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SHOW HN: Take a look at my startup; Show off your vocabulary prowess

25 points by tm65atcolumbia ↗ HN
Hello HN,

Introducing VocabGenii.com, my online vocabulary game. It is the first product from my company, Genii, Inc., that brings innovative, engaging new learning experience to the market by leveraging web 2.0 and social networks.

Currently, we are running a 10K Challenge -- anyone scoring 10,000 points before the contest ends (March 24 04:00 GMT) will get 3-Month unlimited play. Exceptional performance would also be recognized in our 10K Hall of Fame with limited edition trophies!

We're hiring! If you have disruptive ideas on language learning and online education, and possess extraordinary skills in game design, RoR, UX, web design, bizdev experience in the education industry, come impress us! Contact info below:

Company sites: (1) http://vocabgenii.com; (2) http://geniicompany.com;

FB pages: (1) http://www.facebook.com/geniicompany; (2) http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=190671694293877;

Twitter: @vocabgenii

Email: info@geniicompany.com

Thanks!

James Mak CEO, Genii

17 comments

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atgm
I tried to log in with facebook using the button on the front page and it popped up a blank white window that didn't do anything. Reloading the pop-up or the main window didn't change anything.

Opera 11.01, Windows Vista

tm65atcolumbia
This might be a problem with Opera. Do you have another browser you could try? Sorry about that.
atgm
Yeah, I'll try in Firefox when I have a chance. Thought I'd give it a whirl at work while I'm not so busy since we have a scheduled blackout tonight.
revorad
This is quite well made. I enjoyed playing a few rounds. I did get the feeling that some of the word descriptions were written by non-native English speakers. There were some very small grammatical mistakes or strange combinations of words.

Regardless, quite a fun product. The hard part is going to be to stick in people's minds. Turning it into a Facebook game is one good way to achieve that, but you should probably keep thinking of more such things.

tm65atcolumbia
Good point. Yes, more actions on Facebook are coming, stay tuned! =(G)
clojurerocks
I was actually considering developing something like this myself. :-). Im a social entrepreneur with a focus on technology and like the education and game markets. Ill bookmark your site and try to follow the development.
djb_hackernews
I built something VERY similar (but not as slick) in 2009. It was a vocab game with scrabble like point scoring you played with friends via Twitter.

It basically just aggregated your twitter messages, and assigned points for uses of unused words within a "game".

I believe it's still "live" but since been decommissioned. http://www.playtwabble.com

michaeldhopkins
Neat. I played enough to get 10k. It is much too easy to do that because one earns so many points on the highest difficulty setting and the buttons can be mashed. I found myself having to do this several times because the obscured letter was correct or a spelling I was not familiar with. Have to say that I am not interested enough to pay...
tm65atcolumbia
@michaeldhopkins Thanks for the feedback. The game does get easier for native English speakers. Believe it or not, we've seen many non English speaking users aren't even willing to mash the keyboard. It's an intentional no-punishment approach that we leave in the game, hoping that could at least be a ramp for English learners.

Regarding your opinion on paying, did you mean that the game being too easy is a key decision criteria?

michaeldhopkins
It's not challenging enough for me, but more importantly I'm not convinced it's an effective way to increase vocabulary.

I should warn you I am probably not a normal customer: I enjoy reading the OED and I think the best way to improve in English is to learn Latin...so just take this as one data point.

tm65atcolumbia
Outlier opinions are important! Thanks. Re Latin, the game today is a great tool to teach lexical structures, ie. prefix, suffix, word etymology in fact.