The Blog

Jan found a great event for Learn10 today: a competition for the best European Web 2.0 startup. We need to produce a video about Learn10 to submit before the end of tomorrow, and get everyone to vote for us as well. So… my mission for tomorrow is to produce the video. I’m glad I’ve been practising that over the last couple of days.

You can vote for us on Facebook… because we’ve worked really hard on this!

Oddcast may be on MTV, but don’t you just think that our application rocks harder than that? We’ve made the Oddcast speaking avatar into the perfect teacher - one that’ll repeat a word a hundred times if you ask it to. Try getting a human to do that.

And when you’ve listened enough, you can use our MyVox voice recorder mashup (with Skype) to record your words so you can hear your own pronunciation, and even ask for feedback from native speakers.

Our new release of learn10 allows language learners to record their word lists every day. This functionality is provided with a mashup of the MyVox application - which turns every phone into a microphone - and is ad supported so totally free for our users - who just have to pay the price of the phonecall.

Why would you want to record your words? Four reasons - to remember, to correct, to revise and to share.

Firstly - saying the words aloud will help you remember them. The more different ways your brain handles new vocabulary - the more connections will be made. Your brain will prioritise things on the basis of how important they appear. If you learn words, hear them, speak them, write them in a phrase & share them with other users - you have a much higher chance of remembering them because you’ll be tapping into a range of different learning styles.

Secondly - you will be able to get feedback from other people - including native speakers - about your pronunciation. This is particularly important with tricky sounds - such as Ř in Czech.

Thirdly - the recordings are there for you to use as long as you are registered with us - you can go back and review your words whenever you want to. You’ll also be able to hear for yourself the progress you’re making over time.

And fourthly, you can share. You can help other users by rating their pronunciation and you can even record words in your own native language to help other learners.

So we are delighted to integrate the MyVox application into learn10, and can’t wait to hear what you do with it. Once you’re signed in to the learn10 widget, just click on the ’speak’ tab on the right hand side.

Right now we have a US phone number on the widget, as that’s where most of our users live, but soon we hope to add a UK land line number as well as a Skype account so that people across the globe can add their native sounds.

Just spotted an interesting article on TechCrunch - widgets: the marketer’s recession survival tool. But I wonder, is the USA really geared up for a global market?

Our recent experience would suggest not. Some of the biggest multi channel advertising agencies have told me flatly ‘We are not yet selling in-widget ads in Europe’ - despite most of our registered users being English speakers - and based in the USA.

We need to get a good, literally creative, advertising agency on board the learnit widget before we start to publicise the new release. We have some great potential positions - such as the (now blue) screen behind the speaking avatar, as well as a host of sponsorship opportunities (such as offering users free sound on a sponsored speaking avatar). And a potential market of 750 million people. We shall see.

We released version one of learn10 within two weeks of thinking up the idea. Reactions to it were both extensive and immediate (via our Polldaddy daily research questions); our users told us we needed to add grammar, pronunciation and a test function. Our next release is now here.

It’s taken us two months to program version two of learn10, incorporating the features most often requested by users. So alongside our own programming, we have also incorporated an Oddcast speaking avatar to give pronunciation help, as well as a MyVox word recording function - this means that you can keep a record of the words you have learnt & get feedback from native speakers about your pronunciation.

We will not publicise the new learn10 until we’ve had some feedback from existing users.You are very welcome to join our private beta test running via the learnit list google group. Just register on learn10 & tell us what you think.

P.S. If you’re planning on attending the TechCrunch meet-up in Prague, use it to learn some Czech!

.

.

.

Above is the presentation that we’re using as the basis of the step by step instructions for first time visitors to learn10. I am now in the process of using the presentation as a script for the screen capture video which will be posted on youtube.com/learnitwidget very shortly. Of course you can simply register and play with the widget without instructions, but if you’d like to see instructions, these will be available soon.

(ps this is the bootstrapped - ie no budget - production. We hope soon to have a professional do this for us.)

Since the end of January, our lives have been turned upside down. We have been working all the hours humanly possible in order to make Learn10 real. I believe this is typical with Web 2.0 startups.

Our initial release, which went live less than two weeks after we thought up with the idea, has been an invaluable tool for judging responses to the Learn10 concept, and remains on the site in close to it’s original form. We were able to ask learners questions about what they wanted, and gather data about these learners, which then informed the next stage of the development. The project has now outgrown our own capabilities. In order to pursue and monetise the many opportunities we are presented with, we need additional skills and resources. We have two options:

a) Go back to our day jobs & wait (until money flows in from the existing product which we can then invest in business development)

or b) Part with a share of our business in return for the expertise and financial backing of a business angel.

What kind of experts do we need on our team?

• Experience of taking a product to IPO
• People management - experience of recruiting a fast growing team
• Global customer base experience -(for example taking payments from consumers in many different countries - B2C sector)
• Working with geographically dispersed teams

If you’re an investor with these qualities we’d love to hear from you.

We are working hard in response the the market research responses & comments from users of Learn10. As a result, we will soon have the next version of Learn10 - which will include most of the features requested by learners.

If you would like to be part of the private beta test of the brand new version of Learn10, please send an email titled ‘volunteer’ to info at learn10 dot com. We are seeking people who are beginning to learn a new language (or wanting to freshen up their existing knowledge) to give us feedback to fine tune the widget before the main release.

We can’t wait to show you!