Number(s) of the Week: 9.95 and 1 million

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Kirsten Winkler

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Number of the Week As the anniversary of this blog is getting closer, I started looking through the archives as I do every year. Sometimes, I am really surprised to find posts I can’t remember to have written and a lot of them bring back memories, of course. What a ride!

One of the first startups I wrote about back in January 2009 was Livemocha. Back then, the language learning community just cracked the 1 million user mark and started to offer its first premium content. It was a travel course in Italian priced at $9.95

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It’s on! How I am going to compete with Livemocha, busuu and Babbel

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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No, I haven’t lost my marbles! But at least now I got your attention, I think.

As you know, I have pursued a side project in German language learning since April 2008 called Deutsch Happen. On the basis of a more or less regular schedule I have produced different kinds of video lessons to test out teaching ideas and to support learners of German as a foreign language who might have no access to paid solutions.

For the past couple of months I have been experimenting with some strategies on how to grow my audience on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and the results are good enough to take this to the next step: I am building a MVP.

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MRU – Facebook as Study Tool, Amazon Student App, Funding and Second Life

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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As you know, this blog here has become my personal sandbox again and all the news in education 2.0 are now over at EDUKWEST. In case you did not know, now you know .

For all of you who check back regularly on KirstenWinkler.com for your dose of education 2.0 related updates, I thought I will post a weekly “Monday Roundup” with links of what has been going on over at EDUKWEST.

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busuu in Numbers: 3 Years 2.5 Million & 7 Days

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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The language learning community busuu turned three today. Time really flies, so happy birthday to Bernhard, Adrian and the team at busuu!

As a side note to the event busuu shared that over 2.5 million people now have signed up to learn a language with the service. All in all, busuu seems to be on a role at the moment, getting some nice coverage in the press, for example yesterday on the Washington Post blog.

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Babbel and busuu expand their Offers, Livemocha nears 10 million Members

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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As there have been a couple of smaller updates and news around the three language learning communities recently, I thought I might as well combine them in one blog post to give you a quick overview on the current state of affairs.

So, here we go.
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Monday Roundup: busuu, Myngle and WizIQ

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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In today’s MRU we will take a look at busuu’s newest funding round, Marina Tognetti of Myngle sharing some rare insights in a video interview, WizIQ changing its logo and Bo.lt which lets you copy and edit any website you like.
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52% of Online Language Learners Consider Classic Offline Learning as More Efficient

Posted on April 3, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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First of all I would like to thank Bernhard Niesner and Adrian Hilti of busuu as well as the team at IE Business School who took the time and made the effort to set up a survey and then shared its results with the public.

Data is still a scarce resource in education 2.0 and getting some from one of the most successful startups is really valuable. So, let’s take a closer look on the outcome.

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Monday Roundup: 2tor, Busuu, Tofugu TV and Sifteo

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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In today’s MRU we take a look at the whooping $32 million funding for 2tor, the new recording feature of Busuu, the first episode of Tofugu TV and the future of building blocks developed by a company called Sifteo.

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Monday Roundup: Babbel, Busuu, Skype and GoToMeeting

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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As there is always more happening than I can cover in single blog posts, I will try to write a short roundup on interesting stories and events that did not make it into an own blog post but that are too important to not be shared with you.

Today we have Babbel, Busuu and the Skype / GoToMeeting partnership.

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Busuu Partners with The Guardian and MacMillan

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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Competition is good, especially for the customers. Today, Busuu, now 1.5 million users strong, announced a new partnership with The Guardian and MacMillan, two well established brands and as British as five o’clock tea and scones (in the Savoy, of course).

To quote from another recent press release in that space, the partnership “catapults” Busuu in the intermediate level and above learning sector.

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Review:ed 2010 – October to December

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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This is the last part of my review 2010.

Video calling reached critical mass, live streaming comes to Facebook but is live still relevant in a world of on demand and self paced services?

Will the Internet get back to paid content and why is it so difficult to get reactions from readers?

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Busuu got smarter with the MyBusuu Study Guide

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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Busuu launched a new interesting feature for their premium subscribers last week, called the MyBusuu Study Guide. This feature is developed in partnership with the Salzburg Research Institute and lets students set their personal study goals and track the progress over time.

Also, the tests at the end of each section got a refresh and will now adapt the questions to the mistakes the learner had made during the sections.

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Review:ed 2010 – January to March

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Kirsten Winkler

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As 2010 was such a fast paced year, I thought it would be nice to go back in the archives and take a look back at the most interesting events.

So, let’s start our little trip down memory lane with the months of January, February and March 2010.

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The Europas – Edu Finalists are out

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Kirsten Winkler

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Mike Butcher just published the list of finalists for the Europas on November 19th in swinging London. As you know, education has its own category but there are also placements in other categories.

So here is the list of edu startups for this year’s Europas.

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Busuu announces Partnership with Collins

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Kirsten Winkler

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Busuu just announced a new strategic partnership with the publisher Harper Collins. Native English speaking premium users of Busuu will now have access to grammar guides for Spanish, French, German and Italian.

This is basically an extension of the existing deal with the publisher PONS which is providing grammar guides for the native German, Spanish, French and Italian speakers of the community.

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Growing Guerrilla Style – Busuu is the second 7 Digit Community

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Kirsten Winkler

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Busuu tweeted recently that their community has officially reached more than 1 million members. This is a very impressive number itself but what I find even more interesting is that Busuu had tweeted exactly one month before to have reached the milestone of 800.000 users.

That is a growth of 200.000 users in 30 days, over 6600 users per day in one single month.

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Blackberries on the iPhone – Busuu launches its Mobile Applications

Posted on September 22, 2010 by Kirsten Winkler

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Busuu is now the second language learning community to have its own iPhone applications that connect seamlessly with your online learning profile on the platform.

And if you watched my interview with Michael Schutzler of Livemocha the other day, you know that it will only take a little more time until this Seattle based community will launch their own.

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From Busuu with Love: Language Learning Community adds Russian

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Kirsten Winkler

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Busuu, the language learning community, just launched its seventh language: Russian.

This not only enables the already signed up community members to learn a new language but, maybe even more important, it opens Busuu a whole new market for its service as the entire platforms is from now on also available in a localized Russian version.

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Babbel now Knows What You are Saying – Introduces Voice Recognition

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Kirsten Winkler

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And Babbel did it again. After taking the lead on mobile devices with the iPhone application attached to its platform Babbel now introduced voice recognition or the missing link that separated the company from Rosetta Stone.

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