Only Newbie level audio free of charge from 9/01/08

I think this is the smartest move CPod has ever made. Sure, keep a few lessons of each level for trial purposes. It's a business not an afterschool community program.

calkins,  actually it was the first time.  your half brain avatar is working well.

licha, this is the second time you've inquired about my half face.  So just for you, I'm going to let you see all of it:

And the cool thing is that I owe it all to ChinesePod!

since a long time i have read all opinions and comments. i'm leaning on Auntie68 / U4132534 side and will follow Auntie68 direction.

Calkins, you're working hard on getting free subscription. as i remember your half truths and attitude reflexts your avatar.

Hello LostInAsia. I didn't even know that the "free feed" MP3s had the entire (Chinese-only) transcript until very recently, when michele, the ItalianPod.com "godfather"/"changye"/ CPOD's Italian Scholar, mentioned it to me!

For what it's worth, I've been doing my best to explain that I am not letting my Basic CPOD subscription lapse because of any bitter feelings.

I love CPOD. I am grateful. In Dec 2006, I didn't know 20% of the words in any given Intermediate lesson. And my struggle with the transition to "Advanced" is well documented on these threads. But sometime in July, I decided to have a go at referring only to the (free) Chinese-only transcripts, because I can't afford to study with four "-POD"s.

This change in the pay structure has changed those plans, of course, as only the Newbie podcasts will be available to me after I allow my sub to lapse in Dec this year (2008). But my conscience tells me that I could do with a change, a fresh challenge, and so my reaction to these pricing changes has -- in only the past few days -- persuaded me to take a break from CPOD and focus on building my skills in reading and writing Chinese (so different from spoken Chinese, but I DO have good materials on hand), and indulging myself by taking time off to study Classical Chinese and written Cantonese. Hope that what I have written is helpful in some way. 

Thanks for the explanations auntie68 and hanyuxuesheng (漢語學生 is so much easier to write! It must drive you nuts being limited to a pinyin name). I had no idea the free feed offered English translations - I knew the metadata for podcasts gave the Chinese characters, but I didn't realize the English was also available.

Which basically makes me think, "Wow--ChinesePod has been giving away too much for free."

You've both made me feel I'm too lazy and reliant on transcripts and should sometimes do more dictation-based exercises! (But motivation is a good thing.)

I´d like to suggest that paid lessons get a free download able pdf with the lesson dialouge in simplyfied characters, so that the non paying native speakers get the chance to contribute in the comment section/ in a group.

That wouldn´t take anything away from the lesson discussion and would help to keep those users around + help a lot of us users.

@lostinasia

You asked: I'm actually surprised by how many people seem to use the podcasts for free.

How to use the free podcasts without transcript?

The public feed contains the last lesson texts (characters & translation). In Firefox you open the public RSS feed, view the source text, then you find the text between the <itunes:summary> tags.

If you need pinyin, you can get it from annotators in the web, e.g. http://www.mdbg.net.

As the feed changes to "Newbie only" from 09/1, this tip won't really work in the future.

I normally used Wenlin and entered the text from audio, a nice "dictation" exercise.

@lostinasia: Hi. I think it's not so difficult for some overseas Chinese to manage with the podcasts alone, especially since the MP3s have the Chinese character transcript as lyrics.

When I first started using CPOD as a paying customer, in Dec 2006, I "lurked actively" for about three weeks before getting my Basic subscription. I had wasted half of my entire 15-day trial because I didn't realize that time began running from the day I chose my username; some other sites allow you to delay activation. 

But during those three weeks, I wasn't ripping the podcasts, I was listening to Intermediate and Elementary podcasts, and trying to nail down the words I didn't know (maybe 20% - 25% of every sentence of dialogue, for Intermediate), using a dictionary. Sounds daft, but it it was surprisingly easy to get the "hang" of doing that. I've always liked working with print dictionaries.

The immediate reason why I decided to sign up and get the PDFs was that I discovered a "-POD" for Japanese, and decided to save myself a bit of time and hassle so I could do both languages. One and a half years on, I'm still keeping up with both "-POD"s, and in fact I have added "-POD"s for two other languages in the meantime.

I guess this is only do-able because my goals are pretty modest. For each language, my objective is simply to carry on until I lose interest or have to drop out because I can't keep up with lessons as they come out. Unfortunately, I seem to be well and truly hooked and haven't dropped anything.

But I really have to stress that I'm a messy, sloppy learner, with very modest goals (mere receptive ability). I let lessons pile up, and then after about 10 - 12 days of neglect I will spend maybe two or three 45 - 60-minute sessions desperately catching up. 

I'm actually surprised by how many people seem to use the podcasts for free. I mean, how do you lot do that? Without the visuals, without the pinyin especially, I'd have been clueless when I first started learning Chinese. Even now... without a transcript, I can listen to an upper-intermediate and think "Oh, that's a part I don't know... and that's another part I don't know...", but it takes the transcript to figure out WHAT I don't know. John and Jenny will cover some of that but certainly not all of it.

More power to you for being able to pull that off, but it's a surprise to me. Or maybe my listening skills just stink.

Boran, I couldn't agree with you more about the benefits being mutual, and that CPod didn't do it solely out of the kindness of their heart.  It was a business plan, and a very smart one.  To have hundreds of thousands of users after 3 years speaks for itself.  At the same time, I don't think it being a business plan means that the owners and staff don't care about its users.  I get a genuine feel that they do, and that they are extremely passionate about teaching.  I think it's a big reason the company is so successful.

Maybe you're right, maybe a "thank you" from free users to CPod is not owed.  But I do feel a little gratitude is appropriate.  CPod has certainly shown its customers gratitude on many occassions.  I just think it's a shame that there are users that have continually used CPod without paying, who are now going to leave with a chip on their shoulder.  Why would they stop recommending a great resource like CPod, only because they have to pay now?  Just because you have to pay, doesn't mean the service is no longer good.  More likely, the service will improve.  I've recommended CPod (and other Praxis pods) to many people, and not once was it because it was free.  It was because it is an amazing language learning resource.

I'm seriously not trying to say I'm right and these others are wrong.  I'm not trying to create animosity here.  It's just how I feel...and that's one of the many beauties of the CPod community, we can all openly share our thoughts here.

I promise I'll leave this thread alone now...I've beaten a dead horse.

I see it from another perspective.  That is, CPod didn't just give away its content to be generous or kind.  They did it to grow the business while they improved their product.

The free users and CPod entered into a mutually beneficial relationship in the beginning.  CPod needed users to exist thus offering free podcasts was a smart business decision to attract those users.  The users, in turn, were a source of publicity and viral marketing that allowed CPod to grow and give them time to make a better product. 

I firmly believe that without those free users "spreading the word", CPod would not be here today.  Now CPod is effectively ending this relationship thus I think the "silent majority" of free users have a right to be upset.

Since I'm a paying member myself, I'm feeling fairly neutral about all of this and am taking a "wait and see" approach.  I can't say whether this is a good or bad business decision by CPod since I don't know their financial situation or future plans.

I don't think free users owe CPod a "thank you" for all of their free podcasts.  They might own them a "thank you" for making excellent podcasts though.  But in turn, CPod owes those free users some gratitude too.  Both co-existed to mutually benefit the other.

My only recommendation would be to revert to the 15-day free trial period (as opposed to 7 days) if you're going to start charging for the free stuff. I don't know when it turned back to 7, but that's way too short to make an informed decision, especially if you're thinking of shelling out a few hundred dollars for a long-term subscription. When I started in 2007, it was 15 days, which was enough time for me to experience all the different areas and decide it was worth paying for.

auntie auntie, I'm certainly not here to stir the pot.  Quite the opposite.  I'm just tired of people's lack of gratitude towards CPod, after 3 years of giving them a lot (for free).  Instead of getting angry that CPod has changed it's fee structure (rightfully so), maybe a "thank you" for giving me so much would be more appropriate.  I certainly think so, but hey I'm no expert.

I never said that all natives come here expressly to learn English.  I was making a general statement...I said that is what draws them here, and I'd be willing to guess that it's their main motivation for coming back.  I'm well aware of the selfless and gracious acts that natives like Cassie provide us.  I know she doesn't have to do that...she does it because she sincerely wants to help others.  It's who she is - I've shown my gratitude to her on numerous occassions, and I know she's aware of it.  There are many natives here that give us so much - Chinese are genuine givers.

I think you're missing the point here.  I certainly don't want to have another battle of words with you, because you will undoubtedly win.

Bottom line...ChinesPod has given us all a helluva lot, paying and non-paying users alike.  Let's show some freakin' gratitude.

"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."

~Robert Frost

@calkins: Things are already so tense on this thread that I'd really like to appeal to you to try and interpret mouseneb's post in a more generous way.

I personally never feel comfortable recommending any "-POD" which I am not actively using. After I cease to be a subscriber, I'm not going to be recommending CPOD to any friends either. Simply because I won't have any way of gauging the quality of the service.

It's the same reason why the native speakers who guide and encourage people like you and me do actually tend to listen to the podcasts before they comment on them. At least, they seem to do so at the "Advanced" or "Upper Intermediate" levels. 

You seem quite certain that the native speakers are all here to practice their English. I'm not so certain. At the higher levels, where they tend to post in Mandarin, they are not out there looking for a "language partner". Judging by their comments, many of them are genuinely moved that foreigners should be studying their language so seriously. They are absolutely delighted and excited that "the World" is -- for the first time in their lives -- willing to learn from China. Some of them are simply curious about the world outside China, and the CPOD comments threads offer them a forum for connect with foreigners in Mandarin. For all these reasons, they are determined to do everything possible to help us learn.

Maybe cassielin's reaction to your comment on how you imagined that she uses CPOD won't seem so surprising to you any more if you try to consider it from this point of view. Peace. 

I don't think I'm denying my friends anything. They certainly can find Chinesepod on their own if they really want to.

However, my free reccomendations and acclamations were a response in the spirit of the free podcasts. I felt that giving free advertisement was my way of giving something back to CP, since I couldn't afford to subscribe. Perhaps someone I pointed to the site could.

Now I don't feel that same spirit of sharing and cooperation, and I just don't feel comfortable giving away my free advertisement.

I gotta be honest, I don't understand some of these comments.

mouseneb, I can certainly understand if you can't afford a Basic or Premium subscription.  I've been there myself for a couple of months.  But obviously you see CPod as a great tool (otherwise you wouldn't feel a loss and wouldn't have recommended it). 

I can understand your not paying for a subscription, but why would you deny your friends the opportunity to use such a great learning product?  Unless you know for a fact that they, like you, don't have the money for it.

As an ESL teacher living in Hainan, where the salaries are low because the beaches are nice, I have wanted to subscribe to Chinesepod since the day I found it, but cannot afford it. I understand the need to charge for the lessons, but want to cry for my loss. As an ellie/low intermediate, I can't see much use coming back here anymore. I will be sadly taking down the exuberant CP reccomendations I have online, and will not be telling my friends anymore. Maybe next year, if I save up for it. Maybe not.

shknocks.  ???   So basically you're saying that you want to become fluent in Chinese without spending a penny?

BTW, the Newbie lessons are about 29% of the total lessons (Newbie, Elementary, Intermediate, Upper Int., Advanced, and Media).  For a company to give away 29% of their product is pretty generous, don't you think?

You can certainly make a decision to sign up based on being able to access that many lessons for free.  Ignore the marketing materials...make a decision based on the product.

I signed up and found that I got a few "Newbie" marketing pieces, aimed to get me to sign up for an account. And now you're just going to throw some more marketing "Newbie" at me?

Face it... that's the only reason CPOD is only offering "Newbie" lessons for free. They're the marketing pieces CPOD wants to get out.

Newbies are all the same people! If I listened to 500 Newbies, I still wouldn't be able to hold a conversation for my life. My vocabulary might go up, and I might understand a little better, but I'm not learning how to hold a decent conversation.

But one thing I'm sure of... Listening to 500 Newbies will definitely make me want to IMPROVE my Chinese and make me sign up at CPOD.

No thank you CPOD. I'll keep listening to other Chinese language podcasts that actually try to help their users. That way, I'll want to give them my money. Not to people just throwing 90% Marketing at me, and 10% product.

I have a suggestion as an alternative for this system that would possibly work better, as it would keep people of all levels coming back often and wanting more:

-- Free users can only access "today's lesson"

-- Only paying users have access to the whole archive.

