
My startups's new service for parents - A Story Before Bed - hillel
http://www.astorybeforebed.com
======
Lilo123
I think some people are missing the point: this is a service designed for
parents/grandparents/etc. that for one reason or another are unable to be
physically PRESENT for bedtime. Everyone knows being there with a book in hand
is far superior.

Use your brains, please.

~~~
hillel
Yes. You got it exactly. And for the folks who were confused by the opening
sentence on our site, we've updated it in an attempt to reduce confusion.
Check it out now and see what you think. :) (clear your cache when you reload
the page to make sure you get the latest ;)

~~~
caffeine
Now that that's out of the way, some comments about your site itself (these
are unordered, but I hope they're useful):

(disclaimer: I don't have kids, so mentions of my kids are hypothetical)

\- The DESIGN! It's beautiful, charming, and makes me want to snuggle a teddy
bear. Your load screen ("loading book") has such lovely colors that I giggled
- and THAT is rare praise.

\- I like the bookshelf idea, with some exceptions: the popups that occur when
hovering over a book are a bit jarring, because they don't fit in with your
otherwise beautiful design. I'd like them to gently fade in, with pastel
background, rather than whacking me with great blotches of white.

\- On the popups, you have prices. I HATE the overlined "regular price
whatever", it takes the site from feeling like an exclusive storyland boutique
to Walmart. Get rid of that. In fact, don't put the prices on popups - those
should just be a short blurb about the book. Make one price, and stick it
somewhere on the page.

\- Which brings me to the next problem - it's unclear what the price is for.
Is it for one video? Just for reading the book? For recording as many videos
as I want of that book? Make it clear what the prices actually refer to.

\- I personally like the bookshelf, but I understand why others disagree. My
only problem is that when sorting by ages, I'm required to scroll way down
before I find 3-6 or 6-9, etc. You should find a way to make those "tabs" or
something on the top (it's OK to violate the physics of your metaphor, as long
as its pretty). The search box is also too white - like the designer was lazy
to finish.

\- The book reader is lovely. The books are crisp and beautiful, in full
elegant color. What I'd love is a fullscreen version with blacked-out
background, the way I can watch full-screen YouTube videos. BUT: How can I get
rid of the annoying "record the book" panel? I don't want to record it right
now, I want to READ it with my kids, because these books look lovely and I
don't have them all.

\- Which brings me to the only really substantive point of this post. I think
the true gem of your site isn't really the whole "video" aspect - it's
delivering a truly beautiful user experience of lovely children's books which
parents can read to their kids, _together_ , even if they don't own the book.
My MacBook has a gorgeous, luminous screen, and I'd love to sit and read these
with someone. The "recording videos" bit feels tacked on the end.

\- So I guess my only real recommendation is to split the site, or drop the
videos entirely. But IMHO your clear route to success is to deliver a
gorgeous, lush user experience of excellent children's books to parents who
want to read to their kids, but don't know what to read, aren't near a
library, don't have time to buy books, don't want to buy books that'll only
get read once, etc.

\- If you want to make a _second_ site that allows one to record readings of
these books and send them around, that might work too. Another option is to
make children's books the first in a large number of online books that deliver
a really excellent online book-reading experience, with bookmarks, notes,
crisper-than-crisp fonts, and a soul-soothing design. I haven't really seen a
books site that looks like this, with such a nice reader - if I could
subscribe a-la Netflix to ebooks on your web-based reader, and you kept track
of my bookmarks, made me recommendations, and let me date girls who like the
books I like, I'd definitely pay you every month.

Those are some rambling thoughts, but I hope you find something useful in
there.

~~~
mattiss
I think this is some of the best advice I've read on this site.

You really have an awesome implementation and a real market. I agree with
caffeine in that you might want to simply sell access to the children's books
for parents to read with their kids, on their laptop or phone, in full screen.

The presentation of this is infinitely better than any ebook reader or a
Kindle and would be worth a lot of money to a lot of parents. I think some
sort of subscription model would work wonders here.

Also "let me date girls who like the books I like" -- haha I missed this the
first time I read your post. Careful Chris Hansen doesn't mess around.

