What is a Learning Platform?

While I have written (along with others) about the shift we are seeing in the LMS market, where it is moving from an enterprise LMS market to a learning platform market, there has not really been a good definition of what a learning platform is. As Jeff Bohrer asked via Twitter, “What are the hallmarks of LMS as a “learning platform” (beyond SaaS)? Any posts you can point to?” Mike Zackrison offer some very helpful thoughts in his response of “A few I’ve observed: cloud, multi-tenant; open API; social, analytics, mobile baked in; apps/content discovery too”.

Rather than reply within the limits of 140 characters, I’d like to offer a response here (I have trouble with being pithy).