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Ecosystem: more participants - more profit! Why does Skyeng open API

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In our texts, we occasionally mention a certain “Skyeng ecosystem”. It is time to understand what we mean by this term. In this article we will explain what an ecosystem is and why its creators are interested in earning as many third-party developers as possible from it. And, of course, we will show you where to find the open methods of our API, so that you can now begin to attach our dictionary to your application. And there will be more competition!

What do we mean by ecosystem?


An ecosystem is a system of interconnections between individual products and services that adds value to them. The more products, the more added value; at some point, connections begin to carry more benefits than all ecosystem participants add up.

Take, for example, car and smartphone. Each of them is a good product of its class, giving the user a certain list of possibilities (use cases). If the value of each item is estimated as a “unit of happiness”, then in the sum the total value of the car and the phone for their owner will be equal to two such units.

Now imagine that there is some kind of additional connection between the phone and the car (synergy). Those. There are some new use cases that did not exist before and are impossible without this synergy. For example, we can find a car in the parking lot, start it in advance from the application in the winter, check the gasoline level, the phone will remind us of the upcoming MOT before the terrible check engine light comes on, etc. These additional features increase the amount of value of the car and phone from the base two to two and a half "units of happiness." It is not surprising that car companies are actively cooperating with Google and Apple.
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Speaking of the ecosystem, it is important not to go from the whole to the particulars - to the specific products and services offered, or you may not see the forests behind the trees. Let's talk not about specific services, but about some "spherical products in a vacuum."

Imagine that we have ten of some conditional individual (standalone) products. Suppose that they all have the same value, which we take as 1. Thus, the total value of our product package is 10. If tomorrow we release another product with the same value, then the total value for the customer will be equal to 11.

Now imagine that we have found a way to connect these products - like an example about a car and a telephone. Let their bundle give a new value (new functionality, impossible in standalone mode) of 0.5 points. Let us assume that all ten products can be linked with each other by receiving 45 bundles. Thus, having organized communications (ecosystem), we have more than tripled the value of our offer (32.5 instead of 10), although the value of the products themselves, if we take them separately, remains the same.

Now, by adding the 11th product, which also has links with the entire existing ecosystem, we increase its value not by 1, but by 6 (product + 10 bundles).

At this stage, the value of connections becomes more important for us than the value of the product itself. Strictly speaking, the 11th product may not have any value at all, but have connections. He will still bring 5 points of value to the ecosystem. Moreover, this new product may even have a negative value (glitches, alpha version, something else), but if there are valuable links, its release will not only be justified, but necessary.

For example, in the present situation we may have a choice: to release the 11th curve, a buggy and crazy product with negative value (-1), but a complete set of connections, or a beautiful, magical, unique product with double value (2), but does not fit into the ecosystem. In the first case, we get a value twice as large (4) as in the second.

Of course, negative value examples are extreme; we ourselves would not dare to conduct such an experiment in life. But normal products, "middling", having analogues on the market and risking to go unnoticed in standalone-mode, begin to play with new colors in the ecosystem.

We have a browser extension for translating texts . In itself, it is far from the only thing in the world, and, probably, not even the best. But it has a unique advantage - it is tied to our dictionary, where there is a detailed card for each word, and the word itself can be added to your list for memorization in a mobile application. So the educational value of expansion grows noticeably. Vimbox Subtitles - a service that allows you to watch movies and TV shows with the English track and English subtitles; when you hover over a word, its translation appears. For the pleasure of viewing - not the perfect solution: we could greatly enhance its value, just pumping up full-fledged Russian subtitles, and translating not words, but immediately phrases. We sacrifice this value to enable the student to close their vocabulary spaces with our other products.

Now our ecosystem includes:

- The Vimbox platform containing the elements:
· A virtual classroom where classes are held with a teacher;
· Service "Homework", which is a separate application platform;
· Tool "Essay" ;
· test papers;
· Speech recording for learning pronunciation;
- Mobile applications, in particular:
· Words, a tool for learning English words;
· Listening, an app for listening;
· Aword - words analog for external users;
- Browser extensions mentioned above:
· Vimbox Translator ;
· Vimbox Subtitle.

More products, good and different


The more participants in the ecosystem, the higher its value. We ourselves can not just realize all our ideas, we could hardly even think of everything that can be screwed to our ecosystem.

Therefore, we decided to give third-party developers, that is, you, access to our API so that you can make your products and services and integrate them into our ecosystem.

Now we open for you access to our pride - the English vocabulary developed in Skyeng. Currently, it contains 230 thousand word meanings with transcription, translation, voice acting and definition in English, a picture, examples of usage and a bunch of additional information, up to their identifiers in our database.



In addition to the dictionary, we also provide access to lists of words that our students took to study so that they can learn these words not only in our Words app, but also in your products and services.

Skyeng gives all these accesses absolutely free without any restrictions. You can use Skyeng API in your websites, mobile applications, chat bots, games and any other services for learning English, including paid ones.

What can be done on our API? Here are examples of what occurred to us and has not yet been implemented by anyone:

· An application that generates crossword puzzles with the words taken for study;
· A game in which you need to translate words defined by the opponent;
· A site on which texts are selected for reading, in which there are studied words.

And the dictionary can be screwed to a game that does not have the budget for a full translation. Or to the reader of electronic books. You probably have a lot of ideas for a new startup, please share them in the comments! And those who are ready to do the implementation - do not delay and get down to business.

Technical documentation on Skyeng API is available at the links:


At the moment we have opened three four methods for five methods:


All methods are available without complicated authorization mechanisms and you can start using them right now.



We are ready to help you in every way - to talk about the API and advise on teaching methods and product issues. We will advise all of your best developments to our students and put them on the showcase in Vimbox along with our own. In fact, Skyeng provides you with a place in your ecosystem and a platform for growth.

According to data for May 2017, the users of the Words application added an average of 186 thousand words per day to study and 21 thousand trainings, and the share of active users of the application among the 10.3 thousand active students of the Skyeng school was 33%. The number of school students is growing 3 times every year. Therefore, you will immediately have a targeted paying audience out of the box — tens of thousands of Skyeng clients who are learning English — mostly top managers from large cities in Russia and the CIS.

Thus, we want you not only to release prototypes of products and services, but to earn them and develop them further.

And finally, the promised competition. We plan to award authors of the best developments with valuable prizes! The prize fund will be 200 thousand rubles, we will determine the winners ourselves, focusing on the utility of the solution for students of the school and on the integration into our ecosystem. In addition, we will write about interesting applications on Habré. To take part in the competition of development and get advice you need to fill out an application .

Upd .: Competition terms are published.

Upd. 2: In separate articles you can read about the first participants of the competition and about the results of the competition .

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/330456/

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