If high-school education is failing in the U.S., maybe Web video can help. Founded last April, Brightstorm is a Web video site that brings bright, talented teachers together with students who need some extra help. Backed by Korea’s KTB Ventures, which invested the entire $6 million in the startup’s A round, Brightstorm is launching today to the public.
There are about 20 teachers on the site offering video courses in subjects such as Geometry, the SAT, and A.P. U.S. History. Each course is broken up into episodes that are about 10 to 20 minutes each. Each course is $50, which is split between Brightstorm and the teachers. Students can watch a free promotional video to decide if they like the teacher and want to purchase the course. These tend to be overproduced with cheesy video graphics (stop with the jump cuts already), but they do the job of getting across each teacher’s personality and teaching style.
The videos are supplemented with interactive challenges, pop-up quizzes, and other bonus material. You can certainly see the appeal. If you were a high school student who needed a tutor, wouldn’t you rather watch videos on your computer for ten minutes a day than endure a live tutorial for an hour or more? Now, whether you are actually going to learn more is still debatable.
But there are plenty of startups trying. Here in the U.S., there is PrepMe, ePrep, Teach The People, and Grockit. In Asia, there is iKnow in Japan and perhaps the biggest success to date is Korea’s Megastudy. No wonder KTB took the whole round.
Brightstorm – Brightcove. Other than using the Brightcove player, is there any other link between the companies?
No, but they do use the Brightcove player.
Hope that the competition wouldn’t lead to ads embedded in the lessons
Just goes to show that video still offers a lot of growth in this slowing economy.
plus one on that statement.
Online learning is key but I believe it needs to be more niche, like DMVCheatSheets.com or EduFire.com. These in general sites are interesting, but it makes it difficult to claim expertise when you offer every subject matter.
Showing the faces of the teachers drastically reduces the shelf life of the content – it feels dated and old in a few years. It also increases the demands on the production, therefore increasing costs. A better approach is academy123 / nutshellmath / aol step by step math (acquired by Discovery and repackaged into Cosmeo)
The geometry guy is hot.
This is crap, Youtube.com can just launch a channel just as easy.
This can be a hit or miss.
Check it
http://www.fuckedstartups.com
$50 for a 10-20 minute course? Since when do teachers get paid $150 an hour? Is it any wonder so many of these funded companies fail? They are so bloated it is unbelievable, and by the time the raised money in the bank runs out they only than start to cut the fat. $50 for a single episode?
i think it’s 50 dollar a year for one course.
Interesting concept, although I agree that specializing might be more effective. Annenberg/CPB already offers some similar telecourse content for free at learner.org
$50 per course (which looks to include 15-20 lessons) is actually pretty reasonable pricing. Educational video, as sold to schools and libraries, is much more costly. (Steve – be careful to read the details before ranting)
Video and the educational market can only grow, regardless of the economic conditions. What Brightstorm is trying to accomplish is going to cut through so many traditional edu for pay markets outside of the reach geographical limited schools.
I agree with Josh that the value will really come from a niche edu video setting. It is easier to build out from many edu niches to just one giant channel.
Maybe this one will work, maybe not, but in the long run the educational value of well produced video tutorials will be clear. Unfortunately, as another comment says the price of the product is still simply too high. Hopefully, having thousands of pupils view a video will make it economically feasible to charge less than the current $50 for a 10 episode course. More reasonable pricing will bring more viewers.
I tried ePrep.com’s $149 SAT course. It was easy to use and my score went up 230 points–a good value. Brainstorm does seem too expensive.
Right. I found out about eprep through some of these blogs and had my son try it – it was a complete flop. Boring videos, no interaction, nada. What a waste. Please stop spamming every blog.
It sounds like the how-to portal VODemotion : http://www.vodemotion.com
Bumsoo,
The site looks great. The last time we spoke in Dec 2007, I wasn’t sure what you were going to do. (I don’t think you really knew, at that point, either.) I am glad to see that you decided co-found a business in online education. I will shoot you an email after I have had the chance to reveiw some of the content.
Regards,
Karl
ePrep.com
This seems very professional in style but the content is so minimal. It’s just high production value but low educational value. No one will pay for this.
I’ll have to disagree with Jim above…I think Brightstorm is going about the right direction with more entertaining videos for HS students. Price is ok too since I think my son will actually watch and learn from it.
Brian McCall Is my math teacher in real life. >.<