Back to the Roots: Livemocha crowdsources Ideas for new Features

Livemocha has always been very effective in leveraging its giant user base. In a very short time the members of Livemocha translated the standard courses of the platform in 38 languages.

Of course there is the question if you can simply translate a course from one language to the other and how to track down mistakes efficiently but on the other hand: the courses are free and the community worked constantly on the issues.

So all in all we can say that crowdsourcing worked pretty well for Livemocha and it definitely gave them a lead in the race for a while which competitors like Babbel, bussu and now hello-hello are aiming to close with the opposite approach by offering a smaller choice of languages and professionally developed courses but as we know Livemocha is targeting this premium customer group throuth its partnerships with Pearson and Collins.

During the past six months Livemocha seemed to have concentrated on the development of the new flagship courses in partnership with Collins which gave smaller competitors like Babbel the room to get the attention for their premium features. But as you know, Babbel also took a significant effort to get a lead on the technological side by releasing an iPhone application, a desktop client and lately a voice recognition feature. hello-hello concentrated on the development of native iPad application to learn languages and lately an app for early learners.

But back to Livemocha. The members of the Livemocha platform are invited to contribute ideas to a list of new features and they can also vote of ideas other members have submitted. The top requested features at the moment are 301 and 302 courses, a forum or message board and more exercises at the end of a course.

http://livemocha.uservoice.com

So we will see what Livemocha will be adding to their features in the future and if this will be something from the list. I think this is a good way to get a feeling what your community wants but the hardest part for Livemocha will be to decide what is possible.

Tip: I won’t add a forum .