Tuesday, March 6, 2012

"Digital Moves," from brandchannel.com, excerpt

Scholastic Opens Kids E-Book Market with Storia App

Posted by Sheila Shayon on March 6, 2012

Scholastic is going digital. The world's largest children's book publisher is digitizing the bulk of its titles and releasing its first e-reading app, called Storia....

The Storia app...offers about 1,300 e-books and multimedia e-books with popular series...available in digital format for the first time. It's designed for children ages 3-14 [with] PC tablets, with versions for iPad and iPhone and Android devices coming soon.

According to PaidContent, Storia's titles can be sorted by grade level, reading level, age and character/series, and enriched e-books “use word games, story interactions, and animation to deeply draw your young reader in, further developing confidence and critical thinking skills.”

...

“We see Storia as following three basic principles: One size does not fit all. Parental involvement. And the activities and functions allow for interactive engagement,” commented Scholastic Media president Deborah Forte. Storia’s goal is to make e-books “more accessible and more relevant…as a way to support reading and something that’s just plain fun,” she adds.

The Scholastic move comes as Amazon and Barnes & Noble are both further developing their kids’ e-book offerings. Storia’s ultimate goal — and, indeed, that of the burgeoning children’s e-book industry — is keeping books, storytelling and reading relevant for children, no matter the device or platform.

“We are just at the dawn of digital for kids’ books,” said Kevin O’Conner, B&N’s Nook Kids director of business development and content acquisitions, at the Publishers Launch conference in January, according to PaidContent. The company’s Nook Kids currently has 1,626 titles.

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