"ITunes U" Offers Free Lectures

ITunes from Apple, which offers downloads of music and videos for sale, has also started offering free lectures from noted professors at prestigious universities such as Cal-Berkeley and Stanford.

Apple calls it ITunes U. The idea according to a recent article in the online newsletter siliconvalley.com, is to attract browsers checking out the free material, who will then notice a music or video offered for sale.

According to the article:

While an episode of "Desperate Housewives" will cost $1.99, a series of lectures by renowned University of California-Berkeley philosophy professor Hubert Dreyfus is absolutely free. A single song by pop diva Rihanna is 99 cents. The price of a course on modern theoretical physics by Stanford University quantum mechanics professor Leonard Susskind? Nada.

Apple calls it iTunes U, an unsung but popular feature of iTunes. Audio and video downloads of classroom lectures are available to anyone who wants to listen to them through a computer or an iPod. Though the program has existed on a smaller scale for a few years, it now offers more than 50,000 audio and video tracks - course lectures, language lessons, speeches - from scores of universities and colleges. Beginning in the fall, both UC-Berkeley and Stanford are planning expansions to their respective digital lecture programs.

For Apple, offering academic discourse is something akin to Trader Joe's providing free coffee to shoppers - anything that encourages customers to visit and hang out at the store is good.

Another feature offered from ITunes is the 60-Second Lecture. An Apple promotion reads:

Got a minute? Then you have time to enjoy a lecture from a faculty member at the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Speaking on a wide range of topics — from enthography to philosphy to music — the lecturers offer insight, whimsy, and, above all, brevity.

Here's the link to ITunes.