Get Satisfaction in a site where you can get help with products and services from a growing number of companies. We have decided to link to Get Satisfaction from the learnIt widget so that our users can instantly access help and support from us, and also from other users.

Now, if you go to our ‘help’ page you can click through directly to www.getsatisfaction.com where we will answer any questions as quickly as we can.

I’m delighted to announce that Korean has now been added to the Learnit widget.

Korea is a fascinating island with a chequered history. South Korea is well know as being one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. 75% of the population have high speed Internet access & LG and Samsung are household names around the world.

Online gaming is more popular than TV in Korea. We recently had Korean visitors (part of the very hard working YWAM team) who were pleased to find out that we had WIFI so they were able to get back online. We hope that Korean students of English will discover Learnit and integrate it into their other online activities.

Looking at the data on Google Analytics - we had 27 visitors from South Korea last month. It will be interesting to watch this story develop.

Initially Learnit was designed to give everyone an individual, personal word list, however we feel that learning is best served if everyone gets the same words on a single day.  Some of the advantages of doing this are as follows:

• We can begin to send our users a daily email containing their words. We know what it’s like learning a language… some days you just forget to do anything - so a daily e-mail will be a nice reminder as well as a record of your words to refer back to.
• We can develop an API so that third parties can integrate our 10 daily words without too much complication.
• We can license content to offline media such as newspapers in countries where many people are learning English.
• We will be able to easily build in a revision cycle.  This could be an additional feature, sent out in the daily email - so you get today’s words, as well as a revision list of the words from 2, 10, 30 and 60 days ago.
• Other people will be able to develop interesting content which utilises the 10 words.  They can be a theme for teachers on a specific day, which will maximise the number of exposures you will see.
• We can set up a twitter feed - see CzechLearnit on Twitter, for example. Then, Twitter users can follow the feed. I’ve installed the new version of the Firefox browser, and added TwitterFox so that the Learnit words pop up on my screen occasionally. Ideally we need to develop a Firefox addon so that people can access their wordlists on their browsers… but this is one of about 100 developments we need to add.

We have been in contact with various third parties about the potential of developing material around our daily word lists (still to hear back from Quizlet and Twistory - so please nudget them if you’re passing). If you have a use for 10 words a day - either for people learning English or English speakers learning other languages, please get in contact & we’ll add your content to a directory or resources.

Okay, so we’re yet to get our mits on an iPhone ourselves, but follow this links to see what learnit would look like on iPhone:

http://iphonetester.com/?url=http://www.learnitwidget.com

Unfortunately, this is not what you see if you get learnit from the Apple iPhone directory. We submitted our upgraded app ages ago, and have had no clue about how long it will take to add the contemporary version of Learnit to the Apple iPhone directory. It’s interesting to go back and see the first version of Learnit.  It really has improved… and we have a new release imminently!

UPDATE:

Good news! The apple directory now has the latest version of Learnit:
http://www.apple.com/webapps/travel/learnitlists.html

We now have learnit live on Facebook. Click here to go to the Facebook page and select the blue ‘Add to Page’ button on the right.

Coming soon: a new feature which will put your daily words into your Facebook news feed every day.

As you know, we are seeking brand sponsors for the learnit widget. A brand sponsor would have the following options:

• Brand appropriate colours & design of the widget surface (skin & style)
• Learn tab (homepage ) text advert or static 234×60 advert - (no moving images)
• Listen tab - introduction sound from the speaking avatar allowing free use of this service to users. Blue space behind the speaking avatar as well.
• Speak tab InCall advert - allowing free use of this service to users

Some examples of what sponsored content might look/sound like:

Sponsored avatars can be produced from any photograph, so can tie in closely with personality based advertising campaigns:

We will also be able to offer ‘widgety ads’ - these are any format of online advertising containing brand sponsorship and learnit lists content. The advert will show learnit content to anyone who is a learnit user. To anyone else, it can look like an ordinary advert. Widgety ads will be available via our affiliate scheme:

As our visitors may well have noticed, we don’t yet have a professional design for our site, or logo. The priority has been the ‘proof of concept’ ie getting the widget out there to see if it’s something people will want to use. Now it’s time to think about the design.

Quite frankly, the purple & red combination is giving our designer a headache (I hope not literally) as he looks for a way of working with these and complimentary colours. So, today I’ve been scouring the net looking for examples of the design I have in my head.

Firstly, here’s a 3d design on a pebble like shape. I’d like the Learnit logo to be rounded & 3d, but with the white lettering cut into the purple stone:

An example of the purple (dark lilac?) and red combination.

And here, some nice blues and greens, which now seeing them side by side, would look atrocious when paired with the colours above. Hmm.

An example of purple used with white alongside a little red:

And finally, below, a beautifully executed 3d logo:

Here is a site I love the look and feel of. I’m looking for more! Hmm.. think we need to loose the flat colours on the site. How about using the Etsy colour picker to find a combination?

After some investigation, I have found that there is a split complementary that consists of red, violet and green. Now I need a colour wheel.

TechCrunch coverage:

“LearnItLists is a new way to learn a language. Originally from the UK, Nicola and her husband built this widget to help teach themselves Czech. The couple actually lives in and is restoring an old farmhouse outside of the city and they spend their mornings coding and their evenings digging up unexploded ordnance in the Czech country-side. They also took part in the Elevator Pitch-off.”

(and later could be found drunkenly berating pre Y2K VCs. Techcrunch.com May 23, 2008)

Our video escapade into Monty Python territory, vying for a Being Digital ticket. TechCrunch UK May 27, 2008.

Our first TechCrunch UK coverage… a photo from the TechCrunch Barcelona Meetup, TechCrunch UK May 23, 2008.

Hmm… really must now put together that press release about the cat in our pitch video.

Oh god.