Thank you all for the wonderful emails and helpful advice. I find it very encouraging and very helpful. There are lots of improvements we can do to the program, and they will be done. But it will take some time. I need to recruit some more help for this site and the daily program. I need to find more effective ways to organize the help. And I need to spend more time learning Hindi, working on the daily podcast, and improving the site.
Unfortunately, there are many demands on all of our time, and everything is a balance between what has to be done and what we want to do. Everything is a balance between what could be done and what we can actually do. But I think over the long term, it is about sustained effort. It is about taking a step everyday in the direction we want to go.
I am finding from the emails that I get there is a demand for learning Hindi. There are people in various roles that have taken the initiative to learn Hindi. Many of these people have come to this site. These people are trying to bring the world together by promoting understanding and encouraging communication.
You can help too!! And I could use your help. If you are learning Hindi, please make a list of phrases and dialogs you are interested in learning and email it to me at nathan@ISpeakHindi.com If you know Hindi, then email. Perhaps you already have some words and phrases and dialogs you think you would like to teach. Please email them to me. Or I can email you the wish list that the Hindi learner have sent me, and you can translate them.
If you feel up to it, maybe you can record a program, then just email it to me. Or maybe you can create some flashcards, exercises, quizzes, etc that can go along with the audio progrm.
Also, if you have PHP/MySQL/WordPress skills, then we can definitely use your help. I do a little programming on the side, but there is more work than I can do. If you are a programmer in search of a job, but don’t have experience, then working on a site like this can help you get that experience. After working together, I could provide a recommendation.
Also, if you like to edit audio, removing all those “ums”, “ahs” and the other things that distract from the program, we can use you too!
Anyway, you might be interested in how the site has been progressing from a usage stand point. We get between 100-150 visitors a day. Below you can see the changes in visits per day since we started the site. It pretty much peaked in September, and since then we have been within a certain range.
From a financial point, we have been doing OK. We have received two donation of $10 each. The site has earned about $80 in ad revenue. Considering that we only pay $8/month in hosting, the programming and site has all been donated, we are in the clear. But we are in no position to compensate people for their services. And I have bought a $30 recorder from Walmart to let me record while I am out and about.
So, I think the site is in a sustainable position from a people and finance stand point. But clearly there are easy ways for us to really advance the program and the reach of the program. But it is going to take more than I have been able to put into it so far. So, send me feedback, rate the podcasts, and volunteer if you can.