Thanks for the clarification John (and thanks rjberki for clearly expressing the question!). I'm relieved.

Good idea to put archive lessons into the free feed. I keep wondering how ChinesePod can make the archive more active - it's massive but I suspect many parts are seldom-visited.

Thanks John, thats what I suspected, appreciate the clarification.

RJ,

We'll be publishing one new Newbie lesson per week. That means starting next week, the public feed will include one new Newbie lesson and one from the archive.

So the above statement was actually targeted at paying users, who will be seeing all the new content.

Sorry for the confusion.

Ross is this what you meant to say in your FAQ:

What podcasts will be distributed through the public feed on a weekly basis?
2 newbie lessons
1 Dear Amber show
1 News and Features show

because John had recently said the following and it is raising some concerns.

"Oh, to follow up my comment above, I've already reorganized the publication schedule. The last time you'll see two Newbies in one week will be Friday, August 15th (about two weeks from now), after which we'll be adhering strictly to the schedule I outlined above."

thanks

RJ

It's been said a few times that paying customers will not have anything taken away with this change, so it must be that QingWen will remain available to basic subscribers. But yes, it does look like it will not stay available to free users. Hopefully they will leave a number of episodes available, as they are doing with each of the non-newbie difficulty levels.

Thanks henning. Ouch - that is unwelcome news. I hope someone from ChinesePod can clarify in a hurry; if two out of five are newbie, with the other three split between ellie/ intermediate/ upper-intermediate/ advanced/ media, I'm looking at 1-2 lessons per week at "my" level (ellie good for padding the vocab a bit; intermediate useful but a touch easy; advanced still quite hard but increasingly manageable). And that begins to seem less of a bargain.

So Qingwen will be Premium exclusive again?

I missed that one also until sushan highlighted it.

But rocovanbasten indeed said in his FAQ above:

What podcasts will be distributed through the public feed on a weekly basis?
2 newbie lessons
1 Dear Amber show
1 News and Features show

I seriously hope that the paid content will feature at least 4 non newbie-lessons a week, covering each level harmoniously.

Re: sushan and two newbie lessons per week: where did you get that bit of information? I didn't notice it in the thread above - and I'd like some clarification. If two lessons out of five are newbie, that's going to have a huge (negative) impact on whether I re-subscribe or not; I was seriously thinking about abandoning ChinesePod, and was definitely going to opt out of Premium, until John made the announcements you linked to above.

@rjberki: I hope your assumption about the 7 day free trial still holds water. It's good that it didn't take you 7 days to decide to sign up; looking at some of the posts on this thread, I get the sense that a few of the "regulars" here took a bit longer to make up their minds.

Auntie I think I would base my decision to sign up (or not) on the 7 day free trial, which unless I missed it, will still exist. It didnt take me 7 days to recognize the value present in CPOD.

Simple answer: Increase the number of lessons per week to at least 6 again.

@henning: I'm getting really confused now! How do you cover each level every week, if the intention is to make only Newbie level content free? If you stick to that, then people coming in at different levels simply have to trust CPOD, and so of course they have to base their decision to sign up (or not) on the Newbie free lessons available... haven't you agreed already that CPOD shouldn't be giving away stuff for free?

Sushan: I fully agree. Ideally each level is covered in a week, with the exception of Media, which might occasionally replace an Adv.

What does make me angry about the changes is the continued emphasis on beginner content. There has always been a glut of Newbie lessons at the expense of other levels, and here and here we got reassurances that never again after this month would there be two Newbie lessons in one week. Now not only will there be two a week, they will be continued free content? Gah!

Beginning learner does not equal beginning cpod user -  many of us were at more advanced levels before we ever started here. The free lessons should be equally distributed among the levels and beginner level speakers should have to shell out as well.

lennier61 wrote:

ChinesePod is a wonderful thing.

This is unquestionable.

What are you men, beggars, looters or loosers.

I am not beggar, I never asked CP to give me the  podcasts for free.

I am not a looter, because I never stole things from CP.

I am not a "looser" (or did you mean "loser" :-).

My recommendation for you: Don't insult other people, keep to the facts!

你好，我没铁牛都来中文学习。我学过两捏弄多。不过我还有多学。

I know that that's probably poorly phrased and needs a lot of work.  But I couldn't have gotten that far without you guys.  Most of my study is listening in the car and reading the daily transcripts.  But, when I get a chance I still use the other tools.

I'll probably re-subscribe when this subscription ends in May.  I'm really happy with my progress.  I'm amazed at the quality of each day's podcast.  You all invest tremendous creativity in your work.  I'm surprised it's been free this long.

My only negative comment is that the "community" is such an important part of the package and it may suffer substantial contraction.  The internet thrives on "free" finding other creative ways to capitalize on popularity.  The so-called "freeloaders" were investing time and content and I'll miss that.

Otherwise, great job, keep it up.

ChinesePod is a wonderful thing, I have upgraded my learning rate at least 10 X (tenfold).

It is a shame that most of the comments do not recognize that such a good work has to be paid.

What are you men, beggars, looters or loosers.

Such a wonderful product should be paid!

And Lurk, make yourself examine your head, how do you dare to say pods are "a dime a dozen", you are insulting Ken and Jenny.

If you need money, either get a job, ask for a social help or tell us, we will send you the enormous amount of US 30 a month in order you poor moron can pay.

Chinese Pod is great, the greatest thing that had happened to us who learn Mandarin, let the moochers go away, we, who really value your work are aware that we will not get such a good teacher as your are for such a small monthly payment.

Live Long and Prosper! (and get rich and powerful)

Eduardo

Im surprised that the higher level stuff was free anyway, its quality content - way above my level but I'm a paying Newbie, why shouldn't there be a charge for the work that has gone into it?

I'm eager to see what new premium services CPod will put together, and I hope that this policy gamble will pay off well enough that they can afford to do some interesting new things.

To all the CPod people who have commented here, I don't think anyone here meant to suggest that the podcasts aren't worth $5/month! I hope no one got the impression that the value of their work was being challenged. The questions being raised were about whether new users (especially non-newbies, and native Chinese) would hang around long enough to realize the value of the less exporable services, and how many users will find $5 too expensive regardless of their feelings. Neither of these questions will be fully answerable until we see how things work under the new system.

Currently, I find the most valuable things on the site are the podcasts and the conversations... both free. The transcripts really help round the experience off, definitely worth becoming a basic subscriber.

But... as a current premium subscriber I have begun to have doubts about continuing to subscribe at this level. I don't have as much disposable cash as I used to, and (to me) the premium offerings are some of the least attractive parts of the current CPod experience.

If we begin to see the development of some exciting new premium services, CPod may also win a number of new premium level subscribers and retain some others that, like me, are feeling the economic crunch. For myself, I am deeply appreciative of everything that CPod does, and will be looking for some exciting new service I can use as an excuse to budget in next year's premium subscription fee.

As a premium member (who doesn't make the most of his subscription) I have mixed feelings about this announcement. A sligh sense of sadness as it was the "free" aspect that got me hooked on ChinesePod in the first place. But, at the same time, hope; hope that things will improve.

I haven't read all comments here as there are a lot of them, but one by John stood out.

John:

"On a personal level, a shift in focus to the paying users allows me to concentrate on some aspects of the service that have been neglected for far too long."

There is hope :) In the very next sentence he went on to talk about video and new ideas. All very exciting.

But, what I'd like above all else (yes even more than video) is for the existing features to be tested and pollished so that they work as expected...

• Vocab Manager,
• Vocab Export, and
  
• Flashcards,

are all areas that I feel have been neglected and left to fall into disrepair. Is this just me?

Please please please get the basics in place before branching too far into unknown teritory. It's the simple things that can make the learning experience a pleasure rather than a pain.

That said, a big thank you to ChinesePod and the community. Without you I wouldn't be progressing as well as I am.

I am just fine with the changes. I have used Pimsleur Mandarin 1-3, FSI Standard Mandarin, and checked out numerous other books,websites,etc.

There are quite a few good programs out there - the above mentioned are both excellent in their own way - but Chinesepod is THE BEST....

TONS of material presented in a brief,fun, and informal manner along with a tremendous amount of "Expansion" material to go with each lesson if you choose to delve deeper.

I guess there is truth to "You get what you pay for" and "There are no free lunches!"

I am not a cheerleader - I just know a good resource when I see one. Keep up the great work guys!

FC

@boran:

Good point! Creative Commons Licenses are non-exclusive non-revocable. Any work or copies of the work obtained under a Creative Commons license may continue to be used under that license.

So all old 975 64kbps-podcasts may copied, changed, remixed, republished under the same license (see license details).

Important: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Regarding licensing:

There's nothing to prevent someone from making every podcast available on their own website since they have been already released under the Creative Commons license.  Maybe new podcasts won't be under that license so that can't be sharable but all the existing ones can technically still be shared and distributed by anyone who wishes since the Creative Commons license is non-revocable.

I don't think the change in licensing has been dicussed yet but I see this as a critical thing (even more important than the pricing issue).  Before, teachers could share these podcasts with their students as part of a lesson plan thus intoducing many folks to ChinesePod.  Now, this appears to be not as viable.  Although since there still is such a large back catalog of lessons to share this issue may not become apparent for quite a while.

well...I hope that something to make the characters more than boxes is developed soon too...

until then I´d be happy if at least the latin character comments would show up, ´cause it´s a pain in the @$% to download a rss feed for every conversation and to keep it up to date...

excuter said:

I´m using a sony ericson cybershot (newest generation of it) to download the lessons

But how can you read the text? My SE phone only displays latin characters. According to my knowledge only the iPhone is able to display chinese characters.

As the mobile gadgets become better and cheaper, the use of CP on such a device will be very interesting.

The guy who delivers the bad news is the one who is killed for it first, since ancient times...

I am into the idea of integrating the community in the developing of new resources (using video or what ever) and since I´m using a sony ericson cybershot (newest generation of it) to download the lessons (only possible through the rss feed) during my brakes, I hope that in the near future the development of the mobile site improves that far that I can see the comments of others and not only the original post.

Having said (written...) that, I am realy waiting for the promissed new stuff that lies in wait and wish everyone finds enough value in it to stay and the money to efford it :-)

roscovanbasten wrote:

September 1st, 2008 =
the 3rd year anniversary of ChinesePod.com

If one is interested how the ChinesePod website looked like in September '05, just make a journey back in time and click:

CP after their 5th podcast on Sept. 9, 2005 

The top banner still looks very nice after three years ...

@hape
Correct. The pricing system change really refers to the fact that in order to access non-newbie lessons, payment will be required.

This sentence referring to the Creative Commons content will also be edited to reflect the change commencing September 1st.

You're more than welcome for the clarification. I understand that there is a lot of different changes to consider.

@roscovanbasten:

Thanks for giving details about the changes.

So the sentence in your email

... we will introduce a new pricing system.

is not fully true. It's mainly a change of access to content that is now freely accessible.

What about the license (see http://chinesepod.com/terms)? Will the sentence:

The 64kbps podcast lesson MP3 files are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

be changed or not?

Thanks again for clarification.

Apologies, I made an error as regards the Guided Plan. It is 49USD for a one-off 1 month purchase (29USD a month if you purchase a 2 year subscription).
Sorry for the error, may be the late nights :-)

Is it possible that there is a typo in the premium and guided subscriptions? Shouldn't that be 29 and 49?

Miss Cassie, 不好意思！ I should know better than to assume others needs.  No disrespect intended.

I'm just looking at these changes from a business perspective, and I think it's a smart decision for the company and for its customers.  I think it will (in the longrun) improve the overall CPod experience and add well-deserved income to the coffers of the company and all the hard-working staff, who are constantly striving to make the user experience better.

It's amazing to me that CPod has only been around for 3 years.  What incredible leaps it has accomplished in that time.  These new changes may seem like a step backwards, but CPod is continually striving to make its services better for its customers.  It can't do that if it doesn't have the resources (income) to do so.  I'd rather CPod (and the community) lose some non-paying users, than for the company to be forced to close its doors due to lack of revenue.  CPod has given away a lot for free for a long time...it only makes sense that it couldn't go on forever.  Many start-up companies work this way - it's just business.  Sometimes it's hard to distinguish that CPod is a business, because as we all know, it has this amazing sense of family and community.  But I think it's important to understand that first and foremost, CPod is a company with the goal of making money for it's owners, staff, etc. so that it can provide an incredible service.  I think most of us agree that CPod is an incredible, invaluable service.  This may sound like butt kissing, but it's how I honestly feel.