~~~
caffeine
_Careful Chris Hansen doesn't mess around_

Yikes :( I guess the post wasn't clear enough, I'll edit it. I meant that I
eventually want "Kindle in my web browser", with regular (not just children's)
books .. followed up with some kind of social reading that doesn't suck (which
has not been invented yet). I like their book reader and attention to detail,
I think they could make a really luxury "coffee house" feel to a book-reading
website.

That said - maybe you're right, and there's room for social features on the
kids' level. Organizing play dates between our kids if they both liked such &
such a book?

(edit: apparently I can't edit my previous post. weird.)

------
patio11
If I were a high priced PR firm I'd charge you $30,000 for the following piece
of advice: if you give this away to folks with a .mil email address you will
be featured in national publications for it.

edited to add: And since you apparently already thought of that, here's
another one:

Currently, you sell books for $7. You should probably also offer some deal
like 3 for $20 or 5 for $30, because this will _greatly_ increase your average
customer value. (Your median number of books purchased is going to be 1,
otherwise. Trust me -- nature of the beast.) After you've convinced folks $7
is the price for a book (too low, but we'll roll with it), and they've
committed to spending $7, it is very easy to convince them to spend another
$13 to save a buck.

Another reason you'll like this: cash flow. You see, many people are going to
buy 3/5 book credits and record 1 (or 0) books. This means that you're sitting
on their money in the interim. Depending on your local accounting rules, that
can probably be booked as revenue (and can almost certainly be spent on
expenses) today. Also, since they haven't picked a book off the shelf yet, I'm
guessing you don't owe any royalties on the $13 which pays for books that
haven't been recorded. (Check your contracts/legal advisors.)

(Some folks might be discomfitted by this advice since you may think the
business is getting money for nothing. That isn't correct: they're just
getting money _in advance of_ doing something of value for the customer, _in
consideration of_ giving the customer a break on the ultimate price.

This is similar to how a shareware business sells you a license today which
includes technical support six months down the road, rather than selling you a
cheaper license today and charging a high per-incident fee later. We don't
think the shareware vendor is being dishonest because the support hasn't been
delivered yet, or because it may never be delivered.)

~~~
caudicus
Looks like they have something like that actually -
<http://www.astorybeforebed.com/milpromo> \- or they just added it REALLY
quickly to the site. ;)

------
kirpekar
Very nice website.

For my kid, the actual story is not such an important part of the bed time
routine. The fact that I am in her room, comforting her while she winds down
and spending some time before she sleeps, is key. Swapping me with an iPhone
will probably not help.

~~~
megamark16
Agreed. I am a pretty creative person and have been making up stories to tell
my daughter since she was old enough to understand what I was saying. I found
that when I tried harder to make the stories cohesive and storybook-like she
just got bored and demanded a different plot line or character. She seems to
enjoy them much more when I throw in random things like race cars made out of
fruit or old men jumping over houses to get to their breakfast. Little kids
are funny sometimes.

~~~
cdibona
Yeah, I've been telling a series of stories to my daughter for 5+ years
now....there are only so many funny situations you can make up with an
elephant, 4 squirrls, 1 monkey, a klutsy rabbit, a spider, an ant, 2 cats, a
dragon ...

Here you go: <http://thepeopleoftheforest.blogspot.com>

Man, sometimes I don't have it in me to do anything new on that.

~~~
megamark16
I totally hear you there. Herbert the Friendly Dragon can only get into so
many sticky situations that require the children of the village to help him
out before I start repeating myself :-)

------
symptic
This is VERY well designed. Many congrats on that regard.

Rather than critiquing it for not being a suitable replacement for parental
story time, why not someone suggest it be used in libraries? Let the librarian
record the stories and give the children access to them on the library's
computers. For children who can't read, they still get a fun experience and
it's more intimate than some tape recording.

This also has educational implications, in teaching children to read and maybe
using the interface as a 2-way communication device for some sort of tutoring
service where children learn to read by practicing with a teacher listening
and watching them as they try. What about allowing them to do have real-time
drawing capabilities, like you see on NFL games, circling words the child
makes a mistake on, or underlining a sentence the teacher wants to emphasize
for whatever purpose.

