Over the past couple of years I have reported numerous bugs to Memrise, as I’m sure others have. None of these are getting fixed, however, as the developers are apparently too busy. Too busy doing what exactly? All one sees is pointless cosmetic changes, and the development of Decks which nobody really wants. Memrise, please stop this madness and focus on actually getting your core product right, or you’ll surely find yourselves with a much diminished user base in the not too distant future, by which time it will be too late to turn the ship around.
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Google Play changed the way reviews score are calculated giving more weight to recent reviews, though theses changes are not public yet.
Memrise current 4.7 review score won’t hold up in this new scenario if they don’t address the complaints received, I think. They know that, so the next iterations of the app will be well planned and solve some bugs culminating with a totally revamped app.
I am waiting big things from them. But, waiting sucks, their bad decisions sucks. I will keep complaining until something change.
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Those big things will never come. I’ve been telling them about bugs etc for 3 or 4 years now, and it’s just getting worse year by year. Especially since they launched the mobile app, they’ve been totally ignoring the web-based platform. I say ignoring - what they’ve been doing is changing it cosmetically to look more like the mobile app, but functionality and bugs are being ignored. One suspects that they are planning to kill off the web version at some stage, purposely letting it rot so that users migrate away from it to the mobile app.
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this would make sense if the app version was not a functionality-deprived even worse version of the original thought.
But I suspect we (as long term-dedicated learners and users) are not their core aim anymore; so much easier to get one-time payment from kids at volume, thus all the gamification and dumbing-down and large-font (and overall design looking like what my local school for 6-9 year olds uses)
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mthierst, you may have just put your finger on the core issue - we’re no longer their target market and have thus become irrelevant to them. In my experience, when a business undertakes a shift of this nature, it almost inevitably ends in tears.
Here, then, is a prediction: Unless Memrise corrects its direction, it will go the same way as Livemocha did some years ago. For those who didn’t live through that experience, it went something like this: A change of direction triggered a decline in user numbers, first a trickle, but eventually a flood. In a final bid to salvage what they could, they sold out to a larger player (in this case Rosetta Stone) who was interested only in acquiring the user base, not the technology. Within two years that larger player had absorbed some of that user base into its own, and ditched the rest along with the original product. I predicted that course of events then, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Memrise ends up going the same way and landing on the same scrap heap, right after the owners have cashed out and abandoned ship.
the story is a bit different (the founder wanted to sell to rosseta stone from the very beginning), see https://www.geekwire.com/2016/livemocha-language-community-officially-closing-rosetta-stone-acquisition/
as a former user and “teacher” on livemocha, i wonder how many users did rosseta stone really acquire… they did not get me, their standardized courses were just for beginners and intermediate, and very boring over that, and also, given the peculiarities of USA English, sometimes they were… unwittingly funny… like “entrée” for the main dish… i remember how puzzled i was when i saw that in my Spanish courses. Like what? what???
i wonder indeed if memrise believes they will make it with only the in-house courses… i find the idea of separating in-house from community created not bad at all as such, but it does seem that decks will have a rather short life… too many features gone…
Bumping this
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As of today MemRise current review score on Google Play is 4.6. So, it dropped and the app is not improving. Just annoying cosmetics.
God. For example, the new animation for accessing the screen of learning modes is so off-putting for being too slow.
Quite aside from the app, the web version keeps on developing faults, none of which are ever fixed. I, for one, have grown fed up enough to have virtually stopped using Memrise altogether. A real pity - when it worked, nothing else could touch it.
but, but but… don’t we all need a new garish colour-scheme, preferably with wonky circles and bad alignment? My eyes have nearly recovered from the last atrocity!
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Just to keep track:
Current Google Play MemRise score is 4.5
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