Educational app maker Duolingo launched a stand-alone flashcard learning app this week making it the company’s first step to move beyond language learning. Is Tinycards going to be a success of similar size like Duolingo’s massively popular language learning apps, or is it more of a trojan horse that aims at taking over the brain training vertical?
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Earlier this year Duolingo’s co-founder Luis van Ahn already hinted on Quora that the goal for the company was to branch out beyond the language learning vertical.
“We think we can help by developing intelligent apps that teach the most important subjects: reading and writing, math, physics, etc.”
Flashcards naturally lend themselves to a plethora of subject matters and are still the weapon of choice for many learners across the globe. According to Duolingo some of its users asked for a “Duolingo-like” experience when it comes to learning with flashcards, and therefore the company released Tinycards on Tuesday.
Interestingly, the new app launched on iOS exclusively and there is also no web app available like there is for Duolingo. This not only leaves out a huge chunk of Duolingo’s global audience that uses computers and Android powered devices. If we take Duolingo’s own numbers as basis, around 60 % of users learn English with the service making it the most popular language by far. These stats also strongly hints at a large non-native English speaking user base, and as all the products are free I assume that millions of users are based out of developing countries which of course favor Android devices.
But the iOS exclusive launch comes as an even bigger surprise with regards to Duolingo’s ambitions in the K-12 space and their Duolingo for Schools project.
Gina Gotthilf, Duolingo’s VP of Growth, told us in an email that iOS still has a lot of the market but confirmed that an Android version will come some time later.
The (not so) secret sauce of every flashcard app is its algorithm that decides when flashcards need to be shown / learned again in order to get information into our long-term memory. Usually based on the principle of spaced repetition flashcard apps tend to do a good job at this front, and Duolingo also uses an algorithm to get learners to review vocabulary on a regular basis in its flagship product.
While there are examples of companies that are stand-alone flashcard apps (Quizlet, StudyBlue, Anki to name a few), flashcards are in most cases just a feature of a larger learning platform.
In fact the flashcard feature on Duolingo has been pretty neglected it seems.
That said, the distinction between the new product and the Duolingo language learning apps does not become evident at first glance.
The more interesting question, however, is if Duolingo can recreate its success in the language learning space and become as popular in the flashcards vertical. We must not forget that Duolingo was not the first to offer language learning apps but actually entered a pretty crowded and competitive market.
The trick was to offer a good product for free and to find new ways to generate revenue other than charging for upgrades or premium content. Duolingo managed this through selling crowdsourced translations before entering the language testing space with Duolingo Test Center.
It will now have to prove the same for the flashcards market, though I doubt that this is truly the vertical Duolingo is after. To me, this looks like a first step towards entering the infamous brain training vertical which has proven to be quite lucrative for some startups. The recent legal troubles around false advertising from market leader Lumosity could help Duolingo to grab market share while staying below the radar disguised as a flashcards app.
Gina Gotthilf hinted a couple of use cases for Tinycards that have a lot in common with lessons from brain training apps.
“We also hope it'll be interesting for life-long learners looking to learn wine-pairings, people's names, important stats to use in conversation, quotes, etc.”
Remains the question if and how Tinycards will generate revenue as the app is free and will most likely stay free. Similar to Duolingo, paid certifications could be an option as soon as there is enough content available to tie lessons together into courses.
At launch Tinycards comes with a selection of decks from Duolingo, Chineasy and community generated content.
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