Read Online at: http://www.e-learningguru.com/articles/ezine/guru4_6.htm

GoogleTalk the Big News... IM and Voice
This is the big tech news of the year (thus far). I got back to my office today at 5:50 and was going to play with Google Talk later when I had time and then decided to give it a whirl. Within 3 minutes I was talking live with a friend in another state. Worked flawlessly with better quality than AIM or Skype. Jay Cross and I are going to try to catch up over it tomorrow.

Need Free Stock Photos for Your e-Learning?
I discovered YotoPhoto.com from Stephen Downes. I tried searches on doctors, patients, pills, pharmaceuticals, and other things relevant to my e-learning firm and got good results.

Over-hyping e-Learning? Who, little old me?
In his essay, "Industry Hyping," SumTotal President, Kevin Oakes, takes umbrage with my CLO article titled "These Things I Know To Be True." I wrote

The e-learning industry is under-hyped! E-learning is a thriving industry that is still in its infancy. The Web browser itself was only invented in the past 10 years or so...look no further than the hundreds of private e-learning content vendors and tool suppliers or the wildly successful online universities. Think of the thousands of webcasts and ’Net meetings that happen daily.

As a front-line witness to the dot bomb era, Kevin has a different take.

Rather than being under-hyped or over-hyped, the longer I’m in this industry the stronger I feel that e-learning – and learning in general – has been mis-hyped...Why do we insatiably love to debate the means, but spend so precious little time on the ends...What the e-learning industry needs to “hype” are the business success stories as opposed to the dizzying array of different applications, and make sure the C-level understands the correlation between learning and results.

I'll always be an unabashed e-learning optimist, and I strongly agree with Kevin that it is only about the results. This is one of the best articles I've read this year. Click here to read his complete piece.

The Future is Around the Corner and it's Awesome!
Imagine an e-learning world where we can use high quality video. At work, at home, on our cell phone/PDA.Video is definitely the future.

Read about Internet2 -- 20,000 times faster than your home broadband network. Google is moving into searchable videos.

Good KM White Paper -- 9 Case Studies
56-page white paper with 9 case studies.

Buttonless Mice or Paperless Toilet?
Last month I pointed to the www.dontclick.it buttonless mouse site. Dave Medcalf wrote in with this interesting and amusing comment:

What benefits do those with fine or coarse motor skill disabilities or users of accessibility technologies get out of this - nothing. A pretty trinket in that case with no real value in the real world... Love Guru - buttonless mouse about as likely as paperless toilet.

And of course Apple goes and releases their first 2+ button mouse.

Wow this issue was chock full of interesting stuff (if I do say so myself). Don't you have any friends who would find it interesting? Please forward!

Here's to the frustration of e-learning,

-- Kevin

Kevin Kruse is the author of Technology-based Training, and President of AXIOM Professional Health Learning. He can be reached at kkruse@e-learningguru.com.