Comments on: Babbel dumps freemium for language learning: “it just doesn’t work”

By: casa

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nice blog I would like to keep reading it.

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By: backwoods boy

backwoods boy — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:34:42 +0000

well, http://speak.econtrader.com offers 10 languages (well count it as 9 if you dont include english) its interactive too with some audio dictionaries on some of the languages. Its free right now i dont know if they are going to charge too but seems like they are up into something else like stocks as their primary thing or something like that kind.

By: XIHA Life partners with Blue Teach to offer social learning marketplace

XIHA Life partners with Blue Teach to offer social learning marketplace — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:29:46 +0000

[...] as Amsterdam-based Myngle or traditional language learning sites like German startup Babbel, which recently ditched its freemium model for a purely paid-for affair. CrunchBase Information XIHA Information provided by CrunchBase [...]

By: Oliver Antosch

Oliver Antosch — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:15:47 +0000

Hey Peter, if you want saved vocab lists try my site.

As for Babbel going paid, I think they will be fine and it will be good for the whole industry.

Language sites are not like search engines where “free” works. On Google people are looking for a solution, so they are open for ads. On language sites they already have found what they were looking for, so ads are more or less ignored.

By: Steve Kaufmann

Steve Kaufmann — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:48:40 +0000

Hans-Peter,

I just posted about your excellent Chinese learning site on my blog.
http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and/2009/11/a-wonderful-source-of-chinese-learning-help.html
Congratulations on what yoy have put together.

By: Hans-Peter

Hans-Peter — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:53:33 +0000

Babbel is courageous. There is so many free learning stuff in the internet, so their new concept may not work. Maybe only for some people who want just learn without a lot of internet searching…
Just have a look at Google web applications – they are free and successful. Have a look at the German news market like WELT, SPIEGEL, FOCUS. The newspaper market is declining, and nobody wants to pay for news on the internet.
So why should one pay for language learning content?
I just setup an Babbel account and did the one, free lesson. My conclusion: the lesson was far too easy (is there some level test?), and I was not able to save the learned vocabulary (no copy/past possible). Sorry, but the test did not convince me to become a paying Babbel member.

By: Russell Moench

Russell Moench — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:59:13 +0000

Roshan Shrestha,

Smart.fm offers a huge amount of content for learning Chinese and Japanese, and it’s all free.

Here’s the top 2,000 words in Japanese:
http://smart.fm/series/3318

And here’s the top 2,700 Chinese characters:
http://smart.fm/series/3334

Whatever the business model, we wish Babbel (both the staff and users) all the luck!

By: Language Solution » Blog Archive » An interesting discussion of the economics of online language learning

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:33:57 +0000

[...] out the comments on this article from European Tech Crucnh about Babbel’s decision to cut out the [...]

By: Steve Kaufmann

Steve Kaufmann — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:30:05 +0000

“cost less than the classroom” I meant.

By: Steve Kaufmann

Steve Kaufmann — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:29:18 +0000

From LingQ’s perspective all people developing online learning are colleagues. We need to persuade the multitudes that our offerings are worth a lot, even if they cost than classrooms. We need to persuade learners and the public funders of language learning.

By the way, here is a promo video for LingQ.com, one of two that we are looking at.

http://www.youtube.com/group/LingQplaza#p/a/6/HSt_jxLfDBI

Steve

By: Shiv

Shiv — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:29:22 +0000

I don’t blame them, with only 500k registered users you can’t make much money from freemium. If their service is good, people will pay for it.

By: Steve Kaufmann

Steve Kaufmann — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:58:45 +0000

Free is the poor man’s promotion program. As the person behind LingQ.com, I sympathize with Babbel and wish them well. I congratulate them on their funding. Maybe that helps them cut out the free. We do not have that option.

Furthermore, our learning methodology at LingQ is quite different from that of Babbel. We do not have pictures, drills, and we downplay the role of spaced repetition systems for vocabulary. We emphasize learning from interesting content, most of which we receive free of charge from our members or from other sources on the web. So we cannot eliminate the free, although we will be differentiating free member benefits from paying member benefits more in the future.

Steve Kaufmann

By: Flow » Blog Archive » Daily Digest for November 10th - The zeitgeist daily

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:22:50 +0000

[...] Shared Babbel dumps freemium for language learning: “it just doesn’t work”. [...]

By: Roshan Shrestha

Roshan Shrestha — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:12:16 +0000

Unless I am mistaken, they do not offer any Asian languages like Mandarin and Japanese, only some European languages.

If they are to target business users, they need to offer Mandarin and Japanese. I would not mind paying to learn Mandarin.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:46:10 +0000

I agree – Rosetta Stone Totale works out to over $100/month. Granted it does include online tutoring sessions – but even if you value those at $50, they are still not even in the same ballpark. I understand undercutting the established and proven competitor, but if they think their product works, it’s worth more than what they are planning on charging.

By: There is no free lunch - Babbel goes Premium | Kirsten Winkler

There is no free lunch - Babbel goes Premium | Kirsten Winkler — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:57:22 +0000

[...] this decision that will of course heat up some discussions between the free users of the platform. First reactions of other companies like VidSchool and busuu on TechCrunch Europe blog are not what one would call [...]

By: Premium! LOL

Premium! LOL — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:37:08 +0000

Poor babel their tower is going to fall (or Fail?)

Make space in the deadpool.

By: Frederic Bruneteau

Frederic Bruneteau — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:18:58 +0000

I think the conclusion is that the free model is just a cheap way to make advertising.

It’s not a way to generate ad revenues unless you’re Google.

By: Egbert

Egbert — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:09:14 +0000

Congratulations from the Myngle team to Markus and his team and kudos for Babbel’s work in the industry of online language learning.

Let us all do our utmost to rapidly grow this promising industry.

Egbert
Co-founder Myngle.com

By: Schluss mit gratis: Lernportal babbel wird kostenpflichtig » Nutzer, Viele, Verfügung, Werbung, Plattformen, Dabei » netzmelder

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:55:13 +0000

[...] via TechCrunch [...]

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:44:44 +0000

What about vertical integration ?

As an independent online service, I can see way they are having a hard time making the freemium work. It also seems like they would have a hard time with the premium only version.

Why not join forces with one of the big international language learning brands ? This could push the attention from free online tools into conversion towards physical language training.

In this way it be easier to tap into those really willing to pay. The serious language learners and the businesses clients.

By: Bernhard

Bernhard — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:42:38 +0000

Indeed an interesting move. We from http://www.busuu.com (currently second biggest player in Europe after babbel) are obviously more than happy to welcome those users who still want to enjoy free online language learning.

Our strategy has always been (and will be) based on a freemium model. But obviously you cannot finance a community like this (we currently have more than 250,000 users) with advertisement revenues.

We are currently very happy with our subscription rate (our premium membership costs 9,99 EUR/month) and we believe that people are prepared to pay once they see the added value.

But we also notice that if you want to establish a clear community feeling (with live video-chat, peer to peer text corrections etc..) you have to have a critical mass of (free) users which contribute to the system. Having only paid users will eliminate the community learning and will turn the site into a pure individual learning tool (which some people might prefer as well).

Definitely interesting to see where this new online language learning market will develop during the next years.

All the best for the Babbel Team which have definitely done a great job so far!

Bernhard
Co-Founder of busuu.com

By: jan

jan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:21:53 +0000

rosettta stone has a service for 1000 dollar per year. i guess they are targeting the corporate sector with it. i don’t have any information about their success with this offer.

By: JL

JL — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:16:35 +0000

Any other free language learning sites out there then?

LiveMocha is one that comes to mind here, seems to still offer free courses.