It’s Kate B’s birthday. Happy birthday to her! We can’t let standards slip, so a cake has been baked. Look at Twitter later for pictures.
Yesterday, Kate W spoke in a Digital Book World/Publisher’s Weekly webinar on Children’s Publishing in the Digital Age with Rick Richter of (US-based) Ruckus Media and head of Harper Collins Children’s Books in the US, Susan Katz. The webinar is available for one week, before it goes into the members-only section of the Digital Book World site, and for now you can see it/listen to it here
Kate said that we had ten aims for our apps:
- To create something new and exceptional
- To experiment (and to experiment in media other than text and still images)
- To find new talent
- To commission creative material that really uses the features of the touchscreen devices
- To avoid squashing existing book-based content onto touchscreen devices
- To make sure that a child who is used to the interactivity and multimedia experience of the touchscreen device is not disappointed by anything we make
- To create an enhanced and different reading experience for children
- To create something that parents will feel happy to give to their children
- To invite the reader into the story through interaction and personalisation
- To create or evolve a business model that works for us, for our creative talents and for any partners we may work with.
If you’d like to see a (very basic – a professional one’s in the works) video of our first app (which we’ll release in January), here’s the link to it on our YouTube channel
