Brainly

Brainly.com
Type Private
Founded September 2009
Headquarters Krakow, Poland, New York, New York
No. of locations 2
Key people Michał Borkowski, Tomasz Kraus
Industry Educational Technology
Slogan(s) Homework Help
Website brainly.co
Type of site Social network service
Registration Not required
Users 60,000,000+
Available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Turkish, Thai, Romanian, Russian, Polish, Italian, Indonesian
Current status Active

Brainly (Brainly Inc.) is a multinational educational startup based in Krakow, Poland[1] and New York, New York. Brainly operates a group of social learning networks for students and educators. It is available in 13 languages and has over 60 million unique users monthly from over 35 countries (as of March 2016). The first website launched in 2009[2] in Poland under the name Zadane.pl. The mission[3] of Brainly is to inspire students to share and explore knowledge in a collaborative community, and engage in peer-to-peer educational assistance. The network has elements of gamification in the form of motivational points and encourages users to engage in the online community by asking questions and answering those of other students.[4]

About

Brainly is a social learning community for students that encourages collaborative learning. It is a social media platform strictly connected to education and learning. It uses social networking features to connect users who intend to share their knowledge within the online community.[5] The site is dedicated to Elementary School, Middle School and High School students,[6] as well as teachers, parents and other educators. Each version of Brainly is a free Q&A website customized for each country of operation. The goal is to inspire students to learn within a collaborative environment and expand their knowledge by focusing primarily on homework help. Since its foundation, Brainly has officially launched 13 versions in 35 countries, which are visited by over 60 million unique users monthly (as of March 2016).[7] Brainly operates as a desktop website, iOS app and Android apps.

History

Initially launched under Zadane.pl, the company was founded in 2009 in Poland by Michał Borkowski (current CEO), Tomasz Kraus and Łukasz Haluch. The first milestone - 1 million unique users monthly, was achieved within 6 months after the release. In January 2011, the company launched a new website - Znanija.com - the first international project which was dedicated to the Russian speakers.[8] It is now the biggest platform in the group. Subsequently, the brand launched several other versions in multiple languages for the following markets: Turkey (eodev.com), Latin America and Spain (brainly.lat) and Brazil (brainly.com.br). In December 2013, seven new language versions of Brainly were released, resulting in the official launch of the English (brainly.com), Indonesian (brainly.co.id), Indian (brainly.in), Philippino (brainly.ph), Thai (brainly-thailand.com),[9] Romanian (brainly.ro) and Italian (brainly.it) sites. The company currently employs over 60 people. Brainly was initially bootstrapped by the co-founders, but then raised funds from Point Nine Capital[10] and Business Angels in 2012.[11][12] In October 2014, the company announced that it had raised another round of funding from General Catalyst Partners, Runa Capital and other venture capital firms.[13] The total amount of the investment was $9 million and allowed further product development, as well as the opening of the US-based headquarters in New York City.[14][15]

Website

General overview

Brainly is a Q&A platform for students looking for help with homework-related tasks. They can post questions to the community, who offer help in return. Users may post comments to every question and answer and can freely collaborate on problems.[16] All questions are categorized by subject, respective of country and school level.

Gamification

Each user is given a fixed amount points upon registration, which they can use to ask questions.[17] Points are mainly earned by answering questions, however there are specific activities, which can earn a user additional points. Each respondent is awarded half of the points given by the inquirer for each answer. Additionally, the author of the question gets the chance to choose one of the answers as the best, which awards both the authors of the question and the answer additional points. The website also features rankings (daily, weekly, monthly and general) of users with the highest number of points gained by answering questions (“Brainliest Users”).

Community interactions

Social interactions between users are concentrated around a few functions of the platform: the chat/private messaging[6] system, comments sections in user profiles and comments sections in the question threads. Whereas the first is used for private conversations between the users, the latter two are utilized for collaboration on questions and social interactions within the community. Each user can create their own network of connections by friending other users.

Moderators

A group of users on the site are given the special designation of Moderator.[18] Moderators are responsible for ensuring that the quality of questions, answers, and social interactions are extremely high on the site. Moderators also assist and guide users through the site and explain how the site works.

References

  1. ↑ http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapid=217021518 "Company Overview of Zadane.pl sp. z o.o.", Bloomberg Businessweek, 27 May 2014. Retrieved on 28 May 2014
  2. ↑ Adam, Łopusiewicz. http://mamstartup.pl/aktualnosci/4984/54-swiata-do-konca-roku-brainly "54% świata do końca roku - Brainly", Mam Startup, 8 January 2014. Retrieved on 27 May 2014
  3. ↑ "Brainly.co - For students. By students.". brainly.co. Retrieved 2016-03-07.
  4. ↑ "Brainly.com - For students. By students.". brainly.com. Retrieved 2016-04-18.
  5. ↑ https://www.knowledgepool.com/knowledge-centre/social-learning-taster.pdf Social Learning Discoveries Report Autumn 2012
  6. 1 2 Moser, Shay. http://socialmediatoday.com/shaybmoser/2211406/brainly-customer-community-student-support?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29 "Social Startups: Brainly Is the Customer Community for Student Support", Socialmedia Today, 27 February 2014. Retrieved on 28 May 2014
  7. ↑ "Brainly.co - For students. By students.". brainly.co. Retrieved 2016-03-07.
  8. ↑ Degeler, Andrii. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/03/17/crowdsourced-school-homework-brainly-plans-take-us-market-success-europe/ "Crowdsourced school homework: How Brainly plans to teach the US after success in Europe", The Next Web, 17 March 2014. Retrieved on 28 May 2014
  9. ↑ Millward, Steven. http://www.techinasia.com/crowdsourced-homework-helper-brainly-launches-asia/ "Crowdsourced homework helper Brainly brings the answers to Asia"], Tech in Asia, 15 April 2014. Retrieved on 20 May 2014.
  10. ↑ O'Hear, Steve. http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/12/social-learning-network-brainly-raises-500k-from-point-nine-capital-angels/ "Social Learning Network Brainly Raises $500k from Point Nine Capital, Angiels", TechCrunch, 12 September 2012. Retrieved on 28 May 2014
  11. ↑ http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/brainly-com
  12. ↑ http://www.pointninecap.com/brainly, Point Nine Capital
  13. ↑ O'Hear, Steve. "Schoolwork Q&A Site Brainly Scores $9M Series A To Answer The U.S. Expansion Question". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-04-18.
  14. ↑ PRNewswire. http://www.cnbc.com/id/102089516#. "Brainly Expands to U.S. with $9M Venture Funding Led by General Catalyst", "CNBC", 15 October 2014. Retrieved on 19 October 2014
  15. ↑ CNBC.com, Elaine Pofeldt, special to. "Guess where a big crop of unicorns is coming from". CNBC. Retrieved 2016-04-18.
  16. ↑ Coleman, Alison. http://www.forbes.com/sites/alisoncoleman/2014/05/16/global-ed-tech-disruption-from-poland-crowdsourced-homework/ "Global Ed-Tech Disruption From Poland: Crowdsourced Homework", Forbes, 16 May 2014. Retrieved on 21 May 2014.
  17. ↑ Johnson, Thomas. http://recode.net/2014/01/18/brainly-aims-to-bring-social-learning-to-u-s/ "Brainly Aims to Bring Social Learning to U.S.", re/code, 18 January 2014. Retrieved on 28 May 2014
  18. ↑ "Who are Moderators?". WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?. Retrieved 2016-03-07.
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