These iterations of this service are what make it a beautiful thing. I don't
reckon it would be too difficult to add either of them as well. Would also
provide it a more viable business model.

------
mattmaroon
The intro text "Chose a story... whenever they want." threw me. How do they
play back a story? Then there's some text about recording a book. Huh? The
picture of some goofy old guy on what looks like a stamp didn't help. I click
a book and that doesn't clear up the confusion either.

Of course with a little effort I was able to figure out what this does, but
I'd change the wording to "Record yourself reading a book of your choice
to...." so it's immediately apparent.

~~~
Afton
And I'd add: make the text "choose a story..." be the same link that the
images above link to. Links are cheap.

------
jhancock
Looks nice. Here's the part I don't get: I read to my 4 year old son. I do so
while he is in bed as part of the purpose is to settle him down. I set the
lights low, just enough so I can read and he can see the book. I don't see how
a web site allows me to do this.

~~~
hillel
@jhancock you're right. we're working on an iphone reader so the site is more
"bed-friendly". :)

~~~
tomsaffell
Why an iPhone? I see this as most useful for an absent parent (e.g. on a
business trip / separated). What then is the chance of their being an unused
iPhone in the house?

Why not a standard PC built into a teddy-bear, simplified and locked down for
just this application? Sell it as a $500 dedicated device to the business
(wo)man who's away from their kids on a business trip.

[EDIT] p.s. - wouldn't the iPhone screen make the text too small for the child
to read along with the parent? Is reading along an important part of the
experience?

~~~
replicatorblog
Think a little longer term. The iPod touch has a great chance to displace the
Gameboy as the portable gameplayer of choice. You get way more processing
power per dollar (and not much more expensive), a massive catalog of games,
and services like this demonstrate other uses nicely. I would do the iPod
touch version stat!

~~~
tomsaffell
It's not a matter of 'longer term', it's a matter of suitability of the HW for
the task at hand. The iPod touch / iPhone has small screen, which would not
allow the book to be displayed in full glory along side the video, so no
reading along for the child :(. Plus it doesn't support Flash, it would need
to be a native app, hence taxable by Apple.

I'm not saying iPhone wont work at all, I'm saying there's probably an
_additional_ opportunity (maybe better) for a bigger device, designed
specifically for the task, and sold at a healthy margin (people who go on lots
of business trips normally have above average income).

------
synnik
I have to ask whether or not you actually have kids?

There is a significant difference in the development of a child's verbal
ability when they are read to by a caretaker vs. watching the exact same thing
on a screen. One is an active process, one is passive, and it engages them
differently.

You can even tell by listening to a child talk whether they watch a lot of TV
or not. There is a specific accent that they pick up, which basically amounts
to a lack of enunciation.

Now, all that being said. I think your idea would make money. I thank many
parents would love it.

But I think if you are not prepared to be abhorred by child development
professionals, you should think again.

~~~
jfager
Do you really think anyone who cares enough to want to use a service like this
simultaneously doesn't care enough to want to be there in person if they
could? If the options are nothing/regular tv or this, which is better?

~~~
synnik
I think you are missing my main point.

If the site owners have kids, they will understand all the vast differences in
parental philosophy and choices. And they can predict some of the positive and
negative reactions to their product.

I personally have a negative reaction. I also clearly stated that I thought
others would have a positive reaction.

The point isn't the specific reaction of any given parent. It is the full
spectrum of reactions that the general population will have. If they have
children, this is a topic they probably already know. If they don't have
children, they could be in for surprises.

So it is a valid question -- "Do you know your market?"

~~~
hillel
FWIW, three children. Ages 3, 6, and 8. We live in Seattle. Their grandparents
live in Massachusetts and Maryland.

------
csytan
Before reading the HN comments, I thought this was an online bookstore
targeted at bedtime reading for kids.

Letting users flip through a book before deciding to buy it is a great idea.
It's the biggest thing that I'm missing when shopping at an online store.

Perhaps you should also offer the option to buy the book from amazon =) Best
of luck!

