Livemocha reaches one million members!

Livemocha, the world‘ s largest online language learning community, announced today that its community has reached 1 million members from around the world in its first year of existence.

They also won an award

"NWSource posted its list of winners for “Favorite Northwest Employers” (generally the Seattle area). Livemocha was selected as the winner in the “favorite startup” category!"

 Has anyone used Livemocha? Can anyone give us a comment about it here?

Comments

[Vincent]

Hi Steve,

I have used Livemocha before. I have discovered LingQ when I saw your YouTube video about LiveMocha. I don't think the study tools are useful...especially when you are learning a new language from scratch. I don't use that website anymore, but I got to know a lot of 'virtual' friend around the world. Some of them helped me with my English.
Maybe the best part of the website is that when you submit writing/speaking exercise, everyone can correct it and let you know your mistakes.
I don't recommend the website. Everyone should use LingQ instead!

Vincent.

[skyblueteapot]

Well, from a cursory inspection it doesn't look nearly as as powerful as LingQ to me, but thanks to their use of a lot of photos and the quick online test to assess your language proficiency, it does hook you without you needing to read very much or think very hard. I had to think for a while about the Link home page before I realised what it was actually offering. (I probably had a small child shouting at me at the time!)

I would be interested to know what marketing Livemocha used to get all those customers in the first year. Also how many are currently active.

[skyblueteapot]

More thoughts on marketing....

If you can take a minute from your startlingly busy schedule, Steve, I suggest you have a look at the way Bookcrossing markets itself. It's a very simple proposition, you give your books away and you track their meanderings around the world. It's free, as a member you don't get much out of it, mostly just hanging out in cyberspace with like-minded booklovers. But the marketing is canny! Great logos, bookplates, little stickers, coffee mugs, all sorts. Also the home page is really concise and jolly! As a member if you do certain activities you get cute little animated pictures on-screen next to your name. I could never entirely see what I was supposed to get from giving my books away, but I saw the point of all the ducky merchandise that announced that I hung out with cuddly people.

In summary, then....

I WANT A LINGQ T-SHIRT AND A LINGQ HOODIE AND A LINGQ PEN AND I WANT A LINGQ PENCIL AND I WANT A LINGQ CD-CASE AND I WANT A LINGQ TEA-MUG AND MULTILINGUAL LINGQ BOOKPLATES WITH NICE PICTURES.

Ahem...

And I want a photo gallery on lingQ where we can exhibit silly photos and our doodles and our kids' pictures. You never know, some of them might make good designs for bookplates. After all, I think bookcrossing's graphic designs were contributed by members.

I hope you are taking pictures of you hanging out with LingQers, they would look good in a LingQ photo gallery!

[skyblueteapot]

the URL for bookcrossing is: http://www.bookcrossing.com/

[Behlül]

i took the advice from a friend and registered at livemocha.com but i didn't find the site quite useful. so i am not using that site anymore. similar to polyglot-learn-language.com (which also doesn't have a decent chat) most of the members are not active.. lately i have found the site sharedtalk.com where at least hundreds of people chatting every hour of the day. so in my opinion currently it offers the best live chat experience for foreign language practising..

[Steve]

Helen,

Thanks for the ideas. I will follow up. In the meantime you can buy a T shirt with "I am learning Russian at LingQ" and my Russian icon on the back.

[skyblueteapot]

What? A Russian T-shirt with you doing a Cossack dance? I want one!

Please could you send me the link because I haven't seen that one in the store.

[Radek]

I've used lievemocha, just to see how it is (because of your Podcast Steve:)). I dabbled in Spanish a little bit to get me started because I dont know any Spanish. But there was no content for offline use, I couldnt download the audio. So I left, after maybe one hour.
But what they do right is that you have lessons for beginners and you can see your "progress" and, at least it was true for me, you want to complete every lesson you've opened.

[Dan]

Is it one million active users, or one million people who registered? There's a big difference. Sort of like Webmail. People sign up for a Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail account, then stop using it and they don't cancel the account.

