Supporting a free language study application?
Anyhow, I've written a web-based language study application that will be in beta for the next month or so. The application is a vocabulary-list manager that uses adaptive psychological modeling (similar to SuperMemo) to provide for rapid assimilation of new vocabulary, as well as a bunch of built-in dictionary data and NLP magic to manage individual user’s study lists, all with a dead-simple workflow.
I use it to retain vocabulary from books that I read in Japanese, as I just need to throw the words I’ve had to look up, as well as the occasional example sentence, into a big text box, hit ‘submit’, and the system handles everything for me. I don’t need to look up words in a dictionary, or manage a big pile of flashcards. I don’t even need to add examples if I don’t want to, because there’s a quarter-million of them pre-loaded into the database.
My application also automatically adds new words that appear on language proficiency exams, based on vocabulary that I’ve already added, and the system is smart enough to provide alternate drill methods for things like kanji, grammar, and so on. The system is modular, so it can be used for languages other than Japanese; a friend of mine is writing a Chinese language module, and I’m going to write an English module after I finish with the Japanese-specific bits.
I've been studying with this application for just a few weeks now, after taking nearly a year off from studying Japanese, and the results have been fantastic. A handful of other people have also started using it with similarly positive results, and I can honestly say this is the best study tool I’ve ever used.
So, here's the problem: I don't want to monetize this application and turn this into a 'product'. Most of the magic, including all the NLP tools and language data, have been produced by other researchers, and I think it would be a bit hypocritical to make use of their freely-available work, and not be willing to give back to the community.
Having just graduated from school, however, I am far from wealthy, and so it would be nice if the application paid for its own hosting costs. A lot of data-munching happens on the back-end, so the system will require a dedicated EC2 instance.
I don’t want to use ads, because they would just distract people when they’re trying to study, and relying on donations from college students doesn’t seem like a solid game-plan, either.
So, I was thinking of offering the application on a low-cost subscription basis. People can try the system out for free for a month or so, and if they feel that it is a useful study aid, pay a small fee (around $20) for a yearly subscription.
Does this sound like a sensible plan, or can anybody offer some other good ideas for covering the hosting costs for an otherwise free application?