When responding to the topic "How much would you pay?" (http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=78), I came up with an idea for a new feature.
As I mentioned in the other topic, $25 a month is a bit pricey for the features that the Premium Subscription currently offers. After the free trial, I got the Basic Subscription because it has a better "bang for your buck".
The Premium Subscription includes online tests and study materials. In any one month, I have no idea how much time I will be able to spend online-- because the quizzes and study materials are not portable, they aren't much use to me. So, why not make them portable? When in grade school, some quizzes were administered by the teacher asking the question and the student writing down the answer-- why not extend that for JapanesePod101.com's use. Having quizzes and study materials that can be downloaded and used "on-the-go", they will be useful to more people. This is something I would pay $25 a month for.
Audio quizzes and study materials should be offered for all lessons, but because there are so many, it would be costly and time-consuming. Solution: lessons can be grouped together as units, so that for each 5 lessons there can be one audio quiz and one audio study file. I don't think it would be good to group together more than 5 lessons, though, it would be too overwhelming-- and grouping less than 5 lessons together would result in too many audio quizzes and audio study files.
For the quizzes, the questions could be asked all at once and the answers can be given at the end of the audio file-- after a long pause (so no one accidentally hears the answers). For the audio study files: words, grammar rules, facts, etc. could be read and the person listening to them can think of the answer, write it down, or say it out loud, then after a few seconds, the answer could be revealed...like audio flashcards. These audio files could be offered as part of a Premium Podcast feed, so that they could be downloaded and listened to in the car, at the bus stop, at the mall, or anywhere an mp3 player can go!
If this feature was offered as part of the Premium Subscription, it would have much more "bang for the buck". As of now, the Premium Subscription would be a waste for me to buy because I'm away from the computer (and the internet) so often. I hope to see this feature in the future!
~ESteen