Cassie...sorry got sidetracked!  I am so happy you will have full access to CPod for at least another year.  There is no question the immense value you add here and there is no money amount that can be put on your contributions.  Thank you (and CPod), and so glad we get to continue learning together.

FAQ regarding free content change:

When will the change come into effect?
September 1st, 2008 (the 3rd year anniversary of ChinesePod.com)

What changes will be made?
Access for free users will be reduced.
Focus will be on providing more valuable services for paying users.

What content will be available to free users?

• Newbie lesson podcasts (old and new - currently 274 lessons as of August 27, 2008)
• Dear Amber podcasts
• News & Features podcasts
• Access to Newbie lesson conversations
• Access to view all lesson conversations
• Access to general conversations (under community section)
• Online dictionary
• Online grammar guide
• Online pronounciation guide
• Listening test
• Access to Groups

What podcasts will be distributed through the public feed on a weekly basis?
2 newbie lessons
1 Dear Amber show
1 News and Features show

Will there be any changes to the content access for Basic, Premium, Guided and Executive Plans?
The only changes are that all of the above mentioned subscription types will be able to access more new content and features in the future, such as video, which will be released in September.
Further improvements to the premium services will be made over time.

Will the prices in any of the subscription types change?
No

How much are the subscriptions?

• Basic: 9USD for 1 month
• Premium: 29USD for 1 month
• Guided: 29USD for 1 month
• Executive: 199USD for 1 month

For more information, see the subscription information page.

What is the minimum cost to access all lessons?
All 1,100+ lessons and the daily additional lessons can be accessed at just 5USD per month (on a 12 month subscription). Other benefits of the Basic subscription are PDF's for all lessons and an RSS customized feed that will send you the lessons that you want.

Well, no matter how many bad reactions your business decision received, you've won at least one new paying customer. As soon as I get my first paycheck, I'll get the Premium subscription, even if this meaning spending one month's salary.

@a1pi2
No offense taken at all. It is a long name to remember! Even though I am not Dutch, I am certainly a fan of Mr. Van Basten - quite a talent he was!!
You quite rightly point out that I haven't been on the community that much even though I am an Upper Intermediate Chinese learner and listen daily.
I am sorry that my first real appearance on the community boards is to inform our users of the change, but I hope that the information I am providing is useful to communicate the message appropriately.
To add to this, anyone can feel free to message me directly through ChinesePod if they want to discuss the change (or Marco Van Basten) offline!

@roscovanbasten: I meant no offense. I haven't noticed you around the community in the past year (though you've certainly been around) and suddenly you're here bearing all the "bad" news. And halfway through a long post I was too damn lazy to scroll up and find your name. My fault entirely, and I apologise.

Marco looks like quite a great man to honor. Looks like he had some fight in him as well as some sport. Thanks for the cultural lesson : )

Brent, I did listen to the free podcasts. Dear Amber and QinWen are my favorite. I remeber that once Qin Wen were for paid users , so I can not listen. When I saw those Qin Wen lessons on the top of community page before, I really wanted to join and see what kind of lesson that attracted so many users. But I can not access to those Qin Wen lessons at that time since I am a free user. I listen to those lessons because I should sure about what have been talked in the lesson and then that will help me to answer your questions about Chinese well.

You are right, I am learning English here in my spare time on chinesepod. For me, both podcasts and community board are very useful. I am not sure about other native chinese, I don't know how they use this site. I can only assure you that I really enjoy learning here with you guys on chinesepod so far. And I should admit that I am a lucky dog that got a special treat from chinesepod. I will keep on trying my best to help you  in the future , although I am not a expert.

@a1pi2
My username is roscovanbasten after the famous Dutch football player from the 1980's, Marco Van Basten. My real first name is Ross, or as they say in China, Rose.

@hanyuxuesheng
I did manage to get some sleep in the end, but it was 3a.m. and I ended up being a little late for work the next morning! :-)
To answer your question regarding responses from the management - John Pasden wrote a detailed response in this thread to provide some details about the rationale behind our decision, which hopefully answered some of your questions.

I myself will have the FAQ for you shortly, I apologize for the delay but, along with our fantastic CRM team, we have been dealing with responding to the comments from our 200,000+ members.

A news and features podcast will also be published in a few days with John, Jenny and Ken discussing the new changes.
Does this help?

Chinesepod is three things for me: high-quality audio, community, and an incredible, innovative business model.

The community, as Auntie68 points out, may be swiftly destroyed by this move. It's nice that CPod identified Most Valuable Poddies (MVPs) to keep them on, but there's not a path for new MVPs to be created. I wonder how ArabicPod will ever get its MVPs given that native speakers have *no* incentive to participate.

The audio will remain valuable. I pay a little for it and the transcripts. I will continue to pay for it and the transcripts as long as the price remains reasonable. I mourn not having the FrenchPod audio anymore but I don't think it's worth even a little money for me personally to try to master one language while learning another.

The business model is what I mourn the most. Since CPod started Ken has been vocal about the revolutionary idea of giving away the crown jewels--the audio--so that you can profit from the supporting texts. I never purchase overpriced audio for textbooks because it's all horrifically low-quality. But there are a thousand books on the market--you can't compete there. Recognizing that you can turn the equation on its head by giving away the audio brought us the CPod revolution. Ken, I'd hoped you'd end up more like Fidel than Mao but I greatly admire you for what you've accomplished.

I think the business model is what the people at Praxis mourn most as well. Everyone knows the value of CPod audio, which is why posts by Jenny and Amber and Roscoshenmeshenme focus on characterizing the value of CPod. Basic subscription is only $5 a month (though it's not: none of 39/6, 69/12 or 129/24 is equal to 5!) That's only 16 cents a day! For an 8-minute daily podcast that's 2 cents a second to hear Jenny's famous voice! It's well worth every penny.

It's easier to criticize than to do so I'll look forward to the value I continue to get from CPod. I just hope you can work through this transition successfully. Even if the community turns into Auntie68's LaoWai Chinese Restaurant CPod audio will remain a reasonable expense for me.

I started casually listening to CPod when there were less than 100 lessons and started paying a year ago. While I never see myself paying for the truly expensive subscriptions I will continue paying for what I need. If this change makes it more likely that CPod can continue, then I support it wholeheartedly.

@calkins: I hear you. Hope you're not wrong! I don't think that the native speakers hang out here for the podcasts, but the high quality of the podcasts does tend to set the right tone and encourage the better-educated native speakers to spend time here, at least at the higher levels where they can post in Chinese and read replies in Chinese too.

roscovanbasten said last night (I hope he was able to get some sleep):

More detailed information will be posted tomorrow to answer all the questions which are arising through this conversation section.

I really don't understand the silence of Praxis' and ChinesePod's management. No official statements, no explanations, no FAQ about the coming changes until now.

Auntie, I may be wrong, but I don't think many native speakers come here for the free podcasts.  I think they come here to improve their English in the conversations.  This is obviously a win-win situation...they improve their English and help us improve our Chinese.

I don't think these changes will greatly affect natives or their added value to the community.  They will still be able to read/post comments in many different places.  It doesn't really hurt them that they can't post on higher level lessons (they can still get the English they need in other conversations).  Yes, it does hurt everyone else, but I don't think greatly.  I'd be willing to guess that the majority of posts from natives (Cassie for example) are not in lesson conversations, they are in general conversations where non-paying users will still be able to post. 

So I think we'll still receive the amazing native insights we get from Cassie, Sophie, Zhanglihua, etc.

melen wrote:

One hour of Mandarin lessons in Canada was $25/hour. In Taiwan, the cheapest I could find was $7-10/hour. Add to that the price of lesson materials, CDs, and the cost of transportation.

You compare podcasts plus pdfs ($9/m) for learning on your own with one-to-one lessons with qualified teacher? If you compare, then compare those lessons with the Executive Plan ($199/m). And with this plan you will not learn writing characters and grammar.

For a full-time high school student, I regret not signing up for a Premium subscription. However, I welcome CPod's change in the Newbie thing.

My Mandarin for the past 2-3 months improved because of CPod. And because of CPod, I plan to take a Chinese degree in college.

When I graduate HS, I promise to subscribe...:P I'm gonna need CPod for my AB Chinese degree...:) (1 & 1/2 years to go). Woohoo!

I guess that I'll have to make full use of my 2 month group award.

@mandomikey: I can easily afford the $5.00 per month. My question all along has been: What if this lousy $5.00 turns CPOD into the equivalent of the sad Chinese restaurant with not one single Chinese customer? It's a "what if", of course, so we don't know the answer. For me, an important part of learning Mandarin "on my terms" with CPOD is being able to read (and learn from) all-Chinese posts by native speakers who have been drawn to the comments threads by the high quality of the free podcasts.

@melen: I get you now, thanks. Wish you all the best, okay?

Obviously learning Mandarin is very important to many of the users here, including me, but not up there with the necessities, such as rent and food. All I meant to say was that compared to some of the other non-life-sustaining things people spend their money on, CPOD for $5/month is good value.

Perhaps for every person who stands up and says "$5 is not a big deal", they could donate that amount to someone for whom "$5 is a big deal".  Its not very fair of people to assume that we all share the same financial situation.  At the very least, this board provides people the opportunity to do a little venting and reconciling with the idea that something that was once free for so long will no longer be.  This will cetainly sort itself out with time, but it should be expected that there is going to be some resistance.  Looking at is another way, Free-> $5 per month is 500% mark-up!*

*I know I know... that math sucks. 

I was really surprised to see this negative reaction. Maybe because I am a paying subscriber already I didn't think too much about the recent email. I looked at it again and still don't see the problem. This is how I look at it. One hour of Mandarin lessons in Canada was $25/hour. In Taiwan, the cheapest I could find was $7-10/hour. Add to that the price of lesson materials, CDs, and the cost of transportation. As some other users I also live in Asia and am on a very tight budget. I know some here do not like the dollar for dollar comparisons but when I think of what 5 dollars can buy, even in poorer countries, I think CPOD is still giving us a good deal.

I'd love to support Cpod by getting a paid subscription, but I'm a poor student lacking any hard currency (T_T).

it seems that a very high sense of entitlement has developed. I dont hear CPOD getting much thanks for what they have given away free for so long. This is a business decission, it is their decission, and the risk is theirs as well. They have the numbers and hopefully it was well thought out. In addition, opinions that cover the entire spectrum from pure altruism to cold hard business have been offered them as food for thought. Lets hope they thoughtfully consider all of them. Myself I tend to land with Henning, goulniky, and Lordstanley. Im sorry, but business is business and the cost of a basic subscription is not out of line in my opinion, regardless of what metric you use. If better basic deals could be offered, and that would be helpful, then by all means this should be considered.There is the world as I would like it to be, and the world as it really is. I struggle with this more than most I think but here I am having little trouble understanding what is being done. Sure it would be nice to accomodate everyone, but I want the business to succeed and thrive as well. Reaching balance in this regard is the job of CPOD management. Lets hope they are making the right choices. I am again dissappointed however in the way they choose to communicate change. This too has been commented on above and I hope management gives this some thought going forward.

I think the sheer fact some many people are up in arms about this is because the product is so good and the alternatives are well....not.

In the west $5 a month is certainly nothing, even for people unemployed in the UK, it is nothing!! Unfortunately there is no way of pricing things differently for Asia and the west. This all boils down to that great phrase "You pay for what you get".

It's definitely disappointing to be charged for something that was once free, but I am on board - I think it is reasonable to pay the Basic level fee to be able to hear and comment on the most recent higher level lessons.

I do want to thank Ken, Jenny, John, Amber and all the ChinesePod folks for all the hard work they've put into the podcasts and the ChinesePod service as a whole.  For all their hard work it's only natural and human nature to hope for a reward, which I believe is wholly deserved.  Well done and thank you.

I have been a ChinesePod subscriber for two years, first as a Premium subscriber and then as a Basic subscriber.  I've always felt that ChinesePod was a valuable service to me, and, like a previous user had said, I will continue to subscribe as long as I'm interested in learning Chinese and I feel like I am making progress.

