With Izzui installed in their profile, Facebook users can access free and paid courses and leverage their specific knowhow to create and publish courses at no cost.

To help users create courses, Izzui provides free and integrated access to the QuickLessons authoring platform that is currently used by leading companies such as Sky, which produces 2,000 courses a year for its employees. QuickLessons is an online course-development solution with ready-to-use Flash and HTML5 content that requires no knowledge of programming.

This innovative social-learning app already has over 150,000 installations and 200 courses available. The company is a spinoff of Affero, a leading Brazilian corporate-education company, and is currently in the final stages of VC funding.

Today Izzui seeks to grow its community of course authors and publishers, developing partnerships with universities, companies offering training content, networks of experts, and specialists.

Facebook: a potentially unlimited market for the learning industry

The choice of Facebook as the core platform for Izzui is based on numbers: the leading social network marked a growth of 25% last year. According to a study by GlobalWebIndex, 64% of Facebook users are the most active among all social platforms, particularly engaged in uploading and sharing content.

"Izzui breaks with the barriers of traditional learning management that confine social media to an extension of the learning experience. Izzui aims to integrate online training with social media from the basic premise that today people share social experiences on digital platforms that should be bundled with learning experiences. Instead of trying to get people out of these social platforms to bring them to other learning-centric platforms, with Izzui the learning is blended with the social, from the moment that the learning content is generated until the moment of sharing it", explained Alfredo Leone , Managing Director Izzui, outlining one of the application’s key differentials.

The Izzui cofounder and seasoned eLearning executive believes that learning is a social phenomenon in the daily lives of all people, and eLearning has to follow the same model. "People want to share their learning, and social networks like Facebook are the ideal place for this," he states.

"Historically and in general, the learning and development industry has developed and implemented dedicated models, platforms, and technologies like learning-management systems and learning-content- management systems. This happened both in academic and corporate settings, defining and delimiting the learning experience to ensure controlled and measured results. With Izzui, this learning process does not occur in isolation: the process happens integrated into the end user's social activities, using an accepted and familiar interface and not trying to force ‘social’ features in learning tools that were not developed with this goal to begin with”, said Izzui’s Managing Director.

How to access and use Izzui

"Any person or business with a Facebook account can install Izzui and have free access to all the features available. Through integration with QuickLessons, our collaborative and 100% online course-development platform, Izzui users can create interactive and engaging eLearning content using templates, characters , animations, games, exercises, and other items, all of which are easily editable," says Leone.

He added, "Once completed, the courses are published on Izzui with options for free or paid access. The course author decides, and Izzui does not impose any minimum price. From there, users can benefit from all Facebook social media and networking resources to create communities of interest with global reach related to the published courses. Leveraging established eLearning industry standards, course publishers can monitor and analyze the activities of users taking the courses, generating detailed reports.

"Additionally, there is the option for brands and businesses to create private learning channels inside Izzui and sponsor specific content, with advanced levels of access control, reporting, and even private courses linked to Facebook groups. With such Learning Pages, brands can integrate learning content with their existing Facebook presence and pages, providing an innovative option for customer acquisition and retention. It is our belief all brands should aim to be social learning channels."

Izzui is currently e-commerce enabled through PayPal, so authors can sell their courses. When this happens - and only if it happens - Izzui charges thirty percent of the course value.

Izzui’s Managing Director expanded, "Our goal is that anyone possessing specific knowledge can become a publisher of online-learning content and share that knowledge in an easy, useful, and viral way. At the same time, the corporate market can use Izzui to improve communication with customers and partners, publishing content to support customer-relationship management (CRM), marketing, sales, market intelligence, and product development, among other initiatives. Schools have an opportunity to open their doors to the world of social networks, integrating Izzui with their online-learning initiatives. Government entities can create public channels and training portals with content that improves the quality of communications with citizens. Last but not least, the non-profit segment can increase its visibility and improve the quality of work of its volunteers on the field. We are particularly excited about partnership opportunities to explore all the different angles available to us.

"Izzui uniquely combines enhanced self-publishing within Facebook, a complementary corporate model, a no-upfront-fees business model, an open-course marketplace, and a customized learning experience. In the context of the growing adoption of social networks, Izzui aims to redefine the eLearning-content sector through a more structured use of social networks focused on training and the goal of sharing knowledge."

"Yesterday we asked people to go to a classroom to learn. Today learning takes place where people are. If we take into account that people today spend a lot of time using social networks, even during working hours, and they depend on these environments for access to timely and relevant information, it is natural and simple to provide ubiquitous access to learning directly inside platforms such as Facebook. Izzui makes it possible."

Alfredo Leone concluded, "Nobody has created an open market for learning content at this level until now."