So it happened the other day … Apple announced the long awaited iTunes U service. I even saw on CNN the other evening a big story about it and how Stanford was letting people in for free. To me it is an outstanding opportunity to share the knowledge of the Academy. To some others it makes them nervous. At the end of the day it looks like an opportunity for schools to easily make content available to their students.I won’t say that it is the perfect solution — only becuase I don’t think any of us know what that is. Just a year ago most members of Higher Education would scratch their heads and say, “pod-what … podcasting … hmm, that’ll never work.” A year later and there are thousands of these “shows” floating around the web and inside the iTunes podcast directory. Adam Curry went big time with Podshow, Odeo got funded to allow people to easily create this stuff, and Apple built a service that lets schools host, index, and serve their content in this format. Now this is one fast tracking technology. There are great things ahead … it is sort of funny to me that we are all talking web 2.0 (for better or for worse), and the hottest thing happening are “radio shows” that are auto delivered via RSS. Sounds amazing, but it is true.

No matter how you look at iTunes U, it is a great opportunity to get your stuff out there quickly. When was the last time someone told you they’d take care of your content for you? I am interested in the thoughts of the community and more interested in what will come next.