Two Web 2.0 Apps Challenge the Status Quo

Two new web apps caught my eye this evening as I scanned my email: Nuvvo and Newsvine. The two sites are very different in their concept and functionality, but both share the same purpose – to enable individuals (content creators, writers, news buffs, teachers, amateurs, experts, you) to reach a larger niche audience, and to make money from it.

Nuvvo
I got an email from Dave Ritter from Savvica, the creators of Nuvvo, “Web 2.0’s answer to elearning.”

Nuvvo is a free, on-demand Learning Management System (LMS) that gives individual instructors the opportunity to publish curriculum and teach online. It offers much of the traditional LMS toolset–including content creation, multimedia integrations, blogs and messaging, evaluation, and ecommerce–without the institutional support that is typically required for an LMS.

The concept assumes that everyone has some knowledge that someone else wants to know. For many years, online learning or eLearning has been a promise not fully realized. From my years of consulting in higher education, one of the obstacles has been bloated, overpriced proprietary portal systems that claim to fully serve the online learning environment. Nuvvo is a fresh new approach that enables any teacher or student to connect, made easier with a full suite of integrated tools: create courses that include multimedia, use blog tools for discussion and interaction, manage enrollment, curriculum, grades, schedules, messages, and payments. Nuvvo courses can be free or require payment as determined by the individual instructor, in which case Nuvvo’s fee is a mere 8%.

Newsvine
I had first heard the buzz about Newsvine last month but got an email tonight with an invite to the private beta so I took it for a quick spin.

Seattle-based Newsvine, Inc. was founded in 2005 by a small team of like-minded colleagues with one purpose: to build a perfectly different, perfectly efficient way to read, write, and interact with the news.

Newsvine highlights three key interactions with the site: reading, writing, and seeding. Readers are able to comment on articles and engage in discussions. Writers are able to create columns and blog posts, tag articles and have them appear in the relevant public Newsvine section to drive readership. Seeding Newsvine is the same as quick post or bookmarking using a Newsvine bookmarklet, although Newsvine emphasizes a comment beyond merely posting. What’s the incentive? “Newsvine users are financially rewarded in direct proportion to the value they add to the community by way of creating and submitting articles.”

I’ve just created my page at http://emilychang.newsvine.com. I’m wondering if I’ll be able to import blog posts from my originating blog into my Newsvine page at some point. For now, I’ll probably start posting my news-related articles here (things I would normally just bookmark in del.icio.us or Blinklist) so feel free to check back or grab one of the feeds.

10 Comments

1. Nick on January 06, 2006 at 04:09 AM:
   Thanks for the heads-up, this is awesome!
2. Victor on January 06, 2006 at 06:16 AM:
   The link to emilychang.newsvine.com just takes me to the signup page, I can’t see anything of yours. Seems like they’re playing this one close to the vest… a screenshot or something would be nice.

   -Victor

3. Jeff on January 06, 2006 at 11:37 AM:
   CommonTimes is here today and open to everyone…it’s a social network for news

   http://www.commontimes.org

4. Calvin Tang on January 06, 2006 at 04:21 PM:
   Thank you Emily, we have been working hard over here at The Vine ahead of the private beta.  It is great having all of the testers in kicking the tires.

   Best Regards,

   Calvin Tang
   Chief Operating Officer
   Newsvine, Inc.

5. ak on January 06, 2006 at 06:20 PM:
   hey emily

   wow – newsvine turned out to be a helluva a nice app. i wonder if this isn’t a glimpse into what all online newspapers will look like in 2-3 years.

   ill be in touch soon :)

   AK Minneapolis

6. Tony Herrera on January 08, 2006 at 05:14 AM:
   Thanks Emily, This is a great post. Nuvvo’s free, on-demand Learning Management System (LMS) seems to address a fundamental and cost-effective method that has eluded Post-Secondary Vocational Schools in order to provide eLearning and Distance Learning options to their students. I’m encouraged to see these cost effective online tools become available and it will be even more interesting to see the realm of Online Education Courses that may emerge from Nuvvo’s innovative approach.

   Regards,

   Tony Herrera
   Herrera & Associates
   Santa Ana, CA

7. rickdog on January 23, 2006 at 12:19 AM:
   Emily,
   Copying the HTML source of your eHub posts directly into the Newsvine editing box works fairly well, it doesn’t bring over images though.
   rickdog
8. Jeff on January 25, 2006 at 08:35 PM:
   Thanks for the post about Nuvvo. I hadn’t heard of it before but it looks very promising.  I hope that more free apps like this become available as it seems everyone loves stuff that’s free and easy to use.
9. theCreator on January 27, 2006 at 12:41 PM:
   Newsvine is sleek. Too bad there isn’t much original content as this moment.
10. Karl on June 16, 2006 at 11:50 AM:
    I prefer Nuvvo! No question about it!