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The CBS-affiliate from Eugene, Oregon, which is where English, baby! CEO and co-founder John Hayden grew up and went to school, recently met with John at one of our client schools, Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon, to talk about how Iranians have been using English, baby! to express themselves following the disputed election in their country last month.
The segment included information about other sites that have been used to disseminate information in Iran recently, so John spoke as an expert in social media in Iran and around the world. It’s a story we’ve heard a lot these weeks, but this one had an unusual and particularly positive spin, spending some time on “the Iran we don’t see,” with its long and rich history.
Enjoy the video. As I understand it, Chemeketa closed off a large and stately room for John and the reporter, Elissa Harrington, to talk.
Tags: Chemeketa Community College, eugene, iran, KVAL, salem, social media
Sites like twitter have a played a big role in helping protesters organize in Iran. But it’s hard to carry on a conversation and analyze the situation with so many urgent posts that pertain to people on the ground in Tehran in the #IranElection topic.
That’s where sites like English, baby! come in. Beth Arnold, a Paris-based writer I’ve been writing and twittering back and forth with about Ebaby! for a while, featured the conversation about Iran on Ebaby! in a piece for the Huffington Post. It focuses on how the Chinese–who don’t vote–are reacting to claims that the vote was stolen in Iran.
We’re honored that our site and our members are part of the discussion about the events in Iran on one of the first sites we look to for political news and commentary, and we couldn’t think of a better place to have our contribution go than Beth’s “Letter From Paris” column.
Tags: beth arnold, huffington post, iran
Posted in Business by Jason Simms | No Comments »
Ebaby!’s Iranian Conversation on OPB
Sunday, June 21st, 2009
All last week, the world watched the news unfold about Iran’s election and the subsequent protests over the results. But with traditional reporters on lock down in hotel rooms, social media sites have become the main source on this story. With more than 10,000 of our one million members based in Iran, Ebaby! has seen several forums pop up complete with Iranian voices from all sides of the issue.
Kristian Foden-Vencil, a reporter for Oregon’s NPR affiliate, OPB, took interest in the increased political activity on our site and stopped by the office on Thursday for about an hour. He spoke with Ebaby! CEO John Hayden as well as our resident English teacher, Alexis Nelson, about how the site work helps people learn English and is home to some very unique dialog on Iran. The four-minute piece (which contains a clip from our latest episode of EXTREME English, baby!) aired several times yesterday.
To join the discussion about the Iranian election or see what our global user base has to say, take a look at the forum mentioned in the story as well this one, the longest one on the topic on our site. English, baby! is glad to provide a place where people from all countries can share their thoughts on the situation in Iran in a common language.
Tags: iran, opb, politics, press, radio
Posted in Business by Jason Daniel | No Comments »
With both free and Super Memberships, user generated lessons and celebrity lessons, social networking and direct help from a live Ebaby! teacher, English, baby! does a lot of things for a lot of people.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been working with Ryan Fleming at Willamette Week, our hometown, Pulitzer Prize-winning newsweekly, on a story that hit the streets of the Portland area this week. Often when Ebaby! gets mentioned in the press, it’s for a specific thing we do (like when the LA Times featured one of our celebrity lessons). And that’s great! But Ryan did a wonderful job of exploring many aspects of our site.
The article features quotes from one of the members we met in Beijing and one of the most active teachers on our site, as well as an excursion into our archives of more than 3000 lessons. And the illustration by Jonathan Hill that accompanies the article is probably the best visual representation of the Ebaby! mission created to date. So head over to wweek.com and leave a comment!
Tags: english baby, press, willamette week
Posted in Business by Jason Daniel | 1 Comment »
English, baby! Live from KGW’s Studio on the Square
Portland’s NBC affiliate, KGW, recently opened a Today Show-style studio in Pioneer Square, right in the center of town. Every night at 7 local news rock star Stephanie Stricklen broadcast’s live in a show called Studio on the Square, and since Ebaby! hit a million members, Ebaby! CEO John Hayden was one of her guests last week. Watch the video here.
It was really fun to see what goes on behind the scenes of a broadcast from the Studio on the Square. We were amazed that it took so few people to run the studio–only Stephanie and one crew member were on site! They communicated with people at other locations through headsets.
Since one of the main things John and Stephanie talked about was our celebrity English lessons, John decided to demonstrate the concept by asking Stephanie to give a lesson. She’s pregnant, so John had her define “bun in the oven” on the air! We’re going to make a full lesson out of it and post it on English, baby! so stay tuned.
Here’s a photo of John getting his microphone before the broadcast.
And here’s a view of the studio you don’t see on TV.
English, baby! is a Weird Business
English, baby! is kind of a crazy business. In our press release about reaching 1 million members, we mention almost a dozen features or services we provide, and since 95% of the people who use those services are outside the US, it can make our business seem even weirder to people here at home.
Barry Moltz, who hosts a popular small business radio show called Business Insanity Talk Radio took note of these facts and invited Ebaby! CEO John Hayden to be one of his guests for an episode called the “The Weird Business Show” alongside the entrepreneurs behind Fantasy Baseball Sherpa, ParkingSpots.com, a home staging company, a phone company for people who have had their phone disconnected and more (a clip of just John’s portion of the show is on our press page). It was a lot of fun to learn about other “weird” businesses.
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