I'm on a discord Japanese study server where every day at least 5 new beginners Japanese students join, and when they inevitably hear about SRS for the first time, then everyone else suggestion defaults to Anki because it is vastly more popular. Even though the server has thousands of users I'm the only one that even brings up or knows about renshuu, which means no begginners has any reason to believe me when everyone else is saying Anki, and convincing long time Anki users they might want to suggest renshuu instead or in addition to Anki is nearly impossible because since they don't know it (and since it has too many features to be easily explained), it is just easier to believe I'm paid to sponsor the site and ignore all I'm saying...
Therefore what this site really needs, is a professionally made video (by someone that makes this kind of videos for a living) that highlights all of renshuu's strengths and things for which Anki simply cannot be a replacement, so that I can link it to them when the question of "what renshuu is" arise, and they can see with their own eyes and draw their conclusions rather than simply believing what I say
PR is my weak spot, to be sure. Actually, we are completely redoing the landing page - I've got something in mind that I think is going to have a lot of punch to it, and will really show what potential users could take advantage of.
I'll probably show it to you all before it's ready so I can get some feedback, but the old landing page will be out sooner than later!
I've got something in mind that I think is going to have a lot of punch to it, and will really show what potential users could take advantage of
if this something is a video, or if a video is planned in general, might be worthwhile to run a survey to the users asking why they prefer renshuu over other SRS tools or what is their favourite feature, it might bring up important things that needs to be mentioned in the video! For instance, I would absolutely mention the ability to have example sentences underlining unknown words, which I think is really cool and useful, and something I don't think Anki has :D
I'm not a professional video, but I can give you my opinion if it'd help your case.
I feel Anki is only effective for a specific type of learner, whereas Renshuu has a much broader appeal and use. I would never suggest Anki to someone who was only just introduced to SRS, because it's complex as hell to set up and if it doesn't end up being effective for them personally, that's a ton of wasted effort learning the program and creating/finding flashcards that will only discourage them. Renshuu scores better on user-friendliness and accessibility by far; if someone starts using it and decides they don't like it, then at least there's no big personal investment in figuring out how to use and set it up to be lost.
Having everything on Renshuu integrated with the onsite dictionary makes it much more useful to new learners out of the gate, and everything is much better curated and likely to be accurate compared to flashcards a beginner made for himself or downloaded from random people on the internet. The site also gives you feedback that Anki doesn't -- Anki requires you to decide for yourself every time you're shown a card how well you know it, but Renshuu will just tell you if you're right or wrong, and it organically shows you how well you know things by how it displays sentences and other parts of the site.
Renshuu over Anki just seems like a no-brainer to me, but that's my bias as someone who's tried and quit Anki a good half-dozen times because nothing about it suits my learning style. If the issue you're having is convincing people to consider to Renshuu because of the lack of promotional material, I'd just encourage them not to see Anki as the default so they're more open to discussing alternatives. Remind people that it doesn't work for everyone and there are other options that are far easier to use and offer better quality study materials. Or maybe you can try recommending Renshuu outside of the context of the SRS and see if people explore it on their own; I personally signed up for Renshuu after stumbling upon its dictionary first.
Thanks for the kind reply! I am hoping that the testimonials that will be added to the landing page plus the new style will make it much more obvious as to what strengths renshuu has going on. I'm hoping for a partial preview for you beta testers by the end of the week, but we'll see!
I forget whether or not I mentioned in my testimonial that I found this site through my Japanese 1 professor's syllabus. So, yeah, recommended directly by University.
Interesting! I also found out about renshuu through a class syllabus, albeit in highschool, but I also took Japanese for several years in college and every one of my professors included renshuu in the list of other resources in their syllabi. Would be cool if we could get a testimonial from a teacher or professor on why they recommend the site to their students :)
I'd love to get a testimonial like that! That being the case, I'm very happy with those that I've gotten so far - I only wish I could list more on the upcoming landing page (for now, sticking with 3). Will probably alternate them out periodically.
