double POSITIVE Marketing Group, Inc.

It seems like every week I’m stumbling upon another way that universities are using the Internet to support their academic programs.  There was Blackboard, then iTunes U, and now, there’s Second Life.

Universities all over the country are hurrying to buy up space on the popular virtual reality world of Second Life.  Georgia State University is creating an “island” where professors learn about the practical applications of Second Life and how to integrate these applications into their classrooms.  Ithaca College has students conducting market research and testing new products in the virtual space.  University of Texas at Austin is even considering taking its online education classrooms into the Second Life world. 

Second Life is potentially a great opportunity for students to experiment with new theories and ideas, while avoiding the risk of suffering costly or dangerous consequences that can exist in the real world. Second Life can act as a trial run, where students can simulate what would actually happen.

While the jury is still out on Second Life’s ability to truly mimic real life, the concept is fascinating.  If it really does work, Second Life holds great potential for so many businesses and organizations to expand in a completely new direction. Stay tuned!

We at DoublePositive have gotten to know the online education space really well these past few months.  What we’ve come to find is that online education is truly a unique field: here is a phenomenon that will change the way people think about higher education forever. With the shift from strictly-traditional to online universities, study after study proves that the market will only grow in the coming years. 

The results of the latest study done by EducationDynamics, an interactive marketing firm, echoes the same sentiment about the growing importance of qualified lead generation for enrollment activities in online education.  Out of nearly 100 not-for-profit higher education marketers surveyed at an AMA conference, 42% credit online lead generation as the best way to obtain qualified leads of potential students. However, the market is still in its earliest stage of development, with 65% of marketers contributing only 20% of their budgets to lead generation.  But the outlook is promising: half of the respondents plan on increasing their commitment to online marketing in 2008.

This information is encouraging and not at all surprising. After all, it takes time for the market to adopt new development in technology, and it looks like 2008 will be the year where all education marketers see the pivotal role that effective online lead generation will have in increasing ROI and decreasing the cost per student acquisition. 

I found a cool use of technology being used by universities that I wanted to share.  Schools vying for the attention of potential online students are now turning to iTunes U.  iTunes U provides free video courses, campus speeches, and other events from 16 institutions to iTunes users around the globe.  These resources have been downloaded more than 4 million times to date.  It seems the quality is inconsistent, and the educational value may be quite limited at this point relative to participating in the class in person.  However, I have to think that over time, the pure marketing and recruitment value from will become the biggest opportunity here.  Just imagine the potential value of this broad exposure to an online university that may be better prepared to create a compelling video course as compared to a traditional university planting a camera in the back of the classroom.  Interesting indeed, stay tuned.