------
n2linux
As a soldier, I would have _loved_ this while I was deployed. This looks to be
a great service - I'm spreading the word to all my Army buddies. Such a great
idea!

------
bluishgreen
How do you plan to market it? How do you plan to reach this niche you are
talking about: Split families. Might be helpful for other folks who want to
get the word out to a niche.

------
steveplace
my wife just cried when i explained the business idea. it's a good thing.

------
butterfi
As a father of four (and a web developer), who has read to his children every
night for... 16 years now... (OMG), I have to ask:

"Why would I want this?"

My kids never really liked those books that came with a tape, and this just
seems like a more convenient way of producing something they didn't want
anyway. I'm not trying to be mean, you folks have clearly worked hard on this,
and I wish you every success, but honestly I don't see the appeal. Bedtime is
so much more then just a story.

IMHO, the best start-up service for parents (with regards to bedtime) is your
local library.

~~~
rayval
As a parent who travels frequently, I think this is a great idea!

------
Scott_MacGregor
This is great concept! I think you have a winner as far as user desirability
goes! Incredible artwork and the layout and workings of the site are top
notch.

As far as profiting from this site in addition to trying to get grandparents
to pay for the online reading of the books it seems like a natural to allow
parents to access the books in total to read to the kids themselves for a
small 6 month membership fee. Then you expand your target market and your
potential income.

This is an incredibly well done site. If this were my site, initially I would
not try to market it myself, instead I would focus on licensing its use to
other sites that already have a large presence in the kids/parents market such
as Disney and Barbie. I would focus on selling the larger company as to your
sites potential of being a marketing feature for the larger site and I would
seek to bill the licensee company for the traffic vs. billing the grandparent
or parent directly. You would simply become a feature on their existing site.

What a great holiday gift for a child this site would be. I would also come up
with a marketing angle to sell access to the site’s books in full in large
bookstores like Borders and in Wal-Mart alongside the physical books. I would
use some sort of physical packaging that could go in the bookracks alongside
the hardcopy books with a little teddy bear attached to grab the buyers
attention.

Marketed correctly—I believe you have a winner!

------
markbao
Holy shit, the design.

~~~
MartinCron
I agree with markbao above, but I thought you might like some more
constructive feedback than "holy shit".

People aren't afraid of scrolling, so you can use your vertical space better.
You could put the description/call to action closer to the top/center of the
page and make them bigger. I would slide the thumbnail images for the books
below that. As long as people can tell that there are books there, they'll
scroll through them to find one that works.

The set of 50 books on the bookshelf is an overwhelming wall of visual noise.
You may want to curate/redact to get fewer books up there (those aren't all
what I would consider great kids literature), get rid of the bookshelf
metaphor (or at least tone down the contrast). Also, as all of the books are
different aspect ratios, there's a lot of extra visual noise in what could
otherwise be a tidy grid. Consider cropping them all to square.

Are any of the books available for free? It might help to have one or two free
books to get people interested in the concept and to get more feedback/usage
data from real humans.

Don't get disheartened. It's a cool concept. I started doing a similar thing
for my kid with a digital camera, a mic, and real books but my kid learned how
to read before I finished the audio editing.

~~~
markbao
Certainly. My comment was an initial exclamation.

I think it works pretty well with the copy on the right side. The bookshelf
makes a bit more of an impact with how much space it takes on the page.
Furthermore, if you move the text copy to the top, the bookshelf will extend
to the entire page's width, which may just create even more noise on the page
when skimming.

Though there's only one way to be sure: A/B test it!

~~~
mhartl
_Though there's only one way to be sure: A/B test it!_

I couldn't agree more, and yet so many ignore this step. Plenty of "great"
designs, clearly better than "meh" designs even to the practiced eye, get
clobbered by "meh" in A/B testing. Find good metrics, and then trust the data.

------
DanielBMarkham
Wow.

This is one of the best startup ideas I've seen all year.

You guys are going to rock!

The market is even bigger than you think. I hate to be morbid, but imagine:
grandpa gets sick with cancer and has one year to live. Quickly he spends a
couple hundred bucks and leaves all the grandkids with special stories they
can cherish the rest of their lives.

