As you say, the ELT market is fragmented and so will be the whole online education market. I think extremly focused services will do better over the long term compared to multipurpose platforms.

There is already somekind of a trend in new start ups into this direction. Like language exchange only between two languages instead of 26 or more.

The problem with general sites is when they grow bigger, what is of course their aim, they get “messy” and people often don't find what they are looking for. Adding one feature after the other does not help either, of course.

As I said, a feature like I am online, Ready to teach or whatever can be successful when it is implemented correctly, when it is part of an overall strategy as you said.

But in the end the students will decide. So let's see how long this feature will stay

It is important to remember that a lot of business on the Internet are trying to make use of the “long tail phenomenon”. In other words, small numbers that don't register locally but do add up in terms of a global audience.

But to me the bigger question is one of strategy. How does an addition of the “right now” feature help you build the business? Is it an option that fits with your business model and what you are trying to do educationally, marketing, and personnel wise? This is really hard for an outsider to say.

I could build a great case internally for such an option if for example it only took me 20 hours to program this feature but it brought in 2,000 Euros in income a year. It would be even easier if I thought that 10% of the students who took an “immediate” class would go on to take other classes. There is a lot of bang for the buck in these numbers.

The key here is that we don't know what the internal R.O.I is on these features. In part this is due to the cost of programming, marketing and management which differs from company A to company B.

There is however one cost which many companies forget to calculate when adding new features. It is the “market share in the mind” cost. New companies generally cannot be known for a great deal in the customers mind. The more you try to be known for the harder it is to get the brand “fixed” in a consumer's mind. In this case, offering too much leads to brand confusion and confusion means that your company isn't on the minds, the tongues, and the thoughts of potential customers.

So, from this perspective the question we must ask of any feature is, “how does it contribute to helping your company tell a story, especially in the EXTREMELY fragmented ELT market place?'

I think you and I will agree, this feature does little to help Myngle tell her story in the marketplace. And because it takes up valuable place on the front page that could better be used to help move forward their story I'm of the opinion that while this feature probably represents a small tactical gain, it can be seen as a strategic loss if measured from how this feature doesn't seem to help move the story forward.

I'm of the opinion that new features should fit with the storyline of the company. I'm not sure this feature, although it could be a money maker, fits.

Why did EDUFIRE eliminate this feature? probably because it didn't add to their story or the space it took in the customer's mind (teacher and student) to add this feature could be used in better ways.