(Take a look at the video at bottom of post.)
Gregg and Evan Spiridellis do not read paper books to their kids, ages 1 to 6. Instead, they read to them from the iPad's many multimedia book apps filled with colorful graphics, video and audio.
The brothers, who run the JibJab e-card website, got so excited about the apps, they decided to enter the market themselves. Their line of JibJab Jr. children's books launched last week in the Apple iTunes App Store. "We see a huge opportunity to disrupt children's publishing and reinvent storytelling with new devices," Gregg says.Gregg believes the app market for kids' books has the potential to become even larger than e-cards. The website, which launched in 1995, has 20 million registered users.
A one-book-a-month subscription to the JibJab Jr. line will cost $3.99 a month and can be canceled at any time. Additional books cost $3.99 apiece. Buying books without a subscription costs $7.99 each. The Spiridellis brothers say that using their own children as their test market was great for research. Evan says reading to his kids helped him be a better creator in the studio. The biggest lesson he wanted to bring to the project: "Having the parent control the pacing. I hate turning the page and waiting for the fancy animation to start. If I turn the page, it's because I want to tell the story."
Terrific information! Keeping up with the every changing technology is exhausting but exciting!
ReplyDeleteI hope that encourages lots of kids to enjoy reading.
ReplyDeleteWOW!!! That's all I can say.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. It is a Wow thing, as I think this is just the beginning. The horses are out of the stable, and they'll never come back in. I worry about the future of traditional books, but there we are...
ReplyDelete