I think there is real generational network potential here as well, what with
families spread out all over the place.

Now whatever you do, don't screw it up!

------
peterch494
I prefer the model where my kids can get stories read to them by anyone.

Also I think you could have a hit with moms if you do an autoplay feature.
Moms need 30 mins of time to get something done. Moms dont like it when their
kids watch TV. Your app should allow a Mom to click play and then deliver 30
mins of books to the child, uninterrupted. IMHO if it's a high quality
experience moms would pay for this.

~~~
hillel
Great idea. :)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I was thinking Jackanory style "programs" where authors read their own book or
a voice actor reads. Indeed you could probably by rights for audio from the
BBC, etc., or from Barefoot Books, say, and match up with the book. Very easy
to establish a large catalogue of books then.

Another extension might be to offer a copy of the book with an audio-CD/mp3 of
the person reading bundled with it.

I think there are so many variations possible (particularly in education
sector) and that this idea will be in demand from children's publishers
(licensing?) that you should do well with it.

------
lhuang
Hi Hillel,

To concur with the masses... great site! I like the idea and I think its more
intuitive than some of the comments would suggest.

This reminds me of these interactive CD-ROM books that my little sister used
growing up (shes 18 now). One thing that I liked at the time was how
interactive the books were. Users could click on background imagery to engage
little animations, etc.

Do you have any plans to make the site more interactive? Something very simple
like highlighting the word as its being read (think of Karaoke) would add a
lot of educational value and help, at least marginally with reading.

I see this service as not only replacing the parent when they're away, but
also as a standalone educational platform for kids. You can even incorporate
ages to scale the complexity of the interaction. So for younger kids, clicking
a carton bunny may just show a bubble with the word "rabbit" while older kids
get something more advanced.

Are armed services the target group? Have you seen interest from users who
aren't away on such extended leaves?

I wonder how useful this service is for parents who only make 1-3 day business
trips.

------
BrandonM
The site is absolutely beautiful. Great design.

------
sammcd
Great service, I checked the demo and it worked well.

My question is this, what is your intended market? The only reason I see
myself using this is if I where to die soon, and wanted kids to still have
stories read by me, but I don't know if I would do it then. Maybe if I
commuted a lot.

I'd be very interested to understand who the user is.

~~~
hillel
Thanks. We think this is appropriate for parents who are on business trips,
grandparents who live far away, split family situations, parents stationed in
the military, etc. We also have gotten reports that people are interested in
using it to record kids reading books to show off to their remote
grandparents.

~~~
caffeine
Your site would be 10x more useful if you pasted the above comment directly
onto the home page.

~~~
anguslong
+1 on this comment -- I'm the market for this site (kids, 3 and 5 yrs) didn't
understand how the site helped me on first view. That paragraph would've made
a difference.

------
DrJokepu
Might I suggest a feature?

Apparently, a common problem with before-bed-stories if you have more than one
children is who gets to sit in the lap during the story. Normally, it is
alternating every night, however, you have to remember carefully who got to
sit in the lap the previous night, as children aren't quite the most reliable
source of information in this case (they tell you anything to sit in the lap)
and if you make a mistake, the one who didn't get to sit in the lap will be
offended for weeks. This is very hard to keep in mind. So you could add a "who
got to sit in the lap" history to help parents. I'm sure many of them would
really appreciate it!

------
nym
I made a site kind of like this... except for songs instead of stories:

<http://singingmemories.com/>

Hooked up seesmic so anyone could record themselves singing, since it's hard
to learn songs just by reading them.

Hope you guys like it!

------
NathanKP
I really like the awesome bookshelf interface. It is really a brilliant
design. I think that your service would make a nice bookstore for children,
but I wonder how many parents will actually use it for storytime.

------
replicatorblog
It is interesting to see how popular this idea is for a couple reasons:

1\. Focus on Design - The software is solid, but the aesthetics are what seem
to make the service. It just looks like a professional project even though it
is a three person team, working on it part time based on all the other
projects they have on their site.

2\. Kid as Customer - With so many social media/real time projects in the
works it is energizing to see bits and pixels used in the service of different
customer groups.

