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Memrise

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Memrise
File:Memrise logo 2015, with cyan background.png
Type of site
Privately held company
Available inEnglish, Korean, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Arabic, Dutch, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Turkish.
FoundedUS (2005)
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Greg Detre, Ed Cooke, Ben Whately[1]
CEOEd Cooke
URLmemrise.com
RegistrationYes
Chatbot on the Memrise app for iPhone.

Memrise is a language learning platform with a website, iOS and Android apps. Memrise specialises in combining memory techniques and entertaining content in order to make language learning recreational.

Memrise has more than 150 language courses across 25 languages. The app has over 20 million registered users, all courses are totally free to learn, and there is no advertising. There are extra features and learn modes that can be unlocked with a Memrise Pro subscription. Memrise has been profitable since late 2016.

Origins and development

Memrise was founded by Ed Cooke, a Grand Master of Memory, and Greg Detre, a Princeton neuroscientist specializing in the science of memory and forgetting. The website launched in private beta after winning the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club 2009 TigerLaunch competition.[3] On October 1, 2012, 100 users were allowed to sign up to test a non-beta version of the website called Memrise 1.0. As of May 2013, a Memrise app has been available for download on both the App Store (iOS) and Google Play.[4]

Awards

In May 2017, Memrise was named as the overall Best App winner of the second edition of the Google Play awards. The Awards celebrate achievements of the developer community across the globe over the past year and recognise the best apps and games covering twelve categories. Selected by a panel of experts, the winners are evaluated on quality, innovation, and major launches or updates over the past year.

In July 2010, Memrise was named as one of the winners of the London Mini-Seedcamp competition.[5] In November 2010, the site was named as one of the finalists for the 2010 TechCrunch Europas Start-up of the Year.[6] In March 2011, it was selected as one of the Techstars Boston startups.[7]

Memrise Prize

In November 2014, Memrise created the Memrise Prize in partnership with the University College London. The Memrise Prize challenges people to create the most powerful method for memorizing new information, with a prize of $10,000 and co-authorship in a feature article to be shared with the scientific and business community.[8]

Controversy

In late September 2012, the leaderboard on the website was temporarily suspended due to "extensive cheating". Specific users had been using bots and non-intensive mechanisms, such as celebrity photo memory courses, to achieve atypical scores that were not reflective of actual learning. In response, the administrators established a new leaderboard after revising the scoring loopholes.[9]

Press

In 2011, Memrise was reviewed by AOL's Daily Finance,[10] the MIT Technology Review,[11] MSNBC[12] and Gizmodo.[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Memrise". Crunchbase. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
  2. ^ "Memrise". Ranking. Alexa Internet. Retrieved February 5, 2017.
  3. ^ "TigerLaunch 2009". princetoneclub.com. Archived from the original on December 23, 2011.
  4. ^ "Forums > What's New: May 20th News! - Memrise". Memrise. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  5. ^ "Mini Seedcamps 2010". seedcamp.com. Archived from the original on June 9, 2011.
  6. ^ "The Europas – The Finalists". TechCrunch. AOL. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  7. ^ "TechStars Boston 2011: Who Got In". Boston.com. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  8. ^ Memrise (13 November 2014). "Memrise, University College London Launch the First Annual 'Memrise Prize' Competition With $10,000... -- LONDON, November 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --". prnewswire.com.
  9. ^ "The irrationality of cheating at gamified learning". Wired UK.
  10. ^ Alex Salkever. "Look Out, Rosetta Stone: Memrise Has a New Vision for Learning Languages". DailyFinance.com. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  11. ^ "Plant a new language in your mind". Technology Review. 23 Jun 2011. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  12. ^ "Grow a new language in your head". NBC News. 20 January 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  13. ^ "Memrise Is a Viva Pinata For Language Students". Gizmodo. Gawker Media. Retrieved 20 January 2015.


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