While traditional schools struggle to fit the bill, the internet is finally rising the the occasion. Startups like Treehouse, CodeAcademy, Lynda.com and of course Khan Academy are capturing the imagination of learners around the world, of all ages. Can these sites give traditional education the "Wikipedia vs. the encyclopedia" treatment? Why are these new websites aimed at teaching new skills so hot right now? A discussion of those questions leaves me feeling very optimistic, for the future of humanity even.

The phrase human capital might seem cold and unappealing, but when you think of capital as something with the capacity to create economic value, then having some becomes important for anyone who can get it. The future may be characterized by the big gap between the quality of life of a relatively small population of highly skilled workers and a much larger population of unskilled workers. There certainly can be dignity and value in unskilled or semi-skilled labor, but I'm guessing that most readers here are people interested in the world of skilled or highly skilled work.

I remember first reading about Human Capital Management years ago when people were writing about the huge waves of baby boomers about to retire. What could be done to retain the incredible body of business knowledge they had amassed after they leave the workforce?

I'm not sure how well that human capital was maintained, but the paradigm seems to have become even hotter in recent years. Looking at the economic outcomes of some recent companies in this sector should make anyone sit up and pay attention: SAP acquired talent management service SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion in cash this month. Jason Corsello, of talent management company Cornerstone OnDemand, once called SuccessFactors "not only the hottest vendor in the HCM (Human Capital Management) space but in the entire enterprise software sector."

Then last week HR and performance management feedback loop web app Rypple got acquired by Salesforce. Now business services provider in the cloud WorkDay is reportedly planning a very big IPO.

As computing gets faster, lighter, more mobile and more powerful, optimization of precious human resources to leverage it is becoming an increasingly imperative and potent opportunity for software and services to focus on.

"The total US training market is massive, it's a $125 billion market and it's moving online fast," says Tom Turnbull of training marketplace OpenSesame. His startup aggregates training content from more than 100 providers with 10,000 different courses. "We're creating Amazon.com for courses," Turnbull says. "And many of the content creators are individuals who didn't previously have access to the corporate market. It's also a chance to make education more affordable and broadly available."

Enter the DIY Web Apps

How does the individual relate to this? As Napoleon Dynamite said 7 years ago, "Nunchaku skills... bowhunting skills... computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills!"

Where are you going to get those great skills?

Treehouse is a subscription site where you can view videos about and acquire skills in web and mobile application design and development. Founder Ryan Carson says a number of factors have contributed to his startup's rapid early growth:

"Huge numbers of people are switching careers because they got laid off or their business failed. Professionals in other industries are realizing they need to learn how to design/build web sites or iOS apps. There is a massive global swell in the desire to learn Web Design, Dev and iOS. Movies like the Social Network have popularized the idea of creating tech startups.

"We take people from knowing nothing to being able to launch a site or app. There really isn't any other service that holds your hand and guides you through that entire process.

"We're hoping to help people land jobs after they finish a certain number of Badges. We've partnered with Facebook, Living Social, WordPress and more to help them start recruiting Treehouse Members."

Self-Actualization as a Service

It's not just about amassing human capital to maximize your employability or workplace effectiveness. Another set of startups is emerging that is focused on skill building and life change outside of work. Startups like DailyPath, MightyBell and Obvious Corp-backed Lift could be described as instrumenting self-actualization through social software.

Whether at work or in life, there is a continuum of skill levels that we all can be understood within; you could say it goes from "low task," in which people must be told what to do and how to do it, to "high task" circumstances in which people are capable of being given a general direction and then figuring it out on their own. We probably all sit in different places in that continuum in different circumstances in our lives. (I got to thinking about this after listening to this brain-exploding podcast interview from SuccessFactors with Marc Demerest, CEO and Principal of Noumenal Inc., titled Leading knowledge intensive organizations under duress.)

These kinds of web applications could be understood as helping people move up that continuum towards higher level functioning in life and work. The independence, confidence, power and freedom that come from that represent some of the best things the web could possibly offer us.

