over here in The Netherlands?
I would like to point my Dutch readers to two great items that are in the Dutch language only:
1. All the great work that we did under the title "ELO Advies" can be found online. Just point your browser to http://www.utwente.nl/elo. If you are interested in a sort of English summary of what has been done in this project (which is quite interesting!), go to my presentation that I delivered at the last Sakai conference.
2. I am regular reader of the Edusite. They always have some great news. They have a weekly schedule, where Tuesday is their deadline day. So on Tuesdays you can find the latest articles, interviews etc. There is a recent interview with Marijk van der Wende on the Edusite.

Business Readiness Rating™ - Home

Hm, this can become quite interesting, I think. Through the e-Literate weblog, Michael Feldstein points us to a proposed open standard to evaluate opensource software.They have done some 'testing' with Sakai and Moodle. In their own words, a Business Readiness Rating™: "Today, companies evaluate open source suitability based on homegrown assessment methods without access to useful assessment data or methods.
The ultimate goal of BRR is to give companies a trusted, unbiased source for determining whether the open source software they are considering is mature enough to adopt."

24/7: stop the ratrace

Just a random thought, that came up while I was thinking about my online banking habits. I use mijn.postbank.nl, and yesterday I read on this site that transactions will not be processed during weekends.
Come to think about it: why should our VLE (in our case TeleTOP) be available 24/7 and process transactions 24/7? Well, i can think of a reason. That is: this world is spinning around like hell, so everyone thinks that we need 24/7. But: it this really really necessary? I might be, but have you thought about the costs associated with it? Well, at our institution I am not aware of any real discussion on this issue, actually. I might be wrong...

e-Literate: Blackboard by the Numbers

Through Stephen Downes I was directed to this great post by Michael Feldstein on his e-Literate weblog.
The title of his entry is Blackboard by the Numbers and he refers toJim Farmer: "According to Jim’s numbers, Blackboard needs to acquire 185 new customers every year to hold steady, 371 to get 5% growth, and so on, up to 742 new customers needed to grow at 15%. How many new customers a year has Blackboard been getting? 152. Less than they need to break even."
Michael predicts that "at some point in the not-too-distance future, expect Blackboard to be the acquiree rather than the acquirer (just as Banner has been bought and sold a few times now), and Oracle is the most likely purchaser."
Ofcourse, you need to know that Jim Farmer is heavily involved in the Sakai Foundation.

RIP-ping on Learning Objects

Ok, i get it!
This message is coming back day after day, just even when the New Year has just started: Learning Objects have never worked and will never work. As David Wiley states: Iterating toward openness » RIP-ping on Learning Objects "So if learning objects are dead - and they may be - what is it that we should care about?"
Just read the whole post by David and comments. It's a great read. Read also the response by D'Arcy Norman.