Chinesepod website change?

bohan2007
November 23, 2013, 04:13 AM posted in General Discussion

Is Chinesepod switching over to Openlanguage next month?

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bababardwan
November 23, 2013, 05:15 AM

Whoah! That would be huge. Where is this question coming from? You must have some idea this is on the agenda.

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bohan2007
November 23, 2013, 06:51 AM

I think the answer to this question is no. The other languagepod sites are probably be switched next month though

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bababardwan

oh, I see where you're coming from. Glad it was only that. No, don't think that's happening. The other XPods died first, then a long time in limbo, and then it was announced something like a year ago that SPod would be migrating over at the end of the year [so big long warning], and FPod and IPod have already migrated to my knowledge. None of those things have happened at CPod and CPod is their baby. When they pulled the plug on the other Pods they went back to , as they put it, totally focussing on "what they do best"

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podster

What does it mean to switch? No more web site for CPod? It looks like they are already integrating all the back end stuff (which probably explains the recent rash of problems people have been reporting.) Technical support for users was also put on hold during the process, according to their customer service rep.

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podster

Re "what they do best" , a long time ago Jenny remarked that everything was going to mobile platforms (tablets, smartphones), in an apparent attempt to downplay the importance of a web site. I have the impression that the current corporate vision is more aligned with what Openlanguage is targeting. When CPod first launched the tablet and smartphone market barely existed, so maybe there is some merit to the strategy. I would think that reports of the death of the web's usefulness are greatly exaggerated though. I hope the CPod web site remains intact.

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mikeinewshot

I just had a look at Openlanguage for the first time I think. Sure enough there are John and Jenny giving Chinesepod lessons together with almost exactly the same facilities as here on this website - all the lesson tabs are there: vocab, expansion, grammar, exercises, task ...

I only looked at the sample stuff (I didn't pay! - that would be silly to pay twice) but it looks to me as though it has already migrated!!

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mikeinewshot

It seems like for Chinese they just have 'a complementary' Chinese course

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podster

Yes, they just never refer to it as "Chinese Pod." And I guess the advantage is that users don't have to put up with all those silly rants from web site customers such as I. ;-)

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mikeinewshot

actually if you click on a lesson, there is the Chinesepod name and logo on the right hand side of the page