We are happy to announce the release of Sam’s Interactive Reader version 1.2. In this release we have addressed a few minor bug fixes, along with adding support for our School Rewards program. In addition, we have placed a free story and activity inside Sam’s Room automatically. This will allow new users to instantly start enjoying the program without having to visit the Online Store first.

Free Activity: Sam’s Memory Game

With this release we have added our first free activity. Sam’s Memory Game will allow children to play both easy and hard levels of a card match game. The easy level consists of three rounds in which you can earn Super Reader Points for each round successfully completed. The hard level will require you to beat the clock and for every second you have to spare, you will earn Super Reader Points.

School Rewards Program

We provide our entire library free of charge to pre-schools, libraries and elementary schools. We simply ask that these facilities give us their support by displaying our promotional materials in a prominent place as well as distributing them to parents and students. In addition, we will be introducing various reward programs that allow the school to benefit from purchases made by Storybook Anytime customers who are affiliated with their school. If you are interested in having your school participate you can read more details at the Schools Page of our web site.

Later this week we will be shipping version 1.2 of Sam’s Interactive reader. We are very excited about this incremental milestone on our product roadmap. For everyone who has already downloaded the product, it will update automatically so need to worry about how this upgrade will be delivered. The update will include some foundational enhancements as well as the inclusion of our first free memory game activity.

Speaking of roadmaps, as we approach the holiday season, we are working diligently on improving our product and we anticipate several new updates between now and that time. Soon we will be adding Spanish language stories to our inventory as well as introducing more interactive features. We will be releasing more details about this and our product roadmap in the near future.

When it was time for Storybook Anytime to build Sam’s Interactive Reader we looked at many options. It was important to our customers and ourselves that we be able to deliver a light-weight, safe, secure and user friendly application for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Equally important to our business was to insure that we could get quickly to market while leveraging as much of our existing back end infrastructure as possible. Companies like eBay, AOL, Nickelodeon, Yahoo! and Nasdaq have all used Adobe Air to deliver Rich Internet Applications (RIA) to their users desktop. For Sam’s Interactive Reader, the choice to build on the Adobe Air platform was the right one.

We are happy to take this opportunity to say a special thanks to the great folks at Adobe. Yesterday they not only made Sam’s Interactive Reader available within the Adobe Air Marketplace but made it number two on the “Staff Picks” list. What a true honor to be a part of the Adobe Air family. Thank you Adobe!

Well, it’s been 5 months since Storybook Anytime first launched it’s online children’s library and we are amazed and grateful for the response and feedback we’ve received from our users. We have learned a great deal about what you want as parents, as well as what your children want. That is why we have decided to change directions on how we deliver our stories to you. 

Starting today, Storybook Anytime will now make all of our stories individually available for you to own on your own computer through our Sam’s Interactive Reader product.

Here is how it works
When you visit our website you can download (for free) Sam’s Interactive Reader. You will then be able to purchase stories through the Online Store, and quickly and easily download them to your library. Your child will then be able to read and listen to these stories any time he or she wants, without being connected to the Internet. As an added feature we have also created interactive comprehension questions at the end of each story. By answering these questions your child can earn Super Reader Points to help track their reading-comprehension progress. We have stories available for as little as $ .99 so there is something for everyone.

The great part is that we also have Storybook Anytime Gift Cards available that are a great gift idea for the upcoming holiday season.

Current Subscribers
If you are a current subscriber, once you download the reader and register your account, you will find that we have provided a gift card with your account for the full subscription amount you have spent with Storybook Anytime thus far. Under the “Account” section simply select the “I already have an account option” and your existing account username and password will work.

Thanks so much for supporting Storybook Anytime!

As most of you know, we believe that their is in fact a place for traditional printed stories for children. However we are also aware that technology is playing a larger roll everyday in our lives as well as our children’s lives. Technology itself progresses in improvement by magnitudes every 20 years. The Internet itself is only about 15 years old which means we are approaching a major shift in how that impacts our children, educational institutions and lives.

A recent New York Times article discusses the impact of “Using Video Games as Bait to Hook Readers“. Although we don’t particularly agree with everything in the article we do find it extremely interesting and worth a read. Using Interactive products to immerse children into stories is certainly entertaining and if executed correctly, could be educational and beneficial.