How many people commenting have invested a lot in the design of their site or
are targeting an atypical customer base?

------
cedsav
I had the same reaction as others here.

Liked the design a lot, browsed through the books, opened one and got confused
about what "recording" was supposed to mean. Flipped through the end of the
book, and went to the FAQ, got even more confused by the webcam requirement.
Then went back to the homepage and noticed the video. Played it and finally
understood what the site is for.

Your "welcome" message should be changed to clearly state that you here to do
a video recording of a bedtime story for a child when you're away.

~~~
cedsav
I also didn't find any information on pricing.

There's a note on "you can record and preview before paying", but I wouldn't
want to go through the trouble of recording and figure out at the last minute
that the thing is way beyond my budget.

[edit: found the pricing on rollover, it's slow enough that it didn't show up
the first time I clicked around. I would include it also on the book page]

~~~
cedsav
beside that, I think it's a great idea. I read to my 4 year old son every
night at bedtime, and I will definitely give astorybeforebed.com a try next
time I'm on a business trip.

~~~
helveticagirl
@cedsav - we're glad to hear you'll give it a spin. Good feedback on pricing.
If you hover over the books on the bookshelf, you get more info on the book.
Currently, all books recordings are $6.99 and you can watch it/share it as
many times as you like.

------
axod
Awesome design, but I don't like the concept :/ You can't substitute real
quality time spent with kids, and that's what this seems to do. Maybe I'm
missing the concept, but I don't see why parents or children would rather
watch a video than have proper 1on1 storytime.

I guess I don't see what problem it solves, and IMHO it could promote lazy
parenting. But I'm not convinced a kid would really be willing to use it to
listen to a story. I don't think it'd be effective putting kids to bed.

~~~
hillel
@axod: You're right. This isn't a replacement for 1:1 storytime. But sometimes
that's not possible. Like when a parent is on a business trip, or stationed
abroad in the military, or with remote grandparents, or in a split family
situation.

~~~
axod
FWIW, I was in a split family situation with my son since he was 18months.
He's 10 now. I really don't think this would have been a good idea. I did
think about getting a webcam setup at the time, but you need some boundaries,
and things worked out great in the end. Phone is good, and obviously making
every effort when you are together, etc. Having too much webcam/phone/etc can
just make everyone miss everyone even more, and make things worse rather than
better.

I'm sorry to be 'down' on the service, but it just makes me kinda sad :/

I guess for parents who work far away, or abroad, it could be useful. Or it
could just make the kids miss them more...

Would a kid rather watch a video of an absent parent telling a story, or have
the parent who is present read them a story in person? I'd expect usually the
2nd option.

------
tomsaffell
This is very well done.

Is there any 'bed friendly' hardware that could run this? Ie a cuddly toy with
an Internet connected PC built in? And by 'bed friendly' I mean not just safe
to have in bed, but also one that isn't so frustrating to use that it causes a
mini-stress just before bedtime. I'm guessing a parent who is away from their
kids on a business trip might well shell out $500 guilt dollars for such a
device.

~~~
replicatorblog
This is kind of like the service that made its debut at the TechCrunch 50.
<http://toybots.com/> The big difference is that this one is available now:)

------
ars
Two things I noticed while watching someone use this:

When reaching the end of the story, the person wanted to turn back one page,
but this is impossible - you can only go back to the start.

The hover popup never activated - the person would click on the story, and
never see the popup. I would have a click bring up the popup, and make a
button from the popup that goes to the record page.

------
minalecs
a company at TC50 launched a similar service. <http://storysomething.com/>
[http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/14/tc50-story-something-
ma...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/14/tc50-story-something-maximizes-
story-time-for-time-starved-parents/)

~~~
Torn
The massive signup overlay on storysomething.com is pretty sucky though -- the
OP's site wins hands down on usability and delayed registration.

I love sites that let me use functionality to play around and create, and then
allow me to register when it comes to saving work or ordering. Wish more sites
did this.

------
willwagner
It may already be a feature in the product, but I'd want the ability to export
the story either to youtube and/or be able to download it to my disk.

I can see myself using it having my kids read a story as a saved memory. I
also can imagine my mother in law going nuts over this thing because she lives
so far away from us.

It's really a good idea. Awesome job

~~~
hillel
Agreed. It's in the works. And thanks. :)

------
hernan7
Looks great, very professional. The only problem I'm seeing is (in
Chrome/WinXP) some white letters on the top left hand corner. Debugging
messages maybe? Something like "Mem 38.66MB/ ... count: 0" on top of the
"Story before bed" logo.

