ziizoo blog

Well the economy and public opinion has caught up with the bankers and consultants, and last to go are the law school kids it seems. I attended law school and was bitter afterwards, to say the least. It was an incredibly stressful time for me and my classmates, most of us boasting 3.9+ GPAs and averaging an insanely stratospheric 165 on our law entrance exams. We were the cream of the crop historically at my law school, beating all classes previous by a wide margin according to our scores. Using the LSAT exam we all suffered as a predictor, most everyone in our class should have waltzed though law school and into white shoe jobs at tony downtown firms all over the country. Ummm, not so much. I knew hiring began to severely degrade starting in 2006, with most of the subsequent classes rendered jobless after graduation, but it gets worse….. I read this article today in Above The Law, and was literally flummoxed how desperate the situation is now.

Read it. Great grades can get your far, but how far?

I’m frequently asked by ziizoo tutors why they never receive any session requests. Well, I have figured out why students cannot initiate sessions with you. Your profile contains no relevant tags. You merely have entered a description into your profile page, but no relevant subject tags. Without these tags your profile does appear in “Who’s Online?” but will not show up in search results. Students cannot initiate sessions with you, and the system will not recognize you as a tutor. Hence, no sessions.

To add relevant tags to your tutoring services offered, simply log in, and click on “My Account” in the upper right corner.

This brings up the Account Administration view. Next, click the “Tutor” tab on the far right.

Click on “Update Tutor Services”. This page allows you to add the subjects you tutor, generate tags, add them to your profile, and save them. This page also enables you to select the “30 Minutes Free” promotion (which I suggest you do).

The URL for the page is http://www.ziizoo.com/tutor/addservice.

You will be tutoring in no time once you add your tags.

“…The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation…..”

I read a revealing article in the NYTimes.com Technology section enumerating a study showing mobile internet users aged 8-18 spent an average of 7.5 hours a day online! Here’s a link to the article. This got me thinking. Kids are now, and will be, using websites like ziizoo more and more for their schoolwork, and getting extra help. We here at ziizoo are really excited about being there to help all of you in the future, and “borrow” some of your 7.5 hours online to help solve your Math, Science and English questions!

I was looking through some of our user stats via Google Analytics to gain an insight into our users’ browser and OS choices, and not surprisingly the overwhelming majority of you guys are using Windows (87%) and Internet Explorer simultaneously (62%). Sadly just 10% or so of us here at ziizoo.com, myself included, use Mac OSX and Safari or FireFox. More important is the key to a sure footed session on ziizoo.com, the Flash Player version you run. We recommend updating to version 10 release 32. A mere 38.4% of you have updated! Most of you are so close and are running release 22. C’mon folks let’s go to Adobe.com and download that latest Flash Player release…..

I read an interesting article recently published in the Associated Press asserting the loss of cursive writing in our society; “…penmanship is being shunted aside…” and in our schools. It is directly attributable to the electronic age we live in. I know from my own experiences working online a majority of the time, I’ve noticed a slight decline in defaulting to writing in print or favoring quick electronic communication over formal cursive, so my skills and penmanship has suffered a bit. I am 38 and have been writing all my life. It is an acquired skill I value, and remains an ingrained habit, however, if you are raised on a computer as kids are now, there IS evidence of a decline as more and more work is done online, and text messaging, email, and word processing have replaced writing, according to the AP article. There are a whole host of issues correlating student’s performance with the ability to write in cursive adeptly, and schools are remaining committed, at least initially (prior to 8th grade) to cursive writing. So that is good news. People will still have to write, no matter what. The loss of cursive may be overblown, however the ART of handwriting may have seen it’s day.

ziizoo is up and running. Our Google Mini Search Appliance is happy in its new home, but please let us know if you experience any quirks or bugs with the site.

Summer has been peaceful and uneventful so far. It is a nice break after the hectic pace during the April/May exam period. In the meanwhile I have been working with our lead investor, MumboJumbo, on their online game strategy. You can see my post on beautiful casual games at the mumbojumbo blog.

We are experiencing some temporary difficulties with our hosting provider. Please stand by as we work through these issues. Your patience is greatly appreciated!

Robert

Several tutors have asked about getting a sense of the whiteboard tool before they get into a live session. We are working on a demo tool for tutors, but in the meanwhile click here for a demo of the whiteboard. This demo has been provided by the developer that created our whiteboard application. Check it out and don’t hesitate to ask us any questions.

Using the latest web 2.0 technologies, we are creating the first on-demand marketplace for tutoring – for the first time students will have access to help at anytime, from anywhere, at every price point. And we are looking for entrepreneurial students to help us grow ziizoo into the number one destination for online tutoring.

As a “campus rep” you will run your own franchise like a small business. We will give you a territory as large as you can handle – your school, your zip code or even your city – and it is up to you to seize the opportunity and share in the revenues.

You will be responsible for marketing ziizoo to students on high school and/or college campuses in your territory. You are free to market however you want so long as it is in the spirit of democratizing tutoring and helps spread the word to students. Marketing efforts will include distributing marketing materials (which will be provided), organizing events and anything else to generate campus buzz.

Compensation will be structured in two parts: you will be paid 1) a one-time bounty for every student that you sign up and 2) an on-going commission for all revenue generated by those students.

Successful candidates have a wide variety of backgrounds but at a minimum:

• have shown entrepreneurial passion
• can work independently and build a business form scratch
• love web communities and know how to use them to your advantage
• are positive, creative and outgoing
• have good written and oral communication skills
• familiar with tutoring (online tutoring a plus)

Interested? Then contact Robert Einspruch (reinspruch@ziizoo.com) or Egon van der Hoeven (evanderhoeven@ziizoo.com) to learn more.

Robert Einspruch & Egon van der Hoeven
Founders, ziizoo.com