By: Harriet Cook
It's been exactly two weeks since the Macunx VR Kickstarter campaign closed. I wanted to write this blog post today to tell you a bit more about what I've been doing since our Kickstarter finished and also to share links to the articles we've been featured in.
Over the past couple of weeks I've been busy writing to our backers and generating codes so they can access the Linguisticator courses they pledged towards. The amount of support our Kickstarter received was absolutely incredible so there have been quite a few codes to get ready! In total, I've sent out (at least!) 168 emails since the campaign finished, one to each of our backers. :) It's so exciting to see people begin to redeem their codes and I'm looking forward to hearing how everyone gets on with the courses.
I've become a much bigger fan of Twitter since I started working at Linguisticator and I check it for Macunx VR mentions every morning. It's so cool to see people talking about Virtual Reality memory palaces on Twitter and we're starting to use the Macunx VR Twitter account more and more too. If you're not following us on our Twitter accounts yet, you can find our Linguisticator account here and our Macunx VR account here.
In terms of press, there's been a flurry of activity since Aaron posted about the Kickstarter on the day it closed. My last blog post about the Kickstarter was halfway through the campaign and we've had a lot of press mentions since then so please find links to the more recent ones below!
- Wired UK - James Temperton from Wired wrote an awesome article about how Macunx VR will help people learn new languages. Seeing Macunx VR on the Wired homepage was so exciting, but perhaps even cooler for the future of this project is that the memory palace concept was shared with their thousands of readers. It's a concept that many are unfamiliar with so appearing on sites like Wired is huge for us and means that more and more people learn about what memory palaces can do!
- Numrush - A great article in Dutch from Stan Hulsen that describes exactly what our platform will do and relates it back to the Sherlock Holmes series on the BBC.
- Exponential Investor - Mischa Frankl-Duval writes at the end of a few paragraphs on Macunx VR that if our platform works it 'will represent one of the most patently valuables uses of VR to date'. :)
- PDD - Katrina blogged about Macunx VR after hearing us speak at the Virtual Reality Breakfast organised by Health Tech Women and says that the platform shows promise in helping patients who have undergone treatments that can impair their recall and cognitive function. I've been reading lots of academic research around memory palaces this week and will be sharing that here on the blog soon.
- Business Weekly - A short article from Kate Sweeney on our Kickstarter funding goals.
- Tech Londoner - Nathaniel Pepper's blog included a brief overview of what our platform will look like and some very kind words about Macunx VR too. Towards the end of the post, he wrote that our 'platform is pioneering the educational possibilities of Virtual Reality with the potential to redefine the learning experience, for those who struggle to engage with the current system as well as people suffering from learning difficulties'. :) You can read more about our work with children with dyslexia here.
- Huffington Post - Aaron did an interview with Noah Nelson not so long ago and Noah then turned the interview into an article and published it on the Huffington Post! This is a really cool piece because it focuses on the history behind the memory palace technique, calling it a 'lost technology', and it also talks about what our VR platform will look like. Noah says he's excited for it not just because of its applications for language learning, but also because he's a fan of mind mapping techniques and data visualization. It's going to be exciting to see what kind of things people use the free-build mode on the platform for!
- Wired DE - A translation of the Wired UK article appeared in German. Memory palace in German is 'Sprachenlernen' in case you were wondering!
- LSN Global -Peter Maxwell published a brief piece on Macunx VR, explaining how people can build their own memory palaces.
- VR Focus - First piece of press post-Kickstarter finish! VR Focus were the first to report on our success.
- Medium: Qbittech - A 2-minute read Medium post on how Macunx VR reached its funding goal on Kickstarter.
- Red Peak Group - Red Peak listed Macunx VR as one of their weekly trends towards the middle of July! Along with the Museum of Ice Cream!
- Virtual Reality Reporter - Another report on our Kickstarter success.
- Cambridge News - Matt Gooding, who has been writing about Macunx VR since our hackathon back in April, published this piece highlighting our success on Kickstarter.
- VR Indies - A brief piece on how we hit our funding target in just three days!
- Virtual Worlds News - An article in Italian about Macunx VR and the memory palace technique.
- Ozy - Macunx VR was featured under the 'intriguing' section in Ozy's Presidential Daily Brief!
- Medium: David Joyner- Another Medium post featuring VR memory palaces, listing Macunx VR's success as one of the week's top VR stories.
- Medialist- A German article about VR memory palaces from Alexander Pinker that examines Macunx VR in lots of depth and examines what the future might hold for our platform!
Please let us know if you have any questions about Macunx VR or any ideas you'd like to share with us!