Company Name Eurolanguages
20-Word Description Eurolanguages is the simplest way to find, compare and confirm language schools and courses all over Europe.
CEO's Pitch Until today, finding a place on a European language course was tedious and time consuming, and searching online wasn't helpful. There were thousands of results for any given destination, without any indication as to which one was best. For those who persisted in the search, the only available options were confusing school sites with no online booking facility, or agencies that charged exorbitant service charges.
Eurolanguages offers students simple tools to find, compare and confirm language schools and courses from all over Europe using independent student reviews and ratings as a guide. With a simple two step booking process, and a 20% deposit to confirm a place, there is simply no better option for booking a language course.
Mashable's Take Searching for non-Web-based language instruction services is possible through engines like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live, but it's hardly pleasant. Unless you use a mapping service of some kind, and even then the details of each institution listed are fleeting. You can try to cut down on the tedium, but it persists. This is the reason for Eurolanguages.
It is a simple service. It takes absolutely no time to learn. Intuitive from the get-go. But the information it collects and provides to users is hugely useful. Things like average class size, average student age, amenities (room, food, Wi-Fi, etc.), specific courses, prices, and so forth are all provided, and are all easy to browse. A results page shows schools on the left hand side, with tools to refine one's search directly above while the school at the top of the list is shown in detail to the right. A sensible layout. Hardly anything can be improved.
At least so far as design, anyway. Material collected through Eurolanguages, meanwhile, is quite small. And when asking which language a visitor wishes to learn, he or she is directed to a list of schools that, strangely enough, are mostly based in the primary country where the language is spoken. German courses show German schools, English courses show spots in the UK. The same for Spanish and French, Italian, Portuguese and Polish. This will likely change as more places are added to the database (which is quite small in and of itself), but for starters it appears a little too segmented to appeal to a large number of people. Prospective users might be European travelers intent on learning the language of a place they plan to inhabit for a good while, and could thus see convenience in Eurolanguages.
Mind you, this service launched back in late July, so it presumably has time to grow and grow and grow some more. Hopefully the attention of its creators is firmly on getting schools around Europe interested in registering themselves to the service, because the technical foundation upon which Eurolanguages is based is fairly impressive.
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