iTunesU predates things like Coursera. I’d say it took someone like Apple to convince major universities that making their lectures available was worthwhile or else people like Coursera never would have gotten off the ground. It’s a very different market now and iTunesU definitely stagnated but in 2007 it was pretty cool.
amackera|4 years ago
To be honest, I think iTunes U was negative incentive for universities to put content online, since it was basically a failure. It took Coursera (and MITx, etc.) to show the value in MOOCs, and that people would pay for it. I'm not sure the line between iTunes U and Coursera is necessarily a straight one.