Although I usually lurk in the background, I have been reading all the comments, and it does hurt me to see the community so divided.  And I find myself agreeing with people on both sides of the aisle. 

Might I humbly offer some thoughts to the current discussion?  Obviously, there is no perfect analogy or comparison, but here's some food for thought...

- Could more be achieved with a carrot approach rather than with a stick approach?  Rather than restrict non-paying users from content, are there ways to entice them to subscribe?  As Auntie described, can the perceived value of the Basic and Premium subscriptions be improved without having to diminish the value of the baseline Free accounts?  By pricing, or by improved content?

In the music world, artists like NIN, Radiohead and Coldplay have experimented quite successfully with giving away free content and received a much better reception from fans when compared to the heavy-handed RIAA tactics.  Also, sites like Last.fm, Pandora and Musicovery let you stream music for free, and offer paid upgrades.  Could ChinesePod lead the way with new ways of doing business to go along with its innovative new ways of teaching?

- The idea of open source and public license software has been great revenue generators for companies like Red Hat, Novell, IBM and Sun who publish and give away their software for free but sell support, customization and integration services.  Can the altruistic goals of improving language acquisition and education synergistically reinforce your business goals for your company?

- Is the anticipated conversion rate of non-subscribers to subscribers higher than the ill-will that is being generated amongst paying customers and potential paying customers? 

I used to design toys for a small startup, and I witnessed so much time, financial and emotional capital expended to prevent unauthorized copying of our products by shady companies in China.  Most of the effort did not really make a difference to our bottom line (except for huge expenditures on lawyers and private investigators), but yet resulted in so much negative energy around the office. 

There are loads of similar stories about software piracy and the ill-will generated by the BSA. 

But perhaps your greatest asset isn't your hardware or software - your podcasts or your online lessons - but rather your wetware - your drive, passion, innovation, willingness to change, learning methdology, your staff, and yes, your community.

For example, can you expand the community contribution to allow for such things as user-generated videos, audio, mashups, etc?  Help us help you generate content, for free.  The greatest value of the open source community is the incredible amount of user generated content people donate.  Is there any way to leverage this idea with ChinesePod?

Obviously, I don't know all the things you've considered to come to this decision.  And I do wish that ChinesePod becomes hugely successful and takes over the world with it's guerilla learning strategies.

I will continue to support ChinesePod as a paying customer. 

But I can't help but feel that a large, unquantifiable part of the user experience will be lost forever with this change.  What will happen?  Who knows?  I hope you guys are right.

You are the stewards of your company and will make the decisions you feel appropriate to continue and grow your business.  The risk and the benefit both are all yours.  Who are we to tell you what to do?  But, is there an opportunity to improve your business while advancing more altruistic goals?  Perhaps.

"Be kind whenever possible.  It is always possible."

- Dalai Lama

Peace,

Ifung

i agree on a 3 month deal being a good thing

Lordstanley, indeed internet cafes are sometimes really expensive, and moreover rubbish (no USB ports/slow/no Chinese fonts/no Flash etc) hence why I let my subscription lapse because even if it is cheap, there's no point paying for something you can't use effectively, though I did manage to download a podcast every now and then, which was nice. I was just thinking it's a little bit of a shame because I reckon some of these guys that were travelling probably would go home and continue learning, whereas it seems less likely now. They'll (and other people, like students) probably just find another product that is free, even if it's not as good. I don't think that the basic subscription is particularly expensive, but I think I would have needed more than Newbie lessons to hook me in. Newbie and Elementary was enough to turn me into a subscriber.

I think definitely the saddest thing is that non-subscribers can't now comment on stuff, more so than being asked to spend a few pounds (damn the weakening pound!)

You know what would be cool though? In addition to one month and then 6 month deals, a three month deal would be really handy. That's about the limit of my planning ahead!

"Companies who don't innovate die" (Chesbrough, 2006). Changes are scary, but they are not always bad and often necessary :-). I am very curious about the writing and HSK part, that's why I now still have traditional teachers. During my 2 months outside China I only studied via Cpod and have not been touching my books (bad!). For me that says a lot. Personally I think the prices are fair, but maybe it is possible to address different personal circumstances more by differentiating prices somehow? People in China pay a fair amount in RMB’s, Europeans in € and others in $ and so on? No idea how you implement this differentiation exactly, but just a suggestion i think the idea gets across.
I find it a bit unfair that people who live in different parts of the world pay approximately the same price (although I understand why) but their incomes are very different. It would be nice if there was more balance and anyone could afford a subscription i.e. by paying a reasonable percentage of their income. 5$ might be nothing for a lot of people, but I think there still are a lot of people who have to think about spending that. From reading the comments, understandably, not everyone is able or willing to. I wouldn’t mind paying the amount in Euro’s in stead of Dollars: I think it is worth it.
Also I was wondering what happened if you make the Basic subscription just 1$? That shouldn’t scare away anyone and if you really believe in your product, you are sure that people will pay extra for other (new) valuable features?

Kudos on a long overdue move! IMHO, the podcasts alone are worth the price of the premium subscription, and much cheaper (and more flexible!) than taking local classes.

I still think it is a good idea to have 5-10 selected "sample" lessons for each level so that more advanced students can continue to sample chinesepod, it would be a shame for future students to listen to the free podcasts and have the impression that chinesepod is just for newbies.

The HSK prep development sounds quite fascinating to me... look forward to see what developments lie ahead!

Sorry, hape,

What I meant was only that I think paying 5 dollars for one month of daily Chinese lessons is a very reasonable price, especially in relation to the cost of other language classes, etc. :)

amber said:

The only difference is that now you pay a measly 5 bucks for a whole month of lessons!!   :)  With inflation as it is, that's basically nothing!

It's not "nothing". With the current inflation and the last prize rises, it's time to save money - not to spend it. Maybe in China it's different.

And I don't like to compare a subscription fee with the price of a Starbucks Caffe Latte I never would buy.

david,

not the catalogs are distributed free of charge here, but the bikes.

Many years ago when I was in the bicycle business, we gave away catalogs free to the bicycle dealers who bought our line.  We spent thousands of dollars printing catalogs, and it just did not seem worth it.  Being responsible to our shareholders, and always looking for a way to save a buck, we decided to start charging for the catalogs - not a lot, only USD $0.25 each, but enough to cover our cost, and to make the customer appreciate the catalog as an item with some value.

Sounded like a good idea at the time, but the result was less catalogs being distributed, less customer impressions, and ultimately, less bikes sold.  We ultimately reversed the decision, and recovered our lost sales.

In today's internet world, the printed catalog is no more; but the lesson learned may well apply in this case.  The exposure to Chinesepod and the community created by all the participants (including the non-paying ones), has made Chinesepod what it is, and it is part of why I have been a paying subscriber for over 2 years.  What will happen when the "free subscriber" base evaporates is anybody's guess.  I imagine many will just look elswhere for Chinese language help, or give up altogether.

I love Chinesepod, and will continue to support it.  I rarely post a comment or question, but I do read most of the comments in the lessons I study; and  I try to keep a bit on top of the discussions, which often teach me a lot about current issues and ways of thinking in modern China.  I have no idea what percentage of the particpants are members.

Chinesepod is ultimately a business, and as such, needs to make money to continue.  It is not a democracy, and Praxis can decide to do whatever it needs to do to move ahead.  We can complain, we can comment, but ultimately, the only way we can "vote" on the matter is by choosing to continue to participate or not.  As we used to say when I was young, you can "vote with your feet", and just walk away.

It will be curious to see how this decision changes Chinesepod.  I really have no idea how the development of the program was influenced by non-paying participants, but I suspect it will make a change in the community aspects of the program.  Whatever the case, I will be here until my Chinese gets a lot better, or I lose interest.

I will miss the comments of Auntie, and hope she will reconsider her decision to leave; but I understand her viewpoint, and respect her opinion.  She has provided a great insight into this difficult subject matter, and has helped to bring a human element to many of the social/cultural aspects of the discussions.  I cannot thank her enough for that.

As much as the new lessons, what has kept me coming back day after day is the liveliness of the discussion, the variety of people from every locale and walk of life - the arrogant, the angry, the shy, the students, the teachers, the people like me who stay to the sidelines and just absorb it all.  It is all a part of the virtual reality that is the world of Chinesepod.  In the words of Cyndi Lauper, "Money changes everything...".  I hope it does not change Chinesepod too much.  I really have enjoyed the eclectic community it has created.

david

Well said, John.  I think the one thing that had been lacking in this discussion thus far was a response from CPod that combined both sense and sentiment in a straightforward manner. 

u4132534,

the core demographic of CP are students, cheap ass students who are savvy to know about the web’s plentiful free resources,

That is not quite correct.

Our CRM data yields an interesting description of a ‘typical’ ChinesePod subscriber:a 30-something/American/male/professional.

Ken Caroll, Dec. 2006

I'd like to share some of my thoughts on this.

When I started at ChinesePod, I was all about offering everything for free. I wanted all of our new features to be free. I wanted to make the greatest service ever for learning Chinese, and I wanted it available to everyone.

Obviously, I was being a bit idealistic. The company has always been a business. Offering free content is a means to an end, not the end itself. What is free, what is basic, what is premium... these are all about balance. They're business decisions.

Even so, when the idea of not giving away so many podcasts for free first came up, I was a bit shocked as well. Those things have always been free. But considering the amount of time and effort Ken, Jenny, Connie, Jiaojie, Amber, David the sound guy, Joy the sound girl, and a lot of other people (including me) put into every single podcast, it is a little strange that it's all for free. From a business perspective, it's a huge, regular investment on a product that is just given away.

Now, I know, there are reasons to give it away. But there are also a lot of compelling reasons not to give it all away. Those are business decisions. Yes, this change is a risk, but that's business too.

On a personal level, a shift in focus to the paying users allows me to concentrate on some aspects of the service that have been neglected for far too long. Video is an exciting medium that offers a lot, but brings with it new challenges. I've seen what other educational sites are doing with video, and quite frankly, it's unimpressive. Just filming stuff and adding subtitles does not a compelling, cognitive lesson make. So it's great to be able to sit down with "learning guru" Ken and "creative genius" Marco to really try new things in a new medium. Premium users are in for a variety of videos that will be experimenting with different styles of learning.

Furthermore, I've recently been tasked with "filling out" the ChinesePod team in order to do more. We want Amber to have more free time to do cool stuff (more interviews on the street, maybe?), and we have plans to start proper treatment of writing and HSK prep. We'll finally have the resources to give the Grammar Guide the attention it deserves (and grammar tag the whole archive). It's not coincidence that key team members have purchased iPhones recently either.

We will always be grateful to our supporters who couldn't pay but contributed to the community in other ways. But by tailoring a service too much to the free users and not to the paying users, we're endangering the existence and continued development of the service. I know you free users don't mind the attention, but as a company we have been guilty in the past of somewhat neglecting the service that people actually pay for. As a growing business, we can't keep doing it.

For me, one of the biggest justifications of developing the business (even when it means offering less for free) is that this company is doing new things. We're actually trying to improve the way people learn languages. Yes, our competitors may be offering free lessons, but how many of them are really innovating? For me, it makes all the difference. This is the company that set the standard for language-learning podcasts. I'm proud to work here, and I truly thank those of you that support us and enable us to keep going and keep growing.

I was a premium subscriber for two years while I lived in Taiwan. Last year, about this time, I stopped as I moved to Tokyo. Through no fault of japanesepod101.com,  I restarted my subscription to Chinesepod just four days ago. I happen to prefer learning chinese even though I live in Tokyo.

 It is good to be back and see/hear old friends as well as new passionate poddies. The price to pay for a premium membership is not a hardship for me. But I can understand the difficulty for some. But as Amber mentioned, $5 a month can not be too much for almost all.

 I have been in the High Tech field for over 30 years and it is important to always be innovating. So it is understandable that CPOD needs resources to do that. I would expect they know how the numbers work.

 When I left a year ago it was all about 2.0; now it is all about mobile learning. So keep moving CPOD.加 油

If I could have one request ;  Would it be possible to put out a roadmap of planned enhancements? In some high tech fields it is easy to guess/know what is coming. Here it is not so clear. And CPOD is not going to become Apple in the near future with multiple Apple Rumor sites.