With so much business and personal potential, learning services like this are only going to grow in number and sophistication. When there's a crowded market looking to serve a world hungry for these kinds of technologies, then all the startups will have to continually improve in order to compete with each other.

That sounds like reason enough to feel very optimistic about the future, for the growing number of people with the access and time needed to take advantage of these rapidly expanding opportunities.

Illustration titled "Blogging Au Plein Air, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot" by Flickr user Mike Licht

Game company Area/Code believes gaming, something most kids are already familiar with, can help build up and preserve kids' sense of worth and consequence. They are not only designed a game to do so, "Battlestorm," but with the help of the Knight Foundation, the United Way and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, they staged live competitive gaming with an online aspect to stress the power of kids to survive and overcome the threat of a disaster.

After elimination, one team was left, The Castaways, and that team played not against another high school team, but against "The Hurricane." The Hurricane are in fact, members of the Seabees, the U.S. Navy's construction battalion. How could a bunch of kids win against people who play the hurricane survival game every day for a living? That's where the Web came in.

By assembling a Hurricane Preparedness Kit, documenting it via digital photo and submitting it to the Battlestorm website, the team that went against The Hurricane received "Powers" to offset the difference in skill. The Powers are represented by online badges similar to those used in check-in tools like Foursquare.

The Castaways won.

You can follow, or get involved in, future Battlestorm competitions on Facebook and Twitter.

Other sources: BoingBoing

"The system will coach the athlete based on their training plan, monitor's the athlete's performance via wireless sensors and provide feedback during performance to help the athlete follow their plan," according to COO Jeff Broderick.

"One of the biggest problems we solve is to give each workout context within the athlete's overall plan and how it relates to their goals. Because our system knows the athlete's plan and listens to the athlete's body in real time, our customers are more likely to avoid fatigue-related injuries and performance issues," according to CEO Kirk Ewing.

The packages contain the wireless sensors to record heart rate and sport specific data, a phone application and a subscription to the MyEnki online training app. The first platform to be supported will be the iPhone. iPhone Sport Packages for Cycling will ship in June with Running following in August and Triathlon later in Q4 2010. Support for Android will arrive in Q4 2010 with Blackberry and other phones following in 2011.

The smartphone connection may help to distinguish Enki Sports from competitors such as Nike, as well as BodyMedia, Fitbit and others.

An Amsterdam based holding company called PPF and the Paris based World Association of Newspapers are funding a fascinating project that will launch 30 different websites covering hyperlocal news throughout the Czech Republic. Google will provide technical training and the sites will run AdSense in exchange. In order to maximize contact with the local community, the project has hired 90 mostly young reporters who will work out of offices with public coffee and internet shops built into the facilities.

The idea brings to mind the Lawrence Journal World, a well known model of effective local online reporting. If Google and other online specialists could help more newspapers rock like LJWorld.com does, then things could really look up for local news.

To be fair, some people attribute LJWorld's success to its local near monopoly across different media types - but the company has been wildly innovative in terms of types of content, interactivity, mobile and the creation of a content management system (Django) that is now used by newspapers around the world. The company even offers an RSS feed of their most-clicked classified ads and displays those in a widget throughout the site. That's cool. Anyone interested in local news online should make sure to spend some time looking around the website of the Lawrence Journal World.

Do You Think the Web Industry Has An Interest or Obligation in Helping Old Models of Reporting Transition Online? RSS readers can click here to view and participate in our poll on that question.

Why not have web specialists offer training to more old fashioned news organizations in order to create a more compelling product? This morning I was watching a trailer for an immersive multiplayer game about to launch and thought: lots of people are willing to pay $20 to $50 once or as a subscription for these really compelling game experiences - couldn't the news organizations of the future better leverage the internet to create an experience that people would pay for? Either pay for or view advertisements through? From games to iPhone apps to really useful software otherwise, I know I'm willing to pay for things. The local news rag just doesn't do anything moving enough for me to pay for it, other than a weekend print edition that I have delivered to my house. Their website certainly isn't interesting enough to visit.

