Myngle offers a solution by providing students and teachers in different locations with a complete online language instruction platform, containing all the tools needed for synchronous e-learning.

Maybe you’re not very surprised by the fact that Myngle was founded by former eBay employees? Since December 2007 Myngle generated 18.000 users registered for teaching or taking language lessons. Myngle closed a first financing round raising 800.000 euro from both professional as private investors.

On the Benelux Venture 50 conference Myngle was elected one of the most promising ICT start ups in the Benelux. That ex eBay people are behind Myngle can also be distracted by the embracement of VoIP (Skype is an eBay company) and by these gift vouchers, which can be paid with PayPal (PayPal is an eBay company). More about Myngle can be seen here on Dutch TV (with UK subtitles).

How do teacher and student communicate? Myngle offers a toolkit for synchronous learning, which consists of VoIP (Skype) own integrated whiteboard, payment systems (PayPal), feedback and a community environment.

Myngle’s feedback system made up of comments and ratings left by students who were taught by the relevant teacher. These comments and rating will be available in the public Feedback Profile of each member. Extra features will be gradually added to enrich the learning experience, such as podcasts, homework, 3D virtual reality classroom / role plays etc.

‘We conveniently eliminate the need for face-to-face interaction between students and teachers and, with it, the requirement for physical displacement’, says Marina Tognetti, founder and CEO of Myngle.

Why now? The time is ripe for the expansion of the language teaching market from offline to online for a number of different reasons: free of charge high quality VoIP (Skype), high international broadband penetration and whiteboard technology are now available at mass prices.

Also, the increasing success of community websites like Facebook and MySpace (or Hyves in the Netherlands) has expanded communication and social interaction beyond the restricted circle of geographical reach. Last, but most important, the internet generation is reaching now spending power and interest in language learning.

Tell our community how you rate the Myngle concept.

Nike’s Joga Bonito resulted in over 11 minutes of video from 30+ countries, the collaborative Gmail video from Google got over 1,100 clips sent in from fans in more than 65 countries, Tel Est Ton Coeur from Telethon collected 300 videos with 2 hours and 30 minutes of footage, and BT FON’s recent initiative “The World’s Biggest Mexican Wave” has currently an astonishing 12,560 uploaded videos!!

To promote its free video calling feature the popular free VOIP unit of eBay has launched the viral marketing campaign Skype Laughter Chain, with the aid of London-based viral agency The Viral Factory.

Skype is inviting its 220 million users to submit their own laughter clips with the aim to create the world’s longest laughter chain video. Using their webcam and microphone, visitors can easily enter directly into the application in order to send their own laughter clip. There’s no software download necessary. And if you don’t want to participate in the chain, you can just watch the video of people laughing by selecting “skip to chain”.

So want to join the Laughter Chain? Just play, record, laugh along… with e.g. the most famous laughing baby or classic video Dad at Comedy Barn and be part of it. Then sign their terms, press send, and your video is sent to Skype for possible addition to the chain video.

Want to learn more about laughter? See the special section “Learn About Laughter” on SkypeLaughterChain.com.

Source: Culture-Buzz, Dailymotion, What’s Next Blog