  Speaking of Apple as an example : is it wise to start saving my beer/sake money for an i-Touch/i-Phone if most of the enhancements are going this way? Or are most of the coming enhancements going to be directed to sitting in front of a pc?

  I already carry a Palm with Pleco Software everywhere which I purchased purely to support Chinese learning on the go. Wenlin sits on my pc at work and my Apple in the apartment. The Palm along with a NanoPod keeps me very entertained on the subway.

  The only value for me in an i-Touch would be if it supported by chinese learning habit.

So CPOD share a little detail of the vision.

Amber: I hate when my chinese tutor says "since coming here your chinese has improved so much" blurring the line between salesman and teacher (unless done in a tongue-n-cheek way –aka john) really does diminish credibility.

Auntie: you have a loads of credibility

Kenny: he bangs on about new features, which must only be able to go ahead if this new model is a success, and prey what are these new “fantastic features”. The pods and community, and if paid the pdf is what 90% of the visitors want. Grammar? A million better free sites out there. The new features boast is obviously a smokescreen to strip the free content away from the accursed “freeloaders”.

lordstanley Your Business models cases were static, a critical advantage of the old free model was the massive inflow of new customers and the long term freeloaded who occasionally paid. And I’m really skeptical about notions of “five-year expansive policies” and “desperate need to profit”, the core demographic of CP are students, cheap ass students who are savvy to know about the web’s plentiful free resources, this new course is more aimed at western executives and ex-pats.

Henning: do you like muppet more mate? Drone too harsh? It’s NOT a personal insult and its not the cosyness in the community that I’m referring to.

The system was great, why radically change it? Iphones? What about the good-will generated by the mission to teach.

I'm very much a 'lurker' I guess, but one who wants to say upfront what a great product CPod is, and what great hosts, presenters and teachers John, Jenny, Ken, Connie et al. are. I've learned so much from you and I want to thank you.

Like others, I was saddened to get the email. I totally understand the reasons for making the change though. The thing is, when you spend a little time here, you do get the feeling of a warm and human community. I think this mostly comes from the posts of users like auntie68 and changye and pinkjeans and others like them. The somewhat blunt, brusque, 'business style' of the corporate decision makers + the seemingly without warning nature of this and other recent changes seem (to me anyway) to jar and clash with that sense of community and end the illusion. Shame.

I have lived and worked in China since 2004. I earn around RMB5000 a month. When I first joined I really wanted to get the premium subscription, but I have to say it was just too big a slice out of one month's money. I have often noticed people (almost certainly folk living and working in the US or other western countries) saying stuff like: 'Oh come on, $239 a year is nothing, it's like drinking coffee in Starbucks, it's like a night out in a bar, how can anyone say it's too much... blah blah blah...' Well for me it's too much, and I'm not even going to try and argue with anyone about why, it's just a fact.

(There are parts of the site that only seem to be available to Premium subscribers which imho often do not work properly or are poorly designed. eg. The exercise section appears onscreen in a tiny eyestraining font which cannot be enlarged. This section in many of the older lessons contain stupid errors which stop it from working and are never corrected. The expansion page sounds will never play in my Firefox browser. I have to use IE (which I hate) to listen to them.)

OK, the basic subscription. Well, I'm seriously thinking about taking that up now, even though I never have before. (I don't wanna say goodbye to CPod. I like it too much and I learn too much from it to really do without it as long as I live in China.) I never have before because I think what you get for it is not sufficient. As I understand it for the Basic Sub you get the podcast mp3, the dialogue mp3, and the pdf, right? Plus the ability to read and participate in discussions. Well imho the basic should include access to the expansion sentences page (which I personally find really useful, in spite of having to use IE to hear them.) And the mp3fix too, maybe for a little bit more cash. Why on Earth can't the 'powers that be' listen to auntie's totally sensible suggestion of making the basic sub a better deal. If they did I cannot believe that many more people would be willing to fork out.

Yes, there are people out there putting torrents together of all the podcasts and the pdfs. And there are folk downloading them who don't pay CPod a cent.

Yes, there are people who just change their email address and get the trial week again. And again. And again. And download like crazy as long as it lasts. (And yes auntie it is possible to do that.)

I've tried to be honest here, it's not my intention to get anyone's teeth grinding. In my own way I'm trying to give some valuable data. Anyway there it is. Most like I won't say any more.

For myself I don't really want to be like that (any more.) Btw I only 'discovered' CPod about 6 months ago now.

From my own standpoint, I welcome this change. 

CPod is a product, like any other product.  It boils down to value...if you see value in a product and can afford it, then you will pay for it.

Like any product, there are people who won't see enough value in it to pay for it.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with that - you'd rather spend your money on something that has more value to you.  Plain and simple.  I'd like to buy a new car, but I'd have to give up too many other important things in my life to do that right now.  There's not enough value in having a new car for me to justify sacraficing the other things to attain it.

I think that if a new user is serious about learning Chinese, who comes to CPod for a 7-day trial, and likes it (sees enough value in it as a product), then he or she would be willing to pay $9 for an additional month to explore the tools here.

As for all past users who have been using the site for free (nothing wrong with that), they already know the incredible value of ChinesePod.  If the tools are valuable enough to them, then they will pay.  If they aren't, then they won't (again, nothing wrong with that).  This includes native Chinese (who I agree add immense value to the site) - if learning English here is valuable enough to them, then they too will pay.

I beleive this change will add more value for paid subscribers.

By the way: I wonder if it is a good idea to primarily sell CPod under the "podcast" label, because it indeed has the connotaiton of "a dime a dozen". But this is a professional education ressource. Not some arbitrary audio stream from somebody sitting at home in front of his notebook micro talking about whatever comes to his mind.

The competition are not other podcasts but a mixture of professional trainings and all those RosettaStones, Assimils and whatever they are called.

Now, Mr. Simpson, we are getting to the real questions:

How did CP survive for 3 years successfully on the free/selective model?

I asked myself that one quite a few times.

Do the math: Almost all halfway healthy companies in the IT/consulting/education sector I've seen come with a turnover of about 100,000 € per employee and year.

Praxis has how many employees now? 35? 45? Translate that into a number of premium subscriptions.

Now in China labour costs are undeniably lower than here in Europe, but still: those are not your migrant workers applying lead paint to cheap plastic. We are talking about highly qualitfied teachers and developers, many of them LaoWai, who are encouraged to buy an IPhone from their salary.

I was relieved to notice that Ken is not talking about "thousands of paying customers" in his presentations anymore but about "thousands of premium customers". Which means we should probably be between 2000 and 5000 premium poddies now. Still, "tenthousands of premium customers" would be closer to the number needed.

I don't worry about the competition as it has to adhere to the same simple laws of logic. And with the economic downturn, venture capital also stops to flow and those charging not enough will dry out very soon.

It doesn't help insulting other poddies to be "paid" "drones" or "corporate mouthpieces" . Those are the serious questions which need to be asked. Whether or not the degree of cozyness in the community goes down a bit is absoultly secondary compared to this.

No, Auntie68, I'm no executive, but I used to be a customer before I worked here, and I can't believe that you would feel that our podcasts are not worth 5 bucks a month?  i dont know how anyone can feel that is a hardship, considering what we provide for 5 dollars.

Amber, are you CPOD's marketing executive now? ;-)

With inflation as it is, that's basically nothing!

I'm going to make myself a T-shirt with that quote. Best thing about it is that you can insert any numbers you want. Nice one. Very thoughtful and intelligent. Now I can buy that Ferrari I've always wanted, on an instalment plan.

Hey Poddies,

Does everyone realize that what you got for free before, now only costs $5 a month?  (if you buy a year at a time)  or $9 a month if you go month-to-month? 

I think that's practically the same as free!  If you want more, you can pay more, just as before (premium, guided, etc.).  The only difference is that now you pay a measly 5 bucks for a whole month of lessons.   :)  With inflation as it is, that's basically nothing!

@lordstanley: I'm no businessman, unlike you, so my way of seeing the issue is more simple and naive. What about a scenario C where the user base is still broad, but many more of those users are locked in as loyal, paying subscribers (albeit at a more reasonable subscription rate)? Surely that is more conducive to stability?

Even Barack Obama knows how this works. His contributers' individual donations tend to be small, but there are enough of them for him to beat any of his rivals at fundraising. And when he needs a big jolt of cash, he has the luxury of being able to turn to them because they're not tapped out, as individuals.

I'm not in a position to say that this might apply to CPOD, but I simply cannot understand why they never even attempted to mine the "overseas Chinese" market. If they did, it passed me over entirely.

U4135234, companies "sell out" as you put it for the same reason that people do, no? I left university after graduation and later gave up the backpackers' circuit - both of which I enjoyed immensely and had a great sense of community - to enter the workforce and make a living. But I'm guessing that if any business is told of an alternative business model better than the one they've chosen, they'd be all ears. So can you think of a better way of ChinesePod significantly maximizing revenue than this new pricing model? Mando's idea of advertising could be viable, and has been tried by other companies, but I bet it would be fine to some users and resisted by other users. Or are you convinced that, as you wrote, ChinesePod is "booming" and that up until now has had a "(great) business model." I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not sure you're right either. Using made-up numbers, as I have no knowledge of or interest in ChinesePod's financials, imagine the two scenarios for a fictitious company:

Scenario A - 100,000 total users - 90,000 non-paying visitors, 10,000 paying customers; company bankrupt or forced into layoffs 12 months in future because below breakeven point of 15,000 paying customers

Scenario B - Drop in popularity to 40,000 total users -  10,000 non-paying visitors, 30,000 paying customers (i.e, revenue tripled, increased costs of providing enhanced services likely offset by decreased costs from serving fewer total visitors); company profitable and slowly expands for next five years because above breakeven point of 15,000 paying subscribers.

I'd take Scenario B every time, not only if i was the business owner but also if I was a customer of the business. Of course, users who object have the perfect right to not convert into a paying membership, or to stop visiting the site altogether, or even to start up a rival site - that's the risk ChinesePod is taking. And no one - not you, not ChinesePod, not I - at this point can know for certain whether that risk will pay off.  You happen to think it won't, I happen to think it will, but we just don't know. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, as maybe you're as likely to be right as I am. I'm just intrigued about whether this decision will succeed or fail and of course am hoping for the former. I guess only time will tell.

@ sebire
You did not receive the email as on your profile you selected to not receive ChinesePod notifications. We did not want to spam people who had opted out of receiving our information emails.
We will, however, look to inform all other users through further communication over the next few days.

How did CP survive for 3 years successfully on the free/selective model? I just hate when great ideas/business models sell out like this, like ebay milking a community which built itself (and forcing paypal down ppls throat), and record companies spending all their time chasing pirates instead of improving their own business model/product. 

1) This talk of 'improving' CP is BS, no one would trade in the community for videos (videos of what exactly?, can i see john's magnificant chin in real time?). The idea the community is being preserved by 'buying up' a few star posters will later taint their opinion for me and the RANGE of opinions will undoutably shrink.

2) The lurker's word of mouth (200k strong?) and the lurker who comes into the tent occasionally will not be offset by a handful of users who give in to this "pay-or-get-out" tactic. Most will simply torrent the lessons and ignore the comment boards.

CP will not die quickly, but it will not improve and will lose a large chunk of its userbase.

Lord Stanley... I would gladly scroll through web ads and perhaps even uber-annoying pop-ups if it meant podcasts remained free.  Most of us endure the same for free email on yahoo/gmail/etc., search engines, and all sorts of other online content.  As someone who absolutely never clicks on said ads, I've always wondered how such companies were able to stay afloat on such a strategy, yet it must work and its very little skin off my back.  I'm holding out hope that this was an option that had been explored prior to reaching this decision. 

I understand both the animosity towards the new business model as well as the defense of it.  ChinesePod/Praxis has done such a remarkable job of brand-building and creating such respect and acclaim for theirs in such a short (3 yr.) period of time.  Oftentimes brands of laundry detergents, granola bars, or whatever will give out free samples for a limited time to create awareness for their product.  I think in ChinesePod's case, they've been giving away the podcasts for so long that they stopped feeling like one-off samples and started feeling like divine right to the users.  Seems so many people were caught by surprise because they were conditioned that way: to expect the samples to just keep coming.

