May 26th, 2010 @ BAFTA, London
ME presents the Monetising Mobile conference - putting the focus on how to make actual money from the apps revolution.
Director of Engineering
Competitive Package
Other
As long as parents don't mind sticky fingers all over their touchscreen
US startup Story Something has emerged from stealth mode with a service that creates personalised stories for 3-8 year-olds, which can be downloaded to a parent's mobile phone or e-book reader.
The service was unveiled at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco, and involves auto-generating stories from various themes, with the child's name used for the hero.
Parents can choose to be sent a new story every day, sourced from a mixture of professional authors and fellow parents. The company plans to charge a $3 monthly subscription fee, while also making money from authors submitting their own stories.
Intriguingly, Story Something currently has only two employees, but has already worked with 20 authors and commissioned 50 stories for the launch of its private beta this month.
CEO Jim Rose told the conference that besides iPhone, the stories will also work on Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. Summarising the appeal, he told attendees: "This isn't just any pirate story, this is my son's pirate story..."
Advertisement
This seems odd to me. The kids who care about personalized stories are unlikely to be able to read to themselves. Is a parent really going to read to their kid from an iPhone? And pictures without having to squint? What about those?
