Poynter’ e-learning project, News University, had its public debut on April 11, 2005 at the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington DC.  I gave the first public showing of site at a roundtable meeting on the future of journalism education.  The next day, Poynter Online ran a Q&A by Joe Grimm about the project.

Today, as NewsU is formally launched, the online school has more than 2,000 registered users from around the world. Journalists from India, Portugal, Australia, The Philippines, Canada, Uzbekistan, Albania and China have joined U.S. journalists who have participated in NewsU’s courses.

Here’s a PDF version of that story.

Here’s the stupidest prediction I made about the future of Poynter NewsU:

What do you expect the reach to be like with NewsU?

We’re already at 2,000 registered users. And that’s without any advertising or mailings. I’m sure we’ll double that number in a year. And then perhaps we’ll double again in a couple of years.

We hit those numbers in the first year. NewsU in 2013 has more than 275,000 registered users.