I'm not an impulse buyer.  It took me 6 months of monkeying around as a free user before I decided to drop cash down for a premium 6 month  membership (which admittedly has now lapsed).  For myself, the 7 day trial did nothing to help me make my decision to upgrade... rather, it was the 6 months of window-shopping before feeling secure in the quality and consistency of the product.  ChinesePod is a great product, and like Sebire, I have recommended it (and its sister pods) to many others in the market for language learning.  However, I'm selfishly discouraged that the curtains on free content seem to be drawing shut.

hah, i'm wondering what the praxis office discussion went like about who to include on the list.. :)

auntie, i understand your feelings about this free sub issue. it is a sad day though as i don't see how new fluent speakers will ever come onboard again.

Hello lordstanley. I do agree with you, absolutely, that people should pay. In fact, I am a paying user. However, a starting price of USD$69 just doesn't make sense to some users, especially -- I suspect -- overseas Chinese lurkers and PRC citizens on local PRC salaries. Our needs are simply different; one of the first things I did after learning that I had been upgraded to "Premium", was to try out the fabled Expansion feature. My verdict was: I just don't need or want it. All I want is pdfs, full lesson MP3s (without ads), and dialogue-only MP3s (without ads), and the opportunity to learn from native speakers on the comments threads.

Regarding the value added by volunteer native speakers: For me, it's priceless. I'm at that stage in my Mandarin studies where I really benefit from reading Chinese written by native speakers.

CPOD heroes like xiaohu and goulniky, who have far bigger vocabularies than I do, can write dozens of chinese-only lines of comments using a lot of sophisticated vocabulary, but you can tell right away that they aren't native speakers.

Native speaker users like cassielin or sophie or zhanglihua (and also changye, who has acquired native fluency) stand out because they write simple and clear Mandarin that sounds... Chinese. Sometimes I even jot down some of the expressions they use, simply because it seemed like such a nice way of putting things.

CPOD deserves only praise for trying to keep these native speakers "in the family" by offering them free subscriptions. But I just don't feel comfortable with the idea of cherry-picking local volunteers.

the move seems to be a risk but worth a try if it's necessary for salvation.

some ideas to go along with this move:

-make the same base 30-50 lessons available for everyone, no trial length. prevents the multiple account problem, since people can still only access the standard 30-50 lessons on a trial/new account.

-podcast credit buying system. 99 cent/10 cent podcasts. would prevent full access to several years of study material for one-time payment of $9 as exists now.

-"intro-chat" + dialog-only mp3s available for non-subscribers with an ad at the end. no full-length mp3s above newbie still.

-henning or zhang, i like the lesson overview summary, key points idea

keeping the comment posting closed for lessons not available to listen is probably a wise decision. it will help cut down on the 'why can't i play the mp3' posts.

definitely could have used a somewhat personalized email as in Dear Mike, as currently every other e-newsletter i get starts with.

Fair enough, Sebire, I was just speculating. And speculating without perfect information can result in wrong conclusions.

I've told tons of people about ChinesePod too. I see your point about backpackers. I was a backpacker years ago (before podcasts, before the Web, almost before fax machines, lol) and I remember every dollar was tight. But at $9 per month for a Basic subscription, I would think that many backpackers run up that much in Internet cafe fees alone each month. I'm sure the number of casual ChinesePod users will drop off, but just am not sure that that that will negatively impact the experience for paying subscribers or negatively impact ChinesePod's bottom line. I'd rather have audio access restricted to paying users than to have the ChinesePod podcasts interrupted by Coke or McDonald's commercials six minutes in or to have Ken and Jenny wearing Nike ball caps and Exxon Mobil polo shirts in all their photos so that ChinesePod can pay the bills.

Lordstanley, even with a subscription, the Intermediate lessons went way over my head! I'm really glad they're that bit easier these days.

Excuter, I agree that ChinesePod introducing a variety of price rates could be a good idea, if the logistics of that are simple enough to work out.

As long as people pay something. In my business, I have found that after a free consultation or two we always insist upon a monthly retainer, as we have found that people tend to value and respect a product or service they pay for more than one they get for free. I'm not saying that people are cheap if they don't want to make the annual fee a priority. That's their choice. We constantly face choices about how many cable channels to subscribe to, if and from where we buy our morning coffee, whether to subscribe to a daily newspaper, watch a movie at the theatre or on DVD, etc. I just want to show the other side of the coin, that as a paid subscriber I welcome this move by ChinesePod if it means a better product or service received by us and if it helps give ChinesePod the financial resources to survive and thrive. I wonder, for example, if the pressure to make the Intermediate lessons easier was driven by non-paying users (I suspect it could have been, because paid users with access to expansion exercises and transcripts and dialogue-only MP3s probably had enough tools to manage to keep up); if so, that had an impact on the ChinesePod experience for paying users.

I didn't even get this email! I've had to let my subscription lapse over the past few months, but I've told loads of people about all the Pods to those interested in French/Spanish etc while I've been away, and that was the whole point - there was loads of content available for free. It's a shame, because I've met so many people saying "yeah, I'm going to South America and I discovered this website Spanishpod on the internet, we're going to use it before we go", and as they were backpackers, they probably are not going to shell out for subscription, or be hooked in like I have. (I suppose it's the same for all the other Pods too?)

I know for a fact that if I had discovered CPod with only free Newbie lessons, then the chances of me subscribing would be incredibly low. I would probably have just trawled the internet for something else that was free. It was only after about a month of Elementary lessons that I got myself a subscription.

I can't believe I didn't even get the email :( Guess I need a new job now too!

I received the generic letter "Dear Friend of Chinesepod"....no personalized letter since I don't post often in the Discussion Section.

I'm a Premium subscriber and will continue to be, because the service has vastly improved my Chinese language skills within a relatively short timeframe. If you are serious about language learning, the cost should be a secondary consideration.

I only hope that CPOD, with this new pricing strategy has considered its competition. There are still some decent Chinese podcasts (ie: chineselearnonline that offer free downloads). Hopefully, CPOD won't sacrifice too many existing users to the competition.

@ lord stanley, the pdf´s normaly don´t make it into my daily study due to the limited amount of time I have for it, so the optimum would be a lesson subscription or a lesson flatrate (like 100 lessons=x € / pound / Dollar... )

regarding the payment: I enjoy using the paypal method and the best about paypal is that it automatically exchanges the money from one into another unit. But I still think that chinesepod the way that it is now is priceless ^_^

I see the difficulties that come along with this idea and would suggest to only apply the changes to the audio content not to the conversations, but it´s not my decision...and until xx.xx.09 my basic subsciption is saving me from deeper thinking into this...

I only hope to not loose too many cpoddies, I don´t like loosing friends and here is the best (learning-)place for meeting them and getting help from them or just 聊聊.

I think this new pricing model is fair and overdue. If a company doesn't generate enough revenue it will stop producing any content at all, free or otherwise, and there are plenty of examples of Internet pioneers over the past 15 years who met their demise because of that. It seems like ChinesePod is still providing quite a bit of free content.

I see comments about how the non-paying users "support" or "underwrite" ChinesePod, but how exactly? No offense, but with the exception of Cassie (and maybe a couple of more whose names escape me offhand), I tend to discount the  language advice by native speakers on this site who aren't affiliated with ChinesePod- I know from having observed English teachers and having studied other languages that not all native speakers (as well-intentioned as they may be) are qualified to provide reliable language advice. As for the sense of community and commenting, I would guess that the majority of "active" users above the Newbie level want access to transcripts and expansion exercises and have been willing or are willing to pay an  annual free that is only a fraction of a university course tuition fee or equal to a set of language texts/CDs.

@frances
Thanks again for your feedback.
To comment on your first point - free users will still be able to view the vibrant active conversations in all of the lessons. They just won't be able to comment.

I understand what you mean about the selected samples. We will try and provide a few samples for each level so that one can get a good overview of the content.

@urbandweller, I agree with you that CPod made a good decision giving out some premium accounts. Cassie is an asset to the site and deserves a free ticket for as long as she is willing to hang around.

However... the new policies seem like they'll make it harder to attract Chinese speakers to the discussions, most of whom would probably prefer to converse with more advanced Chinese students unless their own English is very advanced.

@roscovanbasten, I don't think that solution will be as good because:

• Allowing access to selected older lessons will not allow users trying the service to experience the vibrant active conversations that are such a vital part of the experience.
• Specially selected samples are always suspect, as they are rarely truly representative. They are usually best-of-the-best selections.

I'm sure that you guys had some good reasons to make the decision that you did, and while I suspect that you will chase away more people than you will convince to upgrade, maybe you are okay with that. I'm sure some users really will take this opportunity to evaluate CPod's value to them and put up the money.

Thank you for your comments urbandweller and user11695

@ Frances
Thank you for your suggestions.
As regards people who are not on the 7-day trial but who want to re-evaluate the premium features, we will have sample lessons for each level.
Hopefully this will help that issue to some extent. 

Also, I think that was a smart business decision on the part of cpod. Native speakers are an integral part of this community of learners.

:)

Congratulations Cassie!! i just read the message about you getting free 1 year subscription from cpod!! That is wonderful and i am so happy for you! You are a a special part of the cpod community and i think everyone will agree that we look forward to learning so much more from you now!!

-Adam

I rarely look at the discussion comments anymore ,finding them mostly tedious and irrelevant. I figure I am only going to live to be 90 and so I concentrate on the Podcast and vocab etc and there is plenty to keep you busy.

The bottom line for me is the product is interesting, varied, lively and value for money.

Delivery of language teaching has for year been moribund and Chinesepod is the most innovative attempt I ‘ve seen in years. Long may you prosper!

I agree with most of the critical comments above.

It seems like someone took some bad advice. It's a disappointment because I fear that this move will do irreparable harm to the brand in some of the ways noted above. How many brands have such a rabid community underwriting their service?

It's also disappointing because I would have expected Chinapod to come up with a more innovative way of boosting revenue other than moving away from the model that made it such a valuable and recommendable service--I'm sure there are less drastic pricing schemes or corporate fat cats that can be exploited out there. To be sure, I'm a marginal voice here--an intermediate level, casual user who does not pay--but I recommend CP to anyone who will listen.  All Chinese learners are embedded in communities of active or potential Chinese learners. 

The free pod casts at all levels are as much a key to CP's sucess as the quality of the lessons and personalities of the hosts. It looks like CP will learn this the hard way, despite the (free) advice of "consultants" such as auntie and lurker. It's a shame, but this move will likely kill the brand and those customers won't come back. It was great while it lasted.

edit: It looks like a lot of this was answered before I posted my comment, but since I can edit but not delete comments, it will have to stand.

Zhanglihua makes a very good point about the one week trial period. If a user doesn't decide to become a paid subscriber after their trial period, because they are still at newbie level, because they don't want to spend the money, or because they just aren't sure about it... it will be very difficult for that same user to re-evaluate the premium features later on.

One suggestion... if you're trying to sell people the more advanced lessons, it's important that they be able to see how the other levels differ from the newbie lessons. You could offer all the lessons for free, but only during the first 24 hours after their initial release. This should be enough to show free users what they may find as paid subscribers, but an intermediate student would have only one lesson a week each week at their level and will not progress quickly without subscribing.

Of course, some people will never pay, but there's nothing you can do about that. From a marketting standpoint, it's a mistake to think of every free user as a lost sale. It would be amazing for CPod if all of those free users could and would upgrade, but the next best thing is to woo them while giving them incentive to stick around.

@lostinasia
Free users will still be able to view the lesson page and the related conversations. They will just be restricted from commenting. 

I will try and answer all as many of your questions as possible. Ken and the ChinesePod team will follow up on my comments in the morning to shed some more light on the change. At 2.07 a.m. on a Tuesday night in Shanghai, I imagine John, Jenny and co. are fast asleep!

@zhanglihua
Sample lessons for all levels will be made available on the site so that anyone can try out the varying content even if they have used up their trial account.

Dear Amber and News & Features will continue to be free. Qing Wen will be a pay for service.

@u4132534
I do work in the marketing and communications department at Praxis Language and apologize if any of the language came across as corporate. I am simply trying to answer questions that have been raised by the community in a clear and simple manner to avoid any confusion.

Nevertheless, I will see that our hosts answer the questions you have posed.

To clarify one point, hanyuxuesheng and Henning were not paid off. Some of our very active users were, however, given an extension to their subscriptions to thank them for their fantastic contributions over the past 3 years. I don't think anyone would complain about recognizing users who have helped both ChinesePod and the community alike on a near daily basis.

