

SHOW HN: Take a look at my startup; Show off your vocabulary prowess - tm65atcolumbia

Hello HN,<p>Introducing VocabGenii.com, my online vocabulary game. It is the first product from my company, Genii, Inc., that brings innovative, engaging new learning experience to the market by leveraging web 2.0 and social networks.<p>Currently, we are running a 10K Challenge -- anyone scoring 10,000 points before the contest ends (March 24 04:00 GMT) will get 3-Month unlimited play. Exceptional performance would also be recognized in our 10K Hall of Fame with limited edition trophies!<p>We're hiring! If you have disruptive ideas on language learning and online education, and possess extraordinary skills in game design, RoR, UX, web design, bizdev experience in the education industry, come impress us! Contact info below:<p>Company sites:
(1) http://vocabgenii.com;
(2) http://geniicompany.com;<p>FB pages:
(1) http://www.facebook.com/geniicompany;
(2) http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=190671694293877;<p>Twitter: @vocabgenii<p>Email: info@geniicompany.com<p>Thanks!<p>James Mak
CEO, Genii
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sagacity
Clickable:

<http://vocabgenii.com>

Edit: Added:

Congratulations on the launch and all the best.

Perhaps, we could think about a strategic alliance:

<http://www.RapiDefs.com>

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tm65atcolumbia
Thanks. Your UI is pretty awesome. Yeah we should talk. Tweet or shoot me an
email!

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revorad
This is quite well made. I enjoyed playing a few rounds. I did get the feeling
that some of the word descriptions were written by non-native English
speakers. There were some very small grammatical mistakes or strange
combinations of words.

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

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tm65atcolumbia
Good point. Yes, more actions on Facebook are coming, stay tuned! =(G)

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djb_hackernews
I built something VERY similar (but not as slick) in 2009. It was a vocab game
with scrabble like point scoring you played with friends via Twitter.

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

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

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tm65atcolumbia
interesting

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michaeldhopkins
Neat. I played enough to get 10k. It is much too easy to do that because one
earns so many points on the highest difficulty setting and the buttons can be
mashed. I found myself having to do this several times because the obscured
letter was correct or a spelling I was not familiar with. Have to say that I
am not interested enough to pay...

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tm65atcolumbia
@michaeldhopkins Thanks for the feedback. The game does get easier for native
English speakers. Believe it or not, we've seen many non English speaking
users aren't even willing to mash the keyboard. It's an intentional no-
punishment approach that we leave in the game, hoping that could at least be a
ramp for English learners.

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

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

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

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

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clojurerocks
I was actually considering developing something like this myself. :-). Im a
social entrepreneur with a focus on technology and like the education and game
markets. Ill bookmark your site and try to follow the development.

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

Opera 11.01, Windows Vista

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tm65atcolumbia
This might be a problem with Opera. Do you have another browser you could try?
Sorry about that.

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atgm
Yeah, I'll try in Firefox when I have a chance. Thought I'd give it a whirl at
work while I'm not so busy since we have a scheduled blackout tonight.

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nithyad
Hi James,

Congratulations on the public launch

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tm65atcolumbia
Thanks nithyad!