Be it through subscriptions, micropayments or advertising, this whole historic dilemma of the death of newspapers, local news and investigative reporting sure seems like it would be a different scenario if the news producers just made a more compelling product. Our expectations are higher these days because we have the internet. So make something awesome that takes advantage of all this technology. (Granted, this doesn't take into account the reticence of local advertisers to buy online. That's not the only problem newspapers are facing, though.)

Programs that put technical specialists into the newsroom to teach technical skills sound like a great avenue to explore. It would be good to see Google's program in the Czech Republic expand outside of that country and for other vendors to be offering similar services. Let's see a Vimeo Professional Services. Reddit is used by papers but not nearly as well as it is on Reddit.com. How many microblogging services could do themselves and the local paper a lot of good with some symbiosis through training services? I think this is a very interesting idea.

For more on this general topic, I'm going to listen to this collection of podcasts by Dave Winer and NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen, titled Rebooting the News.

Though you, elite readers, might consider getting excited about apps that are a year or two old to be painfully behind the times, the fact is that there is huge demand for training in use and application of web apps old and new.

Yuuguu

You can show people how to go through multi-step processes by sharing your desktop in a tab of their browser with Yuuguu. It's free, no downloads required, get sharing in seconds. Old versions of the software can be a bit buggy but the newest version has worked great for me.

There's absolutely nothing like getting to watch someone else work on their own desktop - it's a magical learning experience for people. I use it while talking to people on the phone, after IMing them the login and PIN to see my screen. I haven't tried recording the sessions yet, but that could be really useful too.

ViewMyPC will release a version of its screensharing app that lets viewers watch from inside their browsers as well, later this month.

Multi-platform IM Client

Multi-platform IM services let you IM with anyone almost anywhere, without worrying what IM network they are on. Just sign up for an account on AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk, give your client the login info for each account and you'll be set for good. Mac users can check out Adium (pictured, but souped up), Windows users can try out Trillian or Digsby and anyone can use Meebo on the web.

If you're going to work with a wide variety of people online, you should be able to easily IM with them no matter what service they use.

IM during phone calls or even in person is the fastest way to share URLs, it's a great way to take shared notes and, as consultant to international Communities of Practice consultant John Smith says, it's a great way to clarify communication between people who don't speak the same languages natively.

Jing

Jing is the fastest, easiest way to record a short screencast demonstrating how to do something online. It's not particularly robust but for a quick tutorial to send to a client, you'll probably like it a lot.

The ability to watch again and again makes screencasting a particularly useful tool for consultants to offer their clients. If you're teaching any tangible skills, as opposed to just marketing fluff (or even genuinely useful marketing strategy!) then making screencasts all day long could prove very useful.

Annotated Screenshots with Screensteps or Skitch

ScreenSteps was the app we used to make this post in a jiffy, Skitch is another app we're totally in love with. Both are for Mac only - can anyone recommend a good PC equivalent? Update - we were wrong ScreenSteps has a Windows version after all!

The idea is that both make it really easy to grab screenshots, annotate them and then upload them to the web. For many clients, a screenshare or a screencast will still move too fast and it's really nice to be able to read text explaining how to do things at any time.

AideRSS: Filter RSS Feeds for Popularity

We write about AideRSS here all the time. Consulting clients love it, though. Tell them you can give them a feed, or run a feed through email for them, that delivers just the most popular items from any news source and they will adore you. Plug in any feed and it will score items by number of comments, inbound links, saves in delicious.com etc.

You can do this with almost anything. In the above screenshot, we've performed a Google Blogsearch for posts that link to a company's website, then changed the RSS URL to output 50 items instead of 10 (the default in the URL), then run that feed through AideRSS and grabbed the "best" feed. The goal here was to identify bloggers who had written about the company and gotten a big reaction from their readers. This is a good way to try and find a blogger for a company to hire if it's looking for one, among other things.

Those Are Our Favorites, What Are Yours?

Everyone's probably got a different list of "must-haves" but apps vary in terms of performance and functionality. If we're missing anything here, please let us know. What's more fun than learning about new ways to most effectively teach other people about all the exciting things going online these days?