@Hape
Today the intention was to make sure that we connected with nearly 200,000 users by email and to get their feedback through the website. More detailed information will be posted tomorrow to answer all the questions which are arising through this conversation section. You are more than welcome to contact me directly or chinesepod@gmail.com if you have any additional specific questions.

As I already mentioned, the ChinesePod hosts will give more feedback tomorrow for any of the questions I have left unanswered.

Will non-paying users at least be able to SEE the Conversations for non-Newbie lessons? Or see what recent lessons there are? I personally think non-payers should be allowed to comment everywhere; they should definitely be allowed to view all Conversations.

I think charging for non-newbie lesson content (podcasts, transcripts) is totally fair, but I think shutting people out of the Conversations could prove a mistake. I know I've drifted away from ChinesePod once or twice, and what's drawn me back was looking in on the Conversations in mid- to upper- levels. I probably wouldn't have come back if I couldn't have seen those. You want to keep the door open for people to return, not slam it shut and lock it as soon as the subscription expires.

On the other hand, some of those lesson conversations do go on and drift more than a little off-topic, so maybe reducing the fun and increasing the pedagogical value would be "good for us".

What wonders me most:

Praxis' or ChinesePod's poor communication strategy.

I would have expected a detailed (with FAQ) announcement from Ken Carroll.

The News Weblog says nothing about the forthcoming changes, too.

Hi hape, I've never said that people shouldn't accept the free Premium subscription. If I chose not to accept the one offered to me, it was my own foolish decision, which I'll probably regret soon! I sincerely hope that nobody will read more into that than these bare facts. HTH. 

@auntie68:

Let ChinesePod give a free Premium subscription to some power posters w/o a subscription to motivate them to stay after 9/01 - it's ok.

The point is: will the "community of learners" stay the same like before? I hope, but I don't expect this, if all lesson discussions (exc. Newbie) are closed!

Is this really needed?

@zhanglihua: I just didn't feel comfortable with the idea of a free subscription, that's not CPOD's fault in any way. However, one big factor -- for me -- was that I was intending to tail down my CPOD membership anyway, to an "unpaid subscription", because I could no longer justify to myself the cost of a paid Basic subscription. That still stands. I've been here for two years, learned many valuable things, but that USD$60 (no, $69!) a year has been buying less and less value over time. Guess it just reached a stage where I couldn't justify the expense any more. And I really don't care if anybody out there says that I'm "cheap" or 小气 for it.

One other consideration (but personal to me, and to me only): I don't fit in at CPOD's  "community of practice" any more... it's been getting too hard lately.

Motivation: Business

This is roscovanbasten's

 hanyuxuesheng and Henning are now paid off.

I hate this corporate language and none of these drones really are addressing the serious questions posed:

Why cant past lessons remain free?

Will future improvements really outweight the obvious drop off in the community (has to be an average of 40+ comments a lesson)

Can non-newbie user who dont pay honestly have a reason to continue to come in

Can john, jenny and Ken please make a statement backing up the statergy of these corporate mouthpieces.

Why is the fee monthly and not flat?

etc etc

The one-on-one attention which is critical comes from the community. The pods themselves are a dime a dozen.

Chris Simpson

-Lurker

Auntie, is the latter a decision you made for personal reasons or are you not satisfied with CP?

@hape: For what it's worth, I'm no "paid user", I am now a regular PAYING "Basic" subscriber again (this was my request), and when my subscription runs out, I won't be renewing it. 

Hmm..comments should be open and so should be the possibility to browse the lessons with intros and meta tags.

Also, to address the valid points zhanglinghua brought up, a more extensive (free) overview of the topics discussed in a lesson would be helpful: A short list of introduced vocab, grammar points, and content; maybe already a more extensive tagging might do?

Hey, I just realised something: What about those who have already signed up but whose trial period has expired? If they continue to use the free podcasts but eventually reach elementary level, they would have to register AGAIN to actually catch a glimpse of what the elementary lessons etc. offer. That would strike me as a bit ridiculous. Don't you care about hundreds of inactive accounts?

Actually I find myself agreeing a lot with u4..... (funny name!) - for example, I have considered paying for FrenchPod, because I want to learn French but struggle with the pronunciation. I can't pay via credit card. I can hardly send over my husband to you when he pays a visit to his company "outpost" in Shanghai to hand over the money in person, can I?  My point is that payment is just an inherent problem of the internet.

I am also worried you might lose a lot of good opportunities. There are free podcasts available, not as good as the CP-ones, but people will turn to them because you don't stand out anymore. AS soon as they're beyond newbie, they won't feel the need to return to you in that case.

Why prevent people from commenting? Is this just a technical issue? Making the comments available might be enticing for those who are not sure whether to upgrade or not!

Have you made QingWen for paying users only again?

I received today the same email like hanyuxuesheng and read this thread.

I think I must invest 9 $ for only two months in a year - 18 $/a just for downloading the audios and pdfs for half a year seems fair (for me). Commenting on lessons is fun and often helpful, but very often it is a distraction from learning (IMHO). So I will not comment anymore - more time to learn :-)

In my expectations the amount of comments will go down dramatically, only a few hardcore users and same very active "paid" users will communicate. 

In my opinion, this step is needed to get more money for Praxis, but for the paying learners it may be a big step backward.

I hope my last expectation will not come true!

Dear Poddies,

Thank you for your support and suggestion every step of the way! Deeply appreciated. We'll work with the same determination and diligence to make CPod the learning tool that truly deserves your support. 

hanyuxuesheng,

你好！I understand where you are coming from. We have a subscription that offers podcast and PDF at $9 a month and $5 on a yearly basis.  http://chinesepod.com/help/subscription 

When I read this post, I was immensely sad at first, but I'm aware that it's the most sensible thing to do. I didn't get notified via email (although I received lesson notifications and so on), so I'm quite surprised by this step.

On the other hand, it will also be necessary to deal with multiple subscriptions, i.e. people who sign up repeatedly with different email accounts to use the trial period again and again. With this new policy, you might see an influx of these people!

The basic subscription seems like a really good deal, but I'm wondering whether ChinesePod is making a loss in general so that they have to cut off the unpaying users. I cannot imagine that anyone has enough money to afford the Guided subscription, though. Would be interesting to see some statistics, e.g. how many users, how many with Praxis Plan, how many Basic subcribers. The people I see comment are some regulars like Henning or xiaohu, but a lot more people who only seem to pop in once or twice. Are they too shy to comment? Are they disappointed if their questions got overlooked? It's strange that such a popular and widely known language podcast seems to have "relatively" few dedicated customers...

Perhaps you can find an alternative way to let native speakers contribute efficiently. (Having a little access to the resources and podcasts helps us give better answers as we will know what has been covered and where deficits might be. Also, we can spellcheck the sample sentences, which are sometimes slightly "off". I'd be more than happy to do tasks like these, to save you work and benefit the learners) If it wasn't for the native speakers and the scores of dedicated, more advanced users, the community would be seriously malnourished and the CP staff would have to put in exponentially more effort. I have no intention of attributing too much value to my own input, but I will try to answer questions on a daily base in the future if I am still allowed to comment then, which I seriously doubt given the policy explained by roscovanbasten.

Keep up the great work and may your business run smoothly.

To the students: Even if you don't like the idea of having to pay of studying Chinese (there is no such thing as a free lunch, why should there be 1000s of free Mandarin lesson?!) - you owe it to yourself and when you come to China one day you will receive much more in return. ;-)

@hanyuxuesheng
Free users will be able to comment on all 200+ Newbie lessons, Dear Amber, News and Features, and in the general conversations and groups sections.

As the levels above Newbie will only be open to paying users, free users will not be able to comment. To be able to comment on the hundreds of lessons, all that is required is a basic subscription, which at the month by month rate is only 30c per day.

I think this is too drastic... I understand your need to add value to paid subscrptions, but you should not make the free subscription level nearly worthless (for non-noobs).

A primary reason why CPod is such an effective learning tool is because open dialogue like this engenders a sense of community and gives users a stake in what happens.

The extent to which this community is valued by Praxis Language is reflected in the way non-paying users, who contribute a lot, have been encouraged with free subscriptions to stay loyal during these overdue changes. That is soooo decent of them!

I was a non-paying user for about a year before I subscribed (only the basic type) in July. It really helps to have the transcripts, glossary and other resources. Furthermore, you feel more a part of this community and, for me, this helps motivate me to learn.

Texts books are dry and don't offer a lot of banter or debate. People need to appreciate how cool CPod is.

Frankly, I think most people will/should support the changes - however much they sympathise with the views of Auntie68 et al.

Voice of a lurker,

the new business model is far too heavy handed, should have been phased in. For instance, keep existing content free and phase in some payed only content.

I simply dont pay because i dont like using credit cards over the web. I have money. Plus, i dont like monthly rates, first month great value (as you backlog), next month crap value.

But the unfortunate fact of life is that i will be able to torrent everything, and i will no longer be able to recommend it to everyone. The trial is ok, but it will turn some people off, and allow others to copy everything in one foul sweep.

This is major change and will hamper the community, which i like. The efforts to buy off frequent posters stinks, some of the hardcore (henning) will stay regardless, but more research should have been done on charging over the net, CP is booming now because it is free first, quality of product (which is quality) comes second.

sorry

Chris Simpson

cassielin wrote:

... I can not comment here on chinesepod in the future since I am a free user ...

To me that implies that all elementary/intermediate/etc. lesson discussions are closed to nonpaying users.

Shocking. So all native Chinese speakers helping other learners will have no access?

ChinesePod, please clarify: what will be open to nonpaying users beginning September 1?

auntie68,

I had received a letter from chinesepod yesterday,

A letter to our loyal ChinesePod users‏

Dear Cassielin,

As a long time and valued friend of ChinesePod, we'd like to let you know about some things you can expect to see going forward. In September, we enter a new phase of ChinesePod history. That month sees our birthday and our 3rd anniversary. From September 1st, we will introduce a new pricing system. After that, only the Newbie level audio will be distributed free of charge. All other audio will be available only to paid subscribers

Our plan is to charge for the audio in order to invest in creating more value within the premium services, including the audio lessons themselves. During September, for example, we will release our first video lessons. In addition, we plan to explore mobile learning and other projects to enable you to make your learning effective and to learn Chinese on your terms.

We have identified a number of people who may not have full subscriptions to ChinesePod, but whose active engagement in the community is, in itself, a time commitment that we appreciate. For this reason we are happy to extend a full, one year premium subscription to you, free of charge

We want to thank you again for all your support and hope you continue to enjoy ChinesePod in the future,

Best Regards,
Ken, Jenny and John
ChinesePod

I was worried about that I can not comment here on chinesepod in the future since I am a free user here before. But now I know that Chinesepod offer me at least one year premium subscription.

Auntie68,thank you for being thoughtful for me. And I hope other native chinese such as zhanglihua had got that letter too!

Thank you chinesepod, I will continue to enjoy Chinesepod in the future!

Cassie

...or helping out users with challenging Mandarin related questions or providing example sentences or just coming up with really funny stories on culture...

Sorry. We won't let you go that easy, Auntie.

@hanyuxuesheng: Unfortunately, maybe 90% of those posts were about the Stunt Toddler, or merely grumpy, or else some kind of duet with Uncle changye or something equally off-topic...

@joannah
Thank you very much for your comment. Am glad that our content is helping you with your studies!

Do the Basic and Premium packages offer enough value to justify the USD$69 / $180 subscription for everybody

Considering it is proving helpful in studying for my university chinese course, its worth every cent of my basic subscription.

@ auntie68

I think you deserve a free subscription:

auntie68

1336 posts in 2008

@ auntie68
No problem at all. I can contact you offline in regards to what you want to do with your subscription.

Hi roscovanbastaven, I am utterly grateful for the free subscription, but it is kind of embarrassing, maybe something I know I can do without (I'd been preparing to give up my Basic subscription, any way), and that is why I asked higher up on this thread whether it couldn't be converted into a sort of "Basic scholarship" for somebody deserving.

I meant what I wrote then, and I still mean it now. Hope my frank reference to this kind gift didn't put anybody in a spot. I really appreciate everything that you guys do for us, and this really was a very kind gesture. But if there were a decent way to give back this very nice gift without sending a negative message, I'd do it in a flash.

