I had not heard of Readlang before, but I had heard of similar tool Toucan. I assumed they pioneered this type of tool, but evidently not.
I bought back my acquihired startup
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Re: I bought back my acquihired startup
#12Hi! Steve here. Happy to hang around here for a while if anyone wants to ask anything! :-)
Yes I have a brief one, sorry that it's not specifically related to Readlang!
You kind of stopped blogging as much when you joined Duolingo, what would you say were the biggest factors why? I'm assuming Duolingo weren't super restrictive on what you could post so that might not be the big reason, but I could be wrong!
Re: I bought back my acquihired startup
#13@steveridout Interesting post and journey, thanks for posting.
Readlang - what would you say is the user persona you're going for? I need to learn (tourist) French. I'm not going to read sites about "where is the bathroom?", for example.
Re: I bought back my acquihired startup
#14I had not heard of Readlang before, but I had heard of similar tool Toucan. I assumed they pioneered this type of tool, but evidently not.
Tucan actually works in reverse compared to Readlang. Say you're a native English speaker learning Spanish. With Tucan you browse the English websites you're already used to browsing, and it'll automatically translate some of the words to Spanish to sprinkle in a bit of practice that fits within your normal routine. It's a nice idea (actually this is the first one I saw doing the idea: https://www.theverge.com/2012/5/3/2995523/google-language-im...) but for me it didn't stick. I found it weird to be learning isolated Spanish words out of their normal context, and pretty soon it just became annoying to have these Spanish words popping up everywhere. Maybe it works for some people though.
With Readlang the idea is that you read actual websites in the language you're learning. If you're learning Spanish you might read El Pais or BBC Mundo for example. And to aid you, you can click on the odd word or phrase you don't understand to get a translation in English. It's intended for intermediate and advanced learners. Unlike Tucan you need to seek out texts to read in your target language, and Readlang offers a list of popular sites in each language to help you there: https://readlang.com/es/links, but there's obviously more friction than something like Tucan which fits into your normal English language browsing routine.
Re: I bought back my acquihired startup
#15Hi! Steve here. Happy to hang around here for a while if anyone wants to ask anything! :-)
Without asking for numbers you don't want to share, how did the price you acquired it back for compared to the price they originally purchased it for?
Re: I bought back my acquihired startup
#16@steveridout Interesting post and journey, thanks for posting. Readlang - what would you say is the user persona you're going for? I need to learn (tourist) French. I'm not going to read sites about "where is the bathroom?", for example.
It's mainly for intermediate and advanced learners who want to tackle longer texts. I originally made it so that I could read novels in Spanish.
Readlang may not ever be appropriate for complete beginners. But it could do better at providing stories written in simple language appropriate for beginners in specific situations like yours. Right now there is a public library of shared texts: https://readlang.com/fr/library, and a list of popular websites: https://readlang.com/fr/links. But you're largely left to your own devices to find content, which adds friction for new users and isn't ideal.
Re: I bought back my acquihired startup
#17Warms my heart to see a big company make this deal with the author rather than just shut it down. Bravo Duolingo.
Yep, I've got nothing but good things to say about Duolingo :-)
Re: I bought back my acquihired startup
#18I had not heard of Readlang before, but I had heard of similar tool Toucan. I assumed they pioneered this type of tool, but evidently not.
Tucan actually works in reverse compared to Readlang. Say you're a native English speaker learning Spanish. With Tucan you browse the English websites you're already used to browsing, and it'll automatically translate some of the words to Spanish to sprinkle in a bit of practice that fits within your normal routine. It's a nice idea (actually this is the first one I saw doing the idea: https://www.theverge.com/2012/5…
Interesting, thank you for the explanation. I tried Toucan a year or so ago and just as you said, it was weird and didn't stick for me either. I will try Readlang!
Re: I bought back my acquihired startup
#19This is great, I love to see these work out. This type of re-acquisition can be difficult to see through to completion. The acquiring company has moved on and doesn't want to spend resources on dealing with it. I had tried to do this too at one point but then then newish CEO of the company we were trying to buy it back from was gone and we sorta gave up.
Re: I bought back my acquihired startup
#20Hi! Steve here. Happy to hang around here for a while if anyone wants to ask anything! :-)
Yes I have a brief one, sorry that it's not specifically related to Readlang! You kind of stopped blogging as much when you joined Duolingo, what would you say were the biggest factors why? I'm assuming Duolingo weren't super restrictive on what you could post so that might not be the big reason, but I could be wrong!
Good question! There was a lot to do and I was kept busy just with internal communication, so didn't feel the urge to share externally so much. Also, getting outside attention didn't feel as important given my role at the company compared to when I was alone running my own project.
I actually remember asking them how restrictive they would be when it comes to sharing when I joined and they said they weren't as secretive as Apple, but that they weren't completely open about everything either. If I had had the urge to post anything I would have run it past people before publishing details about what our team was working on, and it would have probably been fine. But in the end, like I said, I was always busy and blogging fell by the wayside. (I was never a naturally prolific blogger anyway)