Photo: Little Birdies, by Flickr user IanMatthewSoper

In April we reported that YouTube's dominance in online video was bigger than Google's dominance in search (67%). The new Hitwise numbers raise a number of questions for us.

Hitwise reports that overall video viewership in May of this year fell 9% compared to May of last year, but times on site grew 6%. That's strange. We've asked whether the rapidly growing Hulu is included in this batch of numbers and will update this post when we get a reply. (Update: Hitwise says that Hulu is now the 13th most watched video site and is seeing consistent growth each month.) Could it be that last year saw a large number of people checking out online video for the first time, only a certain percentage of them found that they liked it but those people are now watching more than before? If readers have any theories why the video market is declining in absolute number of viewers, we'd love to hear them.

YouTube's huge dominance over a market that includes a wide variety of different video sites, each with different communities and feature sets, probably does not bode very well for innovation in the sector. We'd love to see more people checking out innovative services like Metacafe, Blip.tv and others. We wrote about the top video content producers in the world yesterday, many of which are bigger in places other than YouTube. Smaller up and comers outside of YouTube deserve some attention, too.

Xobni, a company obviously catering to business users, have, as of today, launched a new version of their Outlook plugin. Needless to say, the Xobni team really knows their audience because this new version is offering built-in support for LinkedIn, the social network designed for business use.

With the new LinkedIn integration, Xobni now automatically shows a contact's current employer, job title, link to their LinkedIn profile, and contact photo in the app's sidebar. This is especially helpful for those who receive a lot of email from new contacts or have a hard time putting a face to name. Along with the LinkedIn support, Xobni still offers their core features - fast people and attachment search, threaded conversations, and automatic contact profiles.

Download Xobni

Xoopit

Depending on how comfortable you are handling over your email login information, you may find Xoopit either a major security risk or one of the more useful web applications you've seen in a long time. Marshall has argued that Xoopit is proof that Gmail needs a better API, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and use Xoopit anyway because...well...finding attachments is hard.

The service, which came out of private beta just last week, offers a Gmail plugin that lets you search your inbox for photos, videos, and files - all of which are accessible with one click from the new toolbar added to the top of your Gmail inbox. You can also use the addon to find photos, videos, or files sent you by a specific person, and, as you type their name in the box provided, Xoopit helpfully auto-completes the entry.

On the Xoopit homepage, things get a little more interesting. Here, the latest items from your email display in a familiar lifestream-like view that practically has you looking for the "like" button. To the side of the screen, the people who send you the most items are listed and linked to - and those results may surprise you, bringing new insight into what's really going on in your inbox. (Forwarders of chain emails be warned - you've been identified!)

At the time of launch, the Xoopit addon, which is available as a Firefox plugin, did not support Firefox 3, but over the weekend, the Xoopit team added that support, which now makes it worth a download...at least for those who aren't too security conscious.

Download Xoopit

For a demo of Xoopit, you can check out this video:

Upgrading the Inbox

Considering how much of our days, if not our lives, are spent dealing with the non-stop influx of email, it's nice to see some applications that are helping us make our inboxes more efficient while also mining them for important data. Microsoft Outlook, due to its nature of being desktop software, has always lent itself to the addition of plugins - even social ones like OutSync (facebook/Outlook sync) - but the idea of adding plugins to our web inboxes is still relatively new territory.

Because so many people use Gmail, we've seen the innovation begin there. First there was Gina Trapani's Better Gmail Firefox plugin, which arose from a collection of Greasemonkey scripts. Then even Google's Gmail team got in on the act earlier this month with their launch of Gmail Labs, the experimental features you can enable from your "Settings" page. Although some of those features are certainly less useful than others, the fact that Google is also hopping into the inbox addon game means there is definitely growing interest in this area (and say what you want - those "superstars" are really helpful).

Hopefully, the growth in this area will continue and we'll soon find that Google Labs, Xobni, and Xoopit were just the forerunners of the upgraded inbox trend.