Sjors

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It’s been a great experience and experiment, but it’s time to close this chapter. You can still play with the app, but you won’t get any feedback from teachers. Perhaps I will pivot the idea in the future, sell the underlying technology, we’ll see.

Back in March, I read Running Lean by Ash Maurya and I found it very actionable. In particular I focussed on figuring out why the download -> install -> first use -> second use conversions were so terribly low.

In the previous post I wrote that of every 100 people who download the app, about 50 actually run it. Only 10 submit a pronunciation and only 1 listenes to the feedback given by the teachers.

I wanted to talk to my users to find out what was going on, but how do I reach them? Apple won’t tell me who downloads my application. The good news is, as soon as they run the app, I can do whatever I want, including talking to the user. So I modified the application so that I could send it a push message and the user would see a popup message asking for their feedback (picture right). If they accepted it, they would be taken to their email client with a prefab email addressed to me (picture bottom).

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A few days ago I made iSimplifiedChinese free so that more people would download it and hopefully spread the word and provide reviews. So far the good news is that it resulted in lots of downloads, but the bad news is that nobody bought any teacher feedbacks and downloads are dropping exponentially. Let’s look at the data. Do let me know if you have any thoughts on what’s going on.

The application was downloaded 881 times in 5 days. Of those 415 started the application and listened to the first phrase. 91 submitted one or more pronunciations and only 17 listened to the feedback they received from the teachers.

Zero in-app purchases of new feedbacks, zero iTunes reviews, zero emails with questions, comments or bugs.

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Using the ingredients from Part 1 I created three draft lessons for iSimplifiedChinese. In this post I analyse them in order to learn how to improve and expand the course.

All lesson material is shared under CC-SA. A Chinese speaking friend of mine was kind enough to check the material for errors, but as usual use it at your own risk

[table id=2 /]

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The goal of iSimplifiedChinese is to teach people how to pronounce Standard Mandarin Chinese. For that I need words and phrases for students to practice. But which?

The goal isn’t to teach vocabulary or grammar; there are other apps, books and teachers for that. In theory you don’t need to understand a word you’re saying in order to pronounce it correctly. However I believe it’s useful and good for motivation when you learn something that you can see yourself using in the real world.

How big should a course be?

For practical and philosophical reasons, I’d like to turn that question around and ask how short it can be. My hypothesis is that after practicing X words, you’re able to pronounce most new words correctly as you encounter them. All I need to do is figure out what number X is. My initial guess is a few hundred.

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Apple gave me a really nice birthday present on December 2nd, when they approved my iPhone application: iSimplifiedChinese. For those who don’t know it, it allows you to practice your Chinese pronunciation by sending your pronunciations to a real Chinese person for feedback.

I expected waking up filthy rich the next morning, but unfortunately it turns out I need to do a bit more work for that. There could be many reasons why only one copy was sold in the first week, but I figured that the most import reason was that nobody knew about it. Time to reread the 4HWW chapters on Marketing.

My goal for January is to sell 120 copies or the equivalent in other revenue. If that fails I want to at least obtain enough data and insight to know what to do next. My remaining budget for this is about €50 and 50 hours.

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I installed the Sleep Cycle iPhone app about a month ago, so I thought it was time for an update.

Let me share some data:

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December 25

December 26

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Dit is een eerste opzetje van mijn gedachten rond dit onderwerp. Het is niet een officieel standpunt van welke organisatie dan ook, maar wie weet wordt het dat ooit.

Frisdrankautomaat of platform?

Tim O’Reilly – uitgever en bedenker van de term “Web 2.0” – zette begin 2009 een visie neer over Overheid 2.0. De overheid gedraagt zich in optiek nog teveel als frisdrankautomaat: je gooit er belasting in en er komen diensten uit zoals wegen, ziekenhuizen en politie. Betrokkenheid van burgers en bedrijfsleven is daarmee beperkt tot het schudden van de automaat. Wat de overheid volgens hem zou moeten bieden is een raamwerk van regelgeving en techniek waarmee eenieder dezelfde diensten kan aanbieden: een platform.

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Ik vond het leuk om vorige week in de NRC-Next een artikel van Bjorn Lomborg tegen te komen, dat een vertaling is van zijn artikel in The Guardian. Hoewel enigszins overdreven – ik heb sowieso niet zoveel met kinderen – komt zijn betoog erop neer dat de klimaathysterie in wereld schadelijk is voor de moraal van kinderen.

Het is onderdeel van zijn algemene punt dat klimaatverandering teveel geld en aandacht krijgt ten opzichte van andere problemen in de wereld. Dat wil zeggen, als je puur kijkt naar de effectiviteit van geboden oplossingen, zowel qua tijd als geld. Een uur vergaderen over klimaatverandering levert duizenden keren minder geredde levens op dan een uur vergaderen over gezondheidszorg in ontwikkelingslanden. Een miljoen euro in Kyoto is ongeveer net zo effectief als een euro in malariabestrijding* (plus of min een paar ordes van grootte). Ik ben het hier volledig met hem eens, zoals ik al eerder en veel uitgebreider beschreven heb.

Vandaag reageerde Greenpeace op zijn artikel, op een bijzonder voorspelbare manier. Laat ik het even kort analyseren.

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I just read an interesting and funny blog post that compares two well known – among certain people – productivity systems: Getting Things Done by David Allen and The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. I left a comment there that – in all my modesty – I’d like to share with you.

About four years ago I read GTD (Getting Things Done) for the first time. I was very busy – in fact slightly overworked – at the time. The methodology helped me to create an inventory of my “projects” and I used that inventory to start removing stuff.

It’s a fairly complicated system, but so is public transport; once you figure it out it pays. It’s no secret that I really like this book.

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I’m going to TED India! My application has been accepted (you have to apply in order to attend) and I’ve booked my flight. Only one minor detail remains: paying for the conference ticket.

I “should” be able to “afford” this conference, since I’m a software engineer in a fairly rich country. So it’s really a cash flow issue; if I could, I would have borrowed the money from my bank and worked for the ticket later.

This is where you come in…

Your donations** will help me go to TED India. In exchange, I offer one hour of my “brain power” to anyone donating $50*. Please send me an email if you wish to use that offer.

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