As the online learning space 2.0 is going in its third year and hence more stable and predictable Livemocha set up an affiliate program and share 20% of each package sale and even 40% for each subscription.
This could be an interesting opportunity for bloggers in the language learning space to make some extra money.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Livemocha is challenging Rosetta Stone in a fight for the crown of language learning. It already started with the comparison chart three reasons why Livemocha is better than Rosetta Stone, went on with the anouncement that Livemocha and Collins aim to be the Number One language learning provider of this decade.
Language learning community Livemocha, now over 5 million members strong, announced a new partnership with a publisher. This time it is Collins and together they will work on premium Spanish, French, German and Italian courses.
Now this means basically that the giant from the other side of the Atlantic throws an eye on the market of its smaller competitors Babbel and Busuu, namely Europe.
Exciting day for the guys at busuu. They just announced that busuu received a six-figure funding from an Austrian business angel who will also join the company as advisor.
But that’s not all. busuu also announced to finally launch Brazilian Portugese as sixth language to learn.
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.
Just when you think you can start with the recap post of the year TechCrunch reports that the online language learning community Livemocha has secured another $8 Million USD in series B funding.
This sums up to a total of $14 Million USD in funding and should help Livemocha in its fight for the crown against Rosetta Stone TOTALe.
Pearson and Livemocha have been awarded the ESU (English Speaking Union) President’s Award 2009 for their recently launched Active English Course.
And for all of you who don’t know who the English Speaking Union’s President is: he is no other than Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
The ESU President’s Award was inaugurated in 2003 at the request of the President of the ESU, HRH Duke of Edinburgh KG KT and is given annually. The judging panel includes experts from the fields of design, technology and English language teaching. The ESU President’s Award builds on the success of the widely respected Duke of Edinburgh English Language Book Award which recognises the book published in the previous year that has contributed most to the understanding of the English language.
The ceremonie will be on November 12 at Buckingham Palace. Hence, congratulations to you guys. Well done and much deserved, indeed!
For a long time I did not cover all the new partnerships that were made in the education 2.0 sector. One reason for this is the huge amount of new companies which enter the game.
Really exciting times but nevertheless lets have a look at the “grown up” rebels. You will see that there is lots going on, too. Especially building alliances with the established top dogs in education.
On Wednesday I was kindly invited by Clint Schmidt, VP of Marketing and Product to have a first private sneak peak preview of the new Pearson powered Livemocha Active English course.
Livemocha and Pearson announced a partnership back in March 2009 to build an online English course based on Pearson content. The release was previewed for August but as always in the IT industry, you have to add some extra months 
.
So, first of all, thank you Clint for giving me this opportunity and now let me share my experience with you Continue reading
The second ETCon will be on August 27 at 3PM CEST. We scheduled it this time towards our attendees and panel members in India and Asia.
As last time the E-Teachers Conference will have a first class line up of panel members. This time our panelists are:
Shirley Yiong, Marketing Manager of Livemocha
Jason West, Founder of Languages Out There
Bernhard Niesner, Co-Founder of busuu
Kevin Chen, Co-Founder of italki
Harman Singh, Founder of WiZiQ
The panel will present their own point of view about the topic Communities and the Power of Crowdsourcing. The presentations will then be followed by a moderated discussion and a Q&A session with the audience.
You can ask your questions on the ETCon directly to the panel by using the classroom chat or using Twitter and the #ETCon hashtag. If you cannot attend on the thursday but want to ask a question you can also post them in the ETCon blog at http://etcon.eteachersacademy.com
The ETCon is a free event and everybody interested in elearning is welcome to join. Just subscribe for a free ticket.
The second ETCon is hosted by WiZiQ.
Follow the ETCon on Twitter @ETConference or join out twub at http://twubs.com/etcon
As a kid back in the nineties I loved to watch Wrestling on TV. Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, Bret Michaels, The Heartbreak Kid, you name them. One of the events I loved the most was the Royal Rumble where every two minutes another Wrestler entered the ring. The rule was simple: the last one in the ring won the match and you had to get all the others out of the ring above the top row. But their two feet had to touch the ground to be out of the match.
At some moments of the fight there were up to 20 Top Wrestlers in the match, building alliances that broke the next minute and so on. You see, the WWF taught me a lot about business 
.
Now what has this to do with online education? Well, you can say that in the Royal Rumble of language learning communities we are now at the point where the World Champion entered the Ring. In this case Rosetta Stone with their new product TOTALe.
Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning.
This is the title of a report published by the U.S. Department of Education. I think it is a must read for online education companies although it was made for K-12 education in the U.S. because it clearly shows why language learning communities like Livemocha, Busuu or Babbel are so popular and seem to satisfy the needs of their members.
This week Livemocha.com reached the astonishing mark of 3.000.000 members, adding the last 1.000.000 in less than 5 month!
They also added 12 additional languages and are now offering courses in 22 languages. What makes this platform so successful?
The Berlin based Babbel.com just launched its first Premium Course about a week ago. It is called “Spanisch – der leichte Einstieg (Spanish – the easy Start)” and based on the course “Spanisch ganz einfach in 20 Tagen” from Christof Kehr published by Hueber.
In one of my last blog posts I wrote about the partnership announcement of Livemocha.com and Pearson.com.
One day later I came across the announcement of FriendsAbroad.com that they are now a part of the language learning platform Babbel.com.
Then LanguagesOutThere.com, a content provider for ESL material, announced a partnership with italki.com.
And finally this morning I saw the following tweet of Jon Bischke, CEO of eduFire.com:
Ok, this tweet might just be a joke, it probably is but still I think there is some kind of a trend towards teaming up between different companies in the education sector which can complement each other. Or is it to beef up for a weak economy in 2009 and to show some muscles to the competitors?
Livemocha.com and Pearson.com join forces to co-develop a number of conversational English language courses which will be accessible on Livemocha’s online platform in August 2009.
This partnership will further transform the language learning marketplace, empowering and engaging anyone across the globe who wants to learn English.
Shirish Nadkarni, CEO of Livemocha
Yesterday Livemocha announced via Twitter that they cracked the 2.000.000 members barrier. If I am right this is only six month after they had 1.000.000 members. Quite an impressive growth rate!
Today Livemocha announced some improvements they have implemented now and some great features for the near future.
Livemocha.com is one of the social language learning websites on the internet. They were one of the first platforms that followed the approach of language exchange with a part where you study on your own with vocabulary drills and and repetitive exercises and a part in which both oral and written exercises are corrected by your Livemocha friends.
Up to now, Livemocha.com has been a totally free website. They did not even had much advertising on their site, just in the chat. So it was obvious, that they planed a paid content part. And I don’t think that it will stop here. Continue reading
One of my subscribers of my YouTube Channel asked my the following question.
Hi,
Could you recommend to me the best way to memorising and learning German vocabulary? Because of my lack of vocabulary I am afraid to speak German. I would be very appreciative if you could tell me how I can learn vocabulary and retain it in my memory. Would this be the same with German verbs?
Many thanks!
