Last year is already history as 2011 has started with a lot of positive energy! Nevertheless, we believe it’s still worth taking a closer look at all the stuff that happened with busuu.com in 2010.
January
- We announced a strategic partnership with the renowned language learning brand PONS, the second biggest publisher in Germany; we now offer detailed grammar explanations in 6 different languages to our German, Spanish, Italian and French native users.
- We expanded our language learning platform by adding new review features and customisable exams to our existing learning tools.
February
- busuu.com was a finalist in the BBVA Open Talent competition, being the 5th most voted project (with more than 6,000 votes) out of more than 400 participants.
- We launched our fully interactive Brazilian Portuguese language course, the 6th language in our portfolio
- We translated our interface into Portuguese to welcome our new Portuguese-speaking users (mainly from Brazil), who enriched our growing community with their positive Latin vibes!
- We closed our first financing round with an Austrian business angel, enabling us to further strengthen our rapid international growth.
March
- Our project received more awards as we won the Innovators Award at the CeBIT fair in Germany, one of the most important events for the digital industry in Europe.
- We launched our new groups feature, letting our users create their own content around topics of their choice; this popular feature now has more than 5,000 groups.
- We surprised our users with our fun Easter egg hunt – so watch out again this Easter for the golden egg to win some Premium Memberships! 😉
May
- busuu.com had its second birthday which we celebrated with more than 450,000 users registered users from over 200 different countries.
- We were selected as the Red Herring 100 European Winner, a competition that recognises the most innovative companies in Europe.
June
- We launched our Travel course for all the language basics you need when travelling abroad, available as a PDF for easy use on the go.
July
- One of busuu.com’s co-founders gave a keynote speech at an international conference at the University of Greenwich to share his thoughts on the future of e-learning.
August
- We launched our first language game, in which users can challenge each other on their language skills to win juicy busuu berries!
- We implemented our interactive Russian course, bringing our total offering to 7 different languages and opening the gates to our active Russian community.
September
- busuu.com went mobile with our 7 new iPhone applications, which include our full content and are available for free download from the iTunes App Store.
October
- We implemented a new alphabet section (previously developed for the Russian course) for our other 6 languages, based on users’ feedback.
- We reached the important landmark of more than 1 million registered users, making busuu.com Europe’s largest web 2.0 community!
- We announced a strategic partnership with leading publisher Collins, letting us offer detailed grammar explanations for 4 languages to our native English speakers.
- We moved to our new offices next to Madrid’s green Retiro Park because the busuu.com team has grown rapidly!
December
- We launched our campaign to save the nearly extinct Busuu language – including a our funny YouTube music video (now seen by 200,000+ people) and our Save Busuu Facebook fanpage (with nearly 6,000 fans worldwide) – which received lots of media coverage.
Phew…as you can see, 2010 was a very busy, successful year for our small start-up! Thank you again for all of your support and feedback – the above has only been possible with your help!
But watch out for 2011! We have ambitious plans and exciting new features in the pipeline already – so rest assured that we won’t stop until we create the best language learning solution on Earth! 🙂
So, we wish our users all the best and are looking forward to a fantastic 2011!