Auntie: Because they do not offer Mandarin lessons? And we got 1000 of those here! Besides: The pricing at those podcasts is more or less in the same league as CPod's (60/180 for Basic/Premium).

@ hanyuxuesheng
As I mentioned before, there will be no change in any of the subscription prices. 

As regards Auntie68 - it was a one off case to thank her for her contributions to the community.

Ken Carroll wrote

that for anyone with an existing paid subscription, there these changes will have no effect on access to any part of the service.

Auntie68 wrote

The e-mail I received was slightly different, it actually offered me a very generous ex gratia solution which put me well ahead of my current (paid) Basic subscription.

I wonder why Auntie68 (a paying customer) is offered an "ex gratia solution" if nothing will be changed for those kind of customers.

Maybe "Basic" will change in price or service amount??

Until know, not every detail seems to be communicated...

@henning, if you want to compare CPOD with a "-POD", why not have a look at KCLASS101.com or JPOD101.com?

@goulniky: I know that my posts here were particularly disappointing to you. Just want to ask you one thing: Why does every subscription have to be reduced to something frivolous like units of drinks, magazines or books? I feel bad to look so cheap (to anybody!), but the reality is that USD$239 will roughly cover the school fees and "school supplies" (including something as simple as shoes) for two of the children of the Stunt Toddler's nanny, who is from the Philippines. It doesn't seem like a lot to you, but people like me are trying to help, in our own strange and flawed and limited way, and unfortunately these dollars and cents do have to be counted if our overall budget is limited (as it always is).

There is a human limit to how much you can push an expense from one side of the budget to another. This year, among other things, I go without a subscription to my favourite Formula One online magazine (autosport.com), and every cent I spend has a cost of some kind. Basically, every expense can be reduced -- easily -- to "only X cents a day/ only Y dollars a month", but it all adds up. Sorry to sound sensitive, maybe I am! I do know where you are coming from, and I hear you and respect you, I just want to ventilate a different perspective on it. 

Here the established competition. Get some serious RSI for the price of only 500 bucks (= 2,09 years of premium CPod).

I agree with henning and I am amazed to hear discussion of cheating and overpricing... give us a break, the basic subscription fee is $39 for 6 months, $69 for 1 year. How many bar drinks / magazines, books  etc. is that?

Certainly challenging for some but by Western pricing standards it's a bargain as far as educational material go. A question of personal needs and priorities, not a pricing issue, certainly not an incentive to cheat or argue. I am sure the very few special people can be accomodated too.

Some very disappointing reactions

Oops... the price of a 12-month "Premium" subscription is not USD$180, it's $239. Sorry for my error.

@andrewcorrigan: Is it possible to download podcasts and PDFs en masse at this point? I thought that CPOD was the last "-POD" to be without this functionality.

In any case, many of the key "Premium" features require you to be online in order to enjoy them. So how would any would-be-cheater-user actually download a few years' worth of "Premium" learning during the trial period (unless they know how to write computer code???)??? Is it even worth the effort?

If CPOD priced its "Basic" Subscription differently, they might be able to persuade a lot of non-paying users to convert to "Basic".

I don't think that most of these people are dishonest at heart, at this moment there doesn't seem to be enough of an incentive for a reasonably competent "heritage speaker" to shell out for "Basic", and almost no reason why any overseas Chinese would even consider shelling out an additional USD$120 extra for the frills of "Premium". CPOD doesn't even have practice tests for HSK! The question is: Do the Basic and Premium packages offer enough value to justify the USD$69 / $180 subscription for everybody? Possibly not.

But I've already flogged this donkey to death, so this is the last I shall write on this topic.

I always thought that they were giving away too much for free. I wonder how they'll change to account for users being able to download enough material for a few years worth of learning just during the trial premium subscription.

henning wrote

just imagine the features you could produce with the money. What about lessons, exercises, and applets on written Chinese...

If this would come true, you have to change your subscription from Premium to "Premium PLUS" ;-)

Hi Ken

 This can't be my fault even if I rejoined just this week after a year in Tokyo struggling with Japanese.

  It is good to see some things do not change.

 New Product announcements have never seemed to be a forte of CPOD. You just make good stuff that works and is useful. I can't wait for the surprises! I guess maybe this is a 2.0 thing "buy it and find out what it is later"

 I assume you will showcase/ tease us a bit and explain the new stuff somewhere on the site. I know Obama announced his VP choice with an e-mail at 3am but somehow CPOD shouldn't follow this trend.

I received the sad news this afternoon and it caused me to log in today, which I hadn't done in about a month or two.  My initial reaction is gut-wrenching disappointment, but at the same time I understand that Chinesepod doesn't owe me a thing and that Ken, John, Jenny, and the gang gotta pay the bills somehow (or buy a few solid-gold rocket cars).  You'll probably lose a few casual learners (lurkers) like me who only use Chinesepod as a supplement and not THE only method to study Chinese, but you've already got a huge base of adoring fans and those who are addicted and can't live without CPod will probably bite the bullet and cough up the cash.

I'm sure the new features will be awesome, it's just a shame they're at the expense of cheap users like me who refuse to pay for anything when we can avoid doing so.  I could beg you guys to reconsider but I think we both know that's not gonna change your decision.  We had some great times, Chinesepod, but I guess this is where we part ways.  Best of luck in all your future endeavors.

reuben

Maybe I subscribe for just one month in order to download everything I need

1 month > 0 month

QED   :P

The delta between non-paying and paying becomes more salient. And, by the way, so does the value of the podcasts.

kmiik,
just imagine the features you could produce with the money. What about lessons, exercises, and applets on written Chinese...

@ kimiik

"100.000 or 200.000 free-users of Cpod convert to paying customers"

That will not happen. ;-)

@henning:

I don't see that my behaviour (of not subscribing) demonstrates the validity of the new business model.

My decision not to pay is influenced by my needs, my financial situation and the (for me) not suitable subscription offerings.

If CP would offer better and more suitable subscription models at reasonable prices and/or better Premium features, I may become a customer.

Hennings, If 100.000 or 200.000 free-users of Cpod convert to paying customers, I won't call it a business model but a jackpot. ;o)

OK, henning, you are making sense. Guess we can only wait and see. And hope for the best. Meanwhile, I'm not ecstatic...

auntie68,

I suppose that this will not have the large effect on the inflow of native speakers that you predict. From what I saw so far, native mandarin speakers don't come here for the podcasts but rather for the discussions and comments. Most of cassie's valueable comments are in "free floating" threads. And the culturally focussed DAs which bind all levels together are still open. Whether you or I are correct can only be seen in the future of course.

Regarding the economical impact, hanyuxuesheng (unintentionally?) demonstrated the validity of the new business model. I am convinced this forcefully outweights the possible drawbacks which you mention.

@roscovanbasten: Thank you, but how can Praxis claim that current and future paying users will not be affected by a change which is going to discourage potentially very supportive native speakers from lurking, getting to feel comfortable, and then beginning to be a very valuable part of the "community of practice"? You're dreaming!

Unless of course the extra revenues will be devoted to providing enough CPOD moderators to man the comments threads so that you don't depend on volunteers -- in many cases, PAYING volunteers -- to answer "what is 的? what is 过?"-type questions... just tell us.

But since this change will really only effect the more advanced levels -- which is where the input of the non-paying native speakers like zhanglihua and cassielin and sophie is really, TRULY valuable (perhaps even irreplacable), it's not difficult for me to understand why this decision was taken. Thanks.

@ Dogni
To answer your question regarding sampling lessons from all levels --- with the 7 day trial all new users can still sample the podcasts and their accompanying material from Newbie to Advanced. 

@ auntie68
Subscription prices will remain the same.

In fact, current and future paying users will not be affected and over time will gain from these changes with new resources, such as video, planned for release.

P/s: @henning, @dongni: Your reasoning makes sense to me too.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree that CPOD has every right to build a healthy revenue flow in order to fund its excellent podcasts, I only question why Praxis never seems to have had any interest whatsoever in trying to encourage overseas Chinese users to become paying users, by offering them more value. For these users, learning Chinese "on your terms" may not have been served by a full Premium subscription or even a Basic Subscription.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay for what we receive, I've been a paying subscriber since Dec 2006. But I do want to express my dismay at the prospect of being a CPOD user without the benefit of fresh (non-paying) native speaker talent.

I understand that CP needs to earn money to create and maintain the resources offered.

In my last evaluation the Premium section does not offer very much value for me personally - only the expansion sentences would be valuable for me.

I am primarily interested in the podcast, the dialogue, and the HTML-text. The dialogue can be cut out easily and - with a software like Wenlin - the text can entered manually - it's a nice exercise. So - for me - there was no need to pay.

Another point (not to pay) is, that I do not always have the time and possibilities to access the CP ressouces (e.g. when travelling/working). So a one year (or longer) subscription would be wasted money (in my situation).

Maybe I subscribe for just one month in order to download everything I need ;-)

I really regret this change. :-(

PraxisLanguage should offer a better Basic subscription (podcast & HTML only).

The e-mail I received was slightly different, it actually offered me a very generous ex gratia solution which put me well ahead of my current (paid) Basic subscription.

But if I can say this without sounding ungrateful, I really regret this move by Praxis. Ken, John, and Jenny, you've just said goodbye -- forever -- to one new user base, namely the "overseas Chinese base".

People who were lurking, and maybe contributing value, but couldn't bring themselves to pay for a Basic subscription for very valid reasons such as already being reasonably comfortable with Chinese syntax due to their status as heritage speakers (or even their years of formal study of their "mother tongue").

I have already said this often enough for it to be annoying, to be sure, but I'll say it again one last time: You have added more value to your Premium package over the years, but nothing whatsoever to your Basic package. Had you added just a little more value to your Basic subscription, you might have brought many overseas Chinese like myself on board. Easily. But that was never interesting to Praxis.

One very great loss to the CPOD community is the fact that it's going to be that much more difficult to attract native speakers to the Comments thread, where they are a valuable resource. I'm sure you've already offered "CPOD heroes" like zhanglihua, cassielin, and sophie very nice incentives to stay on, but it's hard to see how you are going to keep CPOD open to fresh "local talent" in this way. 

I do appreciate my very own generous incentive (and it was generous, I can't bite the hand that feeds me), but I was already getting ready to put up with a bit more inconvenience in order to get by as a non-paying user, "paying" my way as best I could by trying to be helping on your comments' threads. 

Right now I am waiting to see what the new pricing system is like. If the new pricing system has a subscription level below USD$180+++ Premium, ie equivalent to the current "Basic", I would rather PAY FOR a Basic subscription (what do I need a Premium subscription for, anyway?) for myself, and make a gift of a Basic subscription to someone deserving. Could that be made an option?

But if there is nothing below the price level of a current Premium level subscription, then I thank CPOD with all my heart for everything they've done for me, but I shall go away and learn Mandarin elsewhere. Thank you.

hanyuxuesheng,

I was just about to write a post but you've beat me to it!

I appreciate that you may be disappointed, but let me emphasize that the motivation here is to divert resources towards creating more value for ChinesePod customers. That includes you if you are willing to  sign up.

We are more committed than ever to the goal of helping people learn on your terms and these changes will enhance customers' ability to do that.

Let me also emphasize that for anyone with an existing paid subscription, there these changes will have no effect on access to any part of the service. Over the coming week, however, you will start to see some new features and benefits.

I think this move was more than overdue. CPod has way too long given out way too much for free. I was always sceptical how that is supposed to work on the long run cost-benefit-wise.

Maintaining and supporting 差不多 1,000 lessons naturally gobbles up massvie ressources and the number still grows. Besides, the podcasts are the heart of the service, so why should those all be for free? Make the increment to Premium higher.

And I hope no one here wants to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. So feed it.

After having just crossed over from Newbie to Elementary, I can see this both ways. ChinesePod is a commercial enterprise and needs revenue to pay its employees and expand its offerings. I always viewed the free service as a sample offering, since you may not really get that far without the accompanying PDFs anyway.

Perhaps a win-win solution would have been for ChinesePod to offer an introductory set of lessons for each level (such as the first 10 or whatever) and then you need to become a paid member to access the rest. That would have let you sample the lessons before you sign up. Or is this already the case with the trial account you can take up? I honestly forget.