jbadg76421 Groupie United States Joined 4388 days ago 51 posts - 92 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French, Esperanto
| Message 1 of 9 11 March 2015 at 9:14pm | IP Logged |
From The Economist:
"Rosetta Stone has for years been synonymous with computerised language-learning, at least in America. But investors have soured on it, as the company has struggled to turn around annual losses beginning in 2011. Today Rosetta Stone will announce results for 2014, which are almost certain to show the biggest deficit yet."
I couldn't help but grin a little when I saw that graph at the bottom of the article...
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5130 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 2 of 9 11 March 2015 at 10:59pm | IP Logged |
I never got spam from Rosetta Stone, but once they purchased Live mocha I got on average two emails a day from them trying to get me to purchase RS proper.
I soon enough marked all RS and Live mocha a spam. Checking my spam folder, they're still at it.
If enough people do this (I can't believe I'm alone in this) their ranking goes way down in Google's search results. I would imagine that a good portion of their revenue comes from internet ads, which are now not as prominent.
R.
==
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Silvance Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5494 days ago 57 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English*, Pashto Studies: Dari
| Message 3 of 9 11 March 2015 at 11:45pm | IP Logged |
They also lost their contract with the military in 2011-2012, and that was bringing in a
lot of money. Now we have a contract with Pimsleur.
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carlyd Groupie United States Joined 3989 days ago 94 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 4 of 9 12 March 2015 at 1:59am | IP Logged |
I bought the whole Rosetta Stone package and not only do I get emails asking me to renew the online access, I get a couple a day asking me to buy the package--like they can't sort out their own customers.
Irritating.
Plus I used to LOVE LiveMocha and since RS bought it, it's terrible.
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soclydeza85 Senior Member United States Joined 3907 days ago 357 posts - 502 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French
| Message 5 of 9 17 March 2015 at 3:03pm | IP Logged |
carlyd wrote:
Plus I used to LOVE LiveMocha and since RS bought it, it's terrible. |
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I didn't know RS bought LiveMocha, that explains the big change. I, too, used to love it. I went back to it after a while, I really didn't like it anymore. That's too bad, that was a really cool site.
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Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4082 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German
| Message 6 of 9 17 March 2015 at 10:28pm | IP Logged |
jbadg76421 wrote:
I couldn't help but grin a little when I saw that graph at the bottom of the article... |
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I'll grin when the share price goes below 27 cents per share.
A 99% drop.
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Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4052 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German
| Message 7 of 9 17 March 2015 at 11:44pm | IP Logged |
I’m certainly no fan of Rosetta Stone; their product, their customer service, and their predatory business practices resemble more a “scam” than a genuine attempt to deliver a quality language-learning system.
Nonetheless, while many of us are cheering at the current troubles of this company, we should bear in mind that, should the company go under, the founders have already done quite well and that they are not likely to be hurt by the company’s demise. The same cannot be said for the common shareholders who subscribed the IPO when this company went public a few short years ago. While they might be the Death Star of language programmes, it is quite possible that our own pension funds, or other collective investment funds, hold shares in this company!
Edited by Speakeasy on 17 March 2015 at 11:44pm
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Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5556 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 8 of 9 18 March 2015 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
Speakeasy wrote:
Rosetta Stone...the Death Star of language programmes |
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All troubles and more serious issues aside for one moment, this quote made my day! Mahalo, Speakeasy. :)
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