English online with LinguaLeo.ru: born in the jungles of Thailand!
At the end of August 2009, we made the final decision on the location of the development of the web service: Koh Chang Island, Thailand. The team was assembled in 1.5 months from different parts of our vast Motherland: Moscow, Kirov, Perm. The only goal of the trip to this wonderful country was set: by joint efforts to create the most convenient and popular online service for learning and practicing foreign languages.
The startup team included five people: two PHP developers, a usability designer, a young and talented marketing specialist, and the founder of the project. On October 17, 2009, the entire team had already arrived on the island with a firm intention to implement the project.
We found ourselves in exceptional conditions: the sea, the sun, +35 degrees of heat, all the affairs and concerns of the usual urban life were left far behind.
')
In the living room of a large Thai house at the foot of the jungle of Koh Chang Island, a full-fledged office was equipped for team work: a large white board, a flip chart, cork boards for stickers were hung, an internet connection, coffee maker, lots of coffee, markers, chairs and tables were hung. Then life was adjusted: we bought dishes, rented motorbikes for freedom of movement, agreed with suppliers of drinking water and established contacts with local vendors of fresh vegetables and fruits.
After that, we spent more than two weeks in a series of brainstorming, which resulted in the creation of a conceptual model of a web service for learning foreign languages ​​(this is probably a topic for a separate post that we will post if you are interested in the details).
The vision of Ainur, the founder of the project, was based on a three-year “preparation” for the project, an analysis of the needs of language learners, language schools, a thorough study of the market and its global players. Among them: LiveMocha, RosettaStone, Busuu and others. Two years of work on the development of the offline project "Native Speakers Club" gave a deep understanding of the true needs of foreign language learners. Success stories of people who have successfully mastered a foreign language made it clear that it is equally interesting and effective to master a living language, listen to the speech of native speakers, communicate in the language being studied.
People are tired of dry tutorials! They want to watch foreign films, follow the world's best media, read fiction in the original in a foreign language, listen to music and do it here and now, choosing what they like. YouTube, Vimeo, DotSub, LibriVox, and, finally, Google provide an excellent opportunity to find interesting content in, say, English. However, there is one “but”: all these web services are great only for those who are fluent in English. Their use does not provide enough opportunity to learn the language.
First, it is almost impossible to find decent mastering content without knowing the language at least at the intermediate level. Secondly, these resources will show a lot of links, among which it is difficult to choose the appropriate material on the format and subject because of the abundance of random and "junk" offers. There is a so-called effect of infoxification . Thirdly, without additional tools, such as, say, a convenient contextual dictionary, translator and user-friendly interface, it will be difficult to choose what you need. Fourth, on the Internet there is still little structured multimedia content in the format of "video with text" and "audio with text." And finally, fifth, these sources are not designed for the specific needs of foreign language learners. That is why it was decided to create a special product in which there is an opportunity to implement an interesting and effective approach to learning languages ​​through the Internet.
It took 4 long, but at the same time, short months of team development in Thailand. And on March 1, 2010, a beta version of the LinguaLeo.ru web service was launched. Now the LinguaLeo.ru service is actively developing, among other things , after a few days, voicing of words and phrases will appear, in the near future the project will begin to be monetized according to the freemium model. And we are still on the island of Koh Chang and continue to work! This is the story of our beginning!
In this blog, we will talk about the development of the project, answer questions and discuss the prospects for its development.
Try what you have now , express your ideas, wishes and comments!
The startup team included five people: two PHP developers, a usability designer, a young and talented marketing specialist, and the founder of the project. On October 17, 2009, the entire team had already arrived on the island with a firm intention to implement the project.
We found ourselves in exceptional conditions: the sea, the sun, +35 degrees of heat, all the affairs and concerns of the usual urban life were left far behind.
')
In the living room of a large Thai house at the foot of the jungle of Koh Chang Island, a full-fledged office was equipped for team work: a large white board, a flip chart, cork boards for stickers were hung, an internet connection, coffee maker, lots of coffee, markers, chairs and tables were hung. Then life was adjusted: we bought dishes, rented motorbikes for freedom of movement, agreed with suppliers of drinking water and established contacts with local vendors of fresh vegetables and fruits.
After that, we spent more than two weeks in a series of brainstorming, which resulted in the creation of a conceptual model of a web service for learning foreign languages ​​(this is probably a topic for a separate post that we will post if you are interested in the details).
The vision of Ainur, the founder of the project, was based on a three-year “preparation” for the project, an analysis of the needs of language learners, language schools, a thorough study of the market and its global players. Among them: LiveMocha, RosettaStone, Busuu and others. Two years of work on the development of the offline project "Native Speakers Club" gave a deep understanding of the true needs of foreign language learners. Success stories of people who have successfully mastered a foreign language made it clear that it is equally interesting and effective to master a living language, listen to the speech of native speakers, communicate in the language being studied.
People are tired of dry tutorials! They want to watch foreign films, follow the world's best media, read fiction in the original in a foreign language, listen to music and do it here and now, choosing what they like. YouTube, Vimeo, DotSub, LibriVox, and, finally, Google provide an excellent opportunity to find interesting content in, say, English. However, there is one “but”: all these web services are great only for those who are fluent in English. Their use does not provide enough opportunity to learn the language.
First, it is almost impossible to find decent mastering content without knowing the language at least at the intermediate level. Secondly, these resources will show a lot of links, among which it is difficult to choose the appropriate material on the format and subject because of the abundance of random and "junk" offers. There is a so-called effect of infoxification . Thirdly, without additional tools, such as, say, a convenient contextual dictionary, translator and user-friendly interface, it will be difficult to choose what you need. Fourth, on the Internet there is still little structured multimedia content in the format of "video with text" and "audio with text." And finally, fifth, these sources are not designed for the specific needs of foreign language learners. That is why it was decided to create a special product in which there is an opportunity to implement an interesting and effective approach to learning languages ​​through the Internet.
It took 4 long, but at the same time, short months of team development in Thailand. And on March 1, 2010, a beta version of the LinguaLeo.ru web service was launched. Now the LinguaLeo.ru service is actively developing, among other things , after a few days, voicing of words and phrases will appear, in the near future the project will begin to be monetized according to the freemium model. And we are still on the island of Koh Chang and continue to work! This is the story of our beginning!
In this blog, we will talk about the development of the project, answer questions and discuss the prospects for its development.
Try what you have now , express your ideas, wishes and comments!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/89288/
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