This must be one of the few websites where the "starry sky" background image
makes sense, BTW.

~~~
wrs
You must have a debug version of Flash installed. I'll probably turn that
wacky display off for the next build. Or if you install regular Flash it will
go away and the animation will be smoother, too. :)

~~~
hernan7
Correct, the machine I was using had a debug version of Flash.

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omouse
This would work much better as a desktop application. That way you could have
the whole app fade out after a story is done and then shut the computer off
10min after a few stories have been read.

Also, if it were a desktop app, it would be much more like the book from that
Neal Stephenson novel The Diamond Age ;)

~~~
jeromec
No need. The browser page can do the fade to a dark page, and you can set your
computer monitor to power off after so many minutes in the settings.

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indranil
It's never the "story" that's important. It's the various voices, the acting,
the spending some quality time before the day is over that's more important,
which can't be replaced by an iPhone obviously.

Nice service for something like a 16th birthday gift though... "remember the
times..." something like that.

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rokhayakebe
Beautiful website. Nice implementation.

Using the Justin.tv API you could actually give an option to have the parent
talk to his/her kid live as well.

Imagine a mom who just went on a business trip to Tokyo. Maybe she could tell
the story to her kid live, while they and even flip the pages for the kid.

------
jeroen
Two minor bits of critisism:

\- The small version of the support_open image is hard to read

\- There are some weird errors in your css (and some that are easily fixed in
your html). See <http://vldtr.com/?key=astorybeforebed>

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Freebytes
Very well done. At first, I thought, "Oh, this is going to be a web site with
some storybooks to read? Why not just use a real book!?" Then, I clicked the
link and was presently surprised with this well thought out implementation.

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TJensen
This is very impressive. I can understand people's first-thoughts of "the lazy
parent", but I would have loved to have this when I was traveling a lot when
my kids were younger.

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dgabriel
This is a great idea! My kids have a set of grandparents in Korea, and they
can't see each other more than once a year. I'm going to forward the site to
them today.

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djm
lovely interface. I'd love it if you could post us an update some way along
the line mentioning how your experience of using a bookshelf UI has worked
out.

There was another startup (totally forget who they were) that posted to HN
some time ago with something vaguely similar (though not as nice looking). I
think they were just providing an alternative UI to buying books on amazon
though. I've always wondered what happened to them.

------
mhartl
This is awesome. One question: What was your initial process to get permission
to use these (copyrighted) books?

~~~
hillel
Thanks so much. As for the licensing, working with the rights holders is the
only way I know how to do it.

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neovive
Great job! Very clean design and excellent interface. Did you custom build the
page turning animations?

~~~
wrs
Thank you! Yes, we did. The book is a PaperVision3D model and we do a little
mesh animation to make the pages curl nicely.

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peterch494
This site also seems to be very compelling for traveling with kids. Great for
Virgin America.

~~~
az
Yesn I agree. Great way for parents to tell stories to children on airplanes
and other public places, where pre-recorded works better (I.e. Amtrack trains,
DVD players even in cars for long road trips, although not public place). This
way you don't disturb your fellow passengers and you can watch your own movie.

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diN0bot
this is excellent not least of all because it could replace most of the crap
tv that kids are told to watch while parents do something else.

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sutro
Great idea, well-implemented. Ignore the naysayers.

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83457
What a simple and well implemented service.

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darwinw
checked it out really quickly and decided that I'll definitely try out your
service for my son tonight.

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ivenkys
Excellent design, very cool.

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GrandMasterBirt
Does this use Flex, or straight up flash programming?

~~~
wrs
It uses Flex for UI layout in the book reader. The book itself is plain Flash
using PaperVision3D. (The rest of the site is HTML.)

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keltecp11
So Cool!

