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Livemocha Aims at Rosetta Stone – and Pulls the Trigger!

livemocha attack rosetta stone

We all knew it had to happen one day. And now the day has come: Livemocha finally pulled the trigger and sent a load of fresh roast mocha beans over to Rosetta Stone.

On their blog you will find three reasons why Livemocha is better than Rosetta Stone.

Reason 1: Livemocha offers hundreds of hours of free courses in over 30 languages.

Reason 2: Livemocha lessons include revision of speaking and writing exercises by native speakers.

Reason 3: Livemocha has a community of over 4 million members to connect, socialize and practice with.

You can find the complete comparision between Livemocha and Rosetta Stone on the Livemocha Blog.

So it looks like Rosetta Stone is becoming one of the favourite “targets” of online education. A couple of weeks ago my fellow YouTube teacher and Japanese Culture blogging Rockstar Koichi wrote a blog post and made a video about “Alternatives to Rosetta Stone Japanese”. You can watch the video below and read his blog post on Tofugu.com.

Rosetta Stone on the other hand is also on the go on the social webs. For example, they are making a very good use of Twitter, interacting with potential customers, giving support etc and posting links to success stories like this one, this one and many others on their own website promoting Rosetta Stone as the most effective and best language learning tool on the web.

So all of the above, Livemocha, Koichi and Rosetta Stone make some valid points and of course, I have my own take on this, too. But let me hear your thoughts first. Did you learn with Rosetta Stone, is it “too old”, too expensive, too …? What are your experiences with free tools on the net and the premium content of Livemocha, Babbel or busuu. Or maybe non of the above is the best and you got something else?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 4:02 pm and is filed under First Look At.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • I have used both to study numerous languages at different levels and have consistently found RS to have a stronger andragogical basis. I frequently come across words or phrases in LM that are pulled directly from phrase books. And if a language has masculine/feminine/neuter forms? At LM you are supposed to inherently know them. Whereas RS will teach each word in enough context to discern the gender of the word in it's different forms.
  • Good point.
  • "Rosetta Stone gives you CD-ROMs. Remember those? From the 1980s?"

    Clearly, distorted writing on the part of the LiveMocha blogger. CDs are from the mid-1990s and peaked in the 2000s. The RosettaStone CDs still has features that are not yet available on the web. With a microphone, you can record your dialogue and it graphs your tone and intonation which you can compare with that of the on-CD native speaker.

    RosettaStone also has a huge community of members with whom one can connect and practice with in SharedTalk. So a deliberate omission on the part of the LiveMocha blogger.

    Clearly, the LiveMocha blogger is not being honest.
  • I really need to do a comparison. No time right now, though :(
  • chinamike
    One nice thing I like about RS is that they talk some of this stuff in their yearly public stock reports. I'll bet Livemocha never gives us a chance to see theirs!
  • I had this talk with Clint Schmidt, VP Marketing & Product of Livemocha :), told him that I should change this blog and write about the NSA, CIA and FBI because it's easier to get information out of them ;).
    But generally all of them are quiet about numbers etc.
  • Don't forget about the price! My full thoughts are here.
  • Infact the price plays a big role in the Rosetta Stone strategy. There is a whole list that adds on the bill. Like Koichi mentions in his blog post marketing takes a big chunck but there are also costs which are directly connected to the product itself like paying the tutors in TOTALe, the motivation team that keeps you on track, the guy who does the Twitter account etc.

    So as I said, I will jump in the ring soon and I will try to write up a neutral comparision between the two.
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