{"id":650113,"date":"2013-04-02T10:40:46","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T14:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=626380"},"modified":"2013-04-02T10:40:46","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T14:40:46","slug":"exclusive-udemy-lands-on-mobile-so-students-can-learn-on-the-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/650113","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Udemy lands on mobile so students can learn on the go"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to picking up new skills, you might have all the motivation in the world, but actually finding the time to do the work is where the real challenge lies.<\/p>\n

Since launching in 2010, online learning startup Udemy<\/a> has offered learners the opportunity to take online classes from home. On Tuesday, the company upped the convenience factor with an iOS app<\/a> that lets students take classes directly from their smartphones.<\/p>\n

With 600,000 users enrolled in the company\u2019s paid and free classes, Udemy is attracting a strong following. But given competition from longtime online learning company lynda.com<\/a>, as well as startups Skillshare<\/a> and Codecademy<\/a>, Udemy clearly wants another way to hook and keep students. While lynda.com does have a mobile app for users, several other Udemy rivals do not.<\/p>\n

\"udemy<\/a>Dinesh Thiru, Udemy\u2019s vice president of marketing, said the company\u2019s students, many of whom are enrolled in classes with hopes of career advancement, are professionals with busy lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey know learning is important, but they struggle to find the time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe built the Udemy iPhone app to help them find that time… to enable them to learn whenever and wherever they find those extra fifteen minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the new app, students can enroll in free and paid courses and access video and audio lectures, presentations, articles and other course components. It also enables students to save courses for offline viewing (for subway commutes and plane rides), as well as watch videos at accelerated speeds.<\/p>\n

For now, the app isn\u2019t available for Android users and doesn\u2019t allow students to interact with peers as they can via the web, but Thiru said those developments are on the company\u2019s roadmap.<\/p>\n

Udemy, which is backed by\u00a0investors<\/a> including Insight Venture Partners, Lightbank and 500 Startups, enables anyone from individual experts to bestselling authors to offer video-based courses. It currently offers more than 6,000 courses on topics ranging from web development and entrepreneurship to literature and fitness.<\/p>\n

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