Spotlight on WiZiQ: New Look and Public Paid Classes

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WiZiQ announced the start for Public Paid Classes in their blog today. They also got themselves a new look so I think it’s time to put them into the spotlight again.

Let’s start with the new design. WiZiQ announced and started implementing it to their site midth of march.

The thinking behind the new logo is to create a professional, elegant, classy and a minimal look.

Old and New Logo

Old and New Logo

I think they achieved this goal quite well. Quoting myself on their comments: I really like the education.online It is right on the point like Nike’s Just do it.

I am not sure about the colors. The grayish part is a bit too pale for me. The overall navigation is much better and reminds me a bit of the great navigation on italki.com.

All in all a good change that makes the site easier to use and gives the whole experience a more valuable feeling.

But the major change was announced today. WiZiQ launched Public Paid Classes and is now besides eduFire.com and Myngle.com the third platform that offers teachers the possibility to conduct paid 1:M classes online.

The big difference to their competitors is that WiZiQ use their own technology. I think this can be an advantage over the long term as they are not depending on third party software for their main feature: the virtual classroom environment. Myngle is using an old version of the dimdim classroom (dimdim launched version 5 of their virtual classroom yesterday, will post about this, too) and eduFire is using the Adobe Live Connect Pro environment.

The problem that I see there is that those two platforms are totally depending on these companies and it makes it very easy for future competitors to clone their services. All you need is to build a platform, some kind of a social network based on ning.com or elgg.org should work, add the payment methods like PayPal and off you go. And I think this will happen sooner or later. It will be very interesting which virtual classroom Video Native Speakers will use, for example. And as italki.com seems to plan 1:M classes in the future, too, they have to choose one of those softwares if they are not coding a virtual classroom on their own.

But lets go back to WiZiQ as this is a topic on its own. I applied for Public Paid Classes this afternoon and got the confirmation only about one hour later. That’s what I call service. Of course I checked out if it really works immediately and yes, I can now enter a price and a number of students in my schedule. Just click on the picture to get a closer look.

The new Feature

The new Feature

Public Paid Classes can be scheduled by teacher who

- has conducted at least 02 successful free public classes and/ or
- has conducted at least 10 private classes and/ or
- undergoes an online training on WiZiQ through one of our user training consultants
Currently, we only allow teachers from countries supported by Paypal to schedule an online paid class

For new students who apply for a class WiZiQ will take a commission of 30% but for students who are in your contact list they will only take a commission of 5%. The teacher will be paid after the lesson directly to his PayPal account.

Great new Feature when booking a class

Great new Feature when booking a class

Here you can have a look on the presentation of a Public Paid Class on WiZiQ. I think it gives the student a very good overview and confidence in purchasing. Especially the listing on the right side gives briefly all the information needed and show all the extra features without being pushy.

Therefore I will prepare a topic this weekend and go live with my first Public Paid Class. Of course, I will keep you updated on this.

The question is: are there students on WiZiQ who are willing or who are able to pay for classes? Up to now I only offered free Public Classes on WiZiQ and neither Myngle nor eduFire brought me paid classes with more than two students. 

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  • China_Mike

    The commission rates are interesting. Can you explain the huge difference between 5 and 30 per cent?

    It sounds like their 5% commission is a big attempt to draw students and teachers away from more expensive platforms. After all the extra 10% (that’s big) goes directly into the pocket of teachers and/or students.

    Myngle gives the boost; WiziQ offers a lower commission schedule. Interesting and different approaches to marketing. If there is a rush in the direction of lower commissions could it hurt the profitability of these on-line services? Won’t they have to raise their commissions later on?

  • http://www.kirstenwinkler.com KirstenWinkler

    The 30% are explained by the advertising WiZiQ does for your classes. Getting quickly listed on Google for example or being placed prominently on the WiZiQ site. This way they help you to attract new customers a thing all platforms should do, btw instead of asking teachers to convert offline to online students ;) .
    The 5% are just a fee for processing the payment because these students are already using the WiZiQ platform.

    You have to keep in mind that WiZiQ is just a part of authorgen.com (I think we already talked about it some weeks ago). So their main business is to sell the software behind it. I don’t think that they really have to care if WiZiQ is profitable or not because the main profit comes from testing the software and spreading the word about it.

    For platforms like Myngle and eduFire it can become a huge problem, of course. And there is not much they can do about it. As I said this is the problem if the heart of your business is a third party software.

    • http://agilediary.wordpress.com/ Vikrama Dhiman

      Thank you for writing about new design and paid public classes. I also wanted to thank you for conducting public classes with WiZiQ.

      Paid public classes are the next logical extension of free public classes. Teachers conduct free public classes for plenty of reasons and one of them could be to establish themselves online. WiZiQ is all in one – tool/ platform for marketing, administration, teaching. Once they have, they can then upgrade to monetizing the visibility. This completes the Teach and Earn cycle path 2 [path 1 being, you already have students and you bring them online to teach using the free membership at WiZiQ]. We will be soon introducing path 3. I am happy to talk to you about this and give you a sneak peek into path 3 [coming as soon as next week]. So, please let me know.

      Thanks

      Vikrama Dhiman
      Product Manager
      WiZiQ.com

      • http://kirstenwinkler.com KirstenWinkler

        Hi Vikrama,
        thank you for your comment. Sure, I would love to have a look behind the curtain so I will contact you today. I am already planing my first Public Paid Class.