Online tutoring service provider eSpindle Learning, US, has announced that it will offer its 150,000 word resource, claimed to be one of the largest available online, via the ‘Subscription as a Service’ (SaaS) model. With this initiative, it is expected that offering audio, images, usage examples and related lexical data to a web audience will no longer require expensive, up-front licensing agreements.
The organisation has been licensing data for years, and has appointed a new manager to focus on expanding its SaaS subscriber base. In some cases, data feeds have even been donated, such as audio support for the popular study site www.FreeRice.com.
SaaS allows subscribing domains to link to the full data set and pay only for actual user clicks. Licensing fees are only due when users request audio, images, or related content from eSpindle's servers, and the overall expenditure is much lower than a static license, which is usually issued on an annual basis. The concept is expected to be cost-effective even for high-traffic sites, and especially valuable for smaller and medium-sized domains. No long-term contract is needed, and the data is easily integrated.
The service is a side-product of eSpindle Learning's online vocabulary and spelling coaching programme, www.LearnThatWord.org.
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