You have to hand it to LiveMocha. They've marketed the heck out of the service and have received some good press.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Helen,

I will ask Mark about the T shirt since he gave it to me for my birthday.

Dan

Yes Livemocha has done a lot of marketing. We have to do the same but without the money.

Radek

Why not try Spanish at LingQ from scratch. Just listen and read and save words and review. You have "Who is she" and other beginner content in various languages to help you get started.

At LingQ you measure your progress yourself in terms of words learned and then eventually you increased ability to understand. I do not think explicit instruction, structured lessons and exercises etc. are necessary. To understand why please read the book that I just finished here in Germany. "Lernen" by Manfred Spitzer. The brain does not need instruction in rules, the brain will develop its own rules with the right input, but it does take time. There is no "instant learning", Spanish in three weeks etc.

By the way, my route has taken me to Heide, where I am now and today I will travel to Berlin. I will not have the chance to visit with you in Hannover. Maybe next time.

[Radek]

Hello again,
I didnt intend to study Spanish on livemocha seriously. Sort of wanted to see what the site was all about. That's all. I did some Spanish on LingQ already but not much. I think I'll start learning Spanish seriously late 2009 or 2010 even, on LingQ, of course. :) English is too much fun for me right now. Reading books, news, listening to audiobooks and enjoying podcast!
And, yes, I dont believe in the "learn Spanish in three weeks" too.
Ok then, mayby next time. Enjoy your stay in Berlin. Meanwhile I'm going to bring my English to perfection! (haha of course kiding here)

[Victoria]

I've been using LiveMocha for about six months, on and off. Their material is very accessible, and I love the way you can submit content and have it reviewed by fellow students who are native speakers in your target language. It does for "assignments" what Lang8 does for blogging. And LiveMocha tools get you using every language skill (not just reading/writing) which is good.

I've not used the flashcards much, but I tend to add the content to my own SRS.

Lots of people have commented here about Lingq being better than LiveMocha. I think it depends on how you learn and what you're looking for. The podcasts on Lingq are really good, but I found the Lingq interface a bit disjointed and have probably spent more time on LiveMocha. Perhaps this will change when the redesign is put live.

Last but not least, it seems a bit bitter for some of the commenters to be trying to tear down LiveMocha's success with "oh, they're not really *active* users" and similar comments. It takes much more to create something than it does to tear it down. Perhaps they should concentrate on saying something when they have something constructive to say.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Victoria,
Thanks for giving us a positive vote for Live Mocha. Other than having members correct each other, and I think there is a language exchange t here too, I do not understand what their learning model is. The courses in different languages all seem to cover the same grammar points. Aside from the fact that I am not in favour of building language learning around grammar rules, I am surprised that in each language the same points of grammar are covered when in fact languages vary quite a bit in terms of usage.

At LingQ we stress the primacy of input: listening, reading and systematic vocabulary accumulation, while offering writing and speaking and tutor interaction. We are also building a community, but we do it differently than Live Mocha.

Finally, I see nothing wrong with people questioning how active the "one million members" at Live Mocha are. People do not have to be able to produce a product to be a judge of the product or its advertizing campaign. No one is obligated to say something about Live Mocha nor about LingQ. They can still express their views. I really do not understand where you are coming from on that one.

[Lily]

I joined LiveMocha before I joined Lingq. I liked the community aspect of it and the idea of community members being able to review work done and comment however when I found Lingq I just stopped using LiveMocha as I prefer it here :-)
I may use LiveMocha at some point in the future but I do feel that Lingq has a lot more to offer and suits my learning style. Roll on Lingq having a million members I say :-)

[Olga]

I read this discussion and became really surprised.

It gave me the impression that people who blamed Livemocha didn't ever tried their interactive courses.

And, in fact, Livemocha's courses are great: there is no need to read boring texts and look up words in the dictionary. There are lessons which focus on a specific topic and provide a great opportunity to learn topic-based groups of words. Lessons combine different types of material, including written, visual (pictures) and sounds. All in all they give you the easy way to learn words, without dull repetition or dictionaries!

I think there are some advantages in LingQ method but it is surely not the first website I will recommend.