Barry O'Neill Talks Children's Book Apps

Ideal Binary, a Dublin-based interactive books publisher annoucned today that they have raised $1.03M in venture capital. The company, which was founded in 2008, is responsible for iPad editions of children's classics such as Rapunzel, Red Riding Hood and Rumpelstiltskin. We caught up with Ideal Binary chief Barry O'Neill to talk about children's book apps in the Q&A below. If you want to learn more about the future of children's digital publishing, check out our upcoming Publishing App Expo. EBN: What will you be doing with the new investment? BO: We've taken on the investment to scale the business at a pace we wouldn't be able to achieve organically. This means increasing our production and r&d teams, as well as resources that can help us deal with managing content across the expanding device ranges and new distribution platforms. Technology fragmentation will start to become a serious headache for app publishers. EBN: What new kids book apps are you working on? BO: We're just putting the finishing touches on our adaptation of Grimm's Hansel and Gretel, which we expect to release in the next few weeks. It's our most advanced title to date and has many new interactive features and tasks to complete. We're also in the early stages of developing a second line of books aimed at a younger audience. EBN: What do you think of the new Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet? BO: I see them as being entirely complementary to devices such as the iPad. They have the potential to open up the interactive entertainment market to a wider audience, an audience that might not ordinarily have the resources or be inclined to acquire an iPad. The content centric nature of these devices combined with the managed storefronts will present great new opportunities and channels for publishers to reach a wider audience with interactive book content. EBN: Which interactive features are readers using most in kids book apps? BO: While we find that our stories are read over and over again, we see our customers returning to the interactive scenes that are most game-like in their features. For example, we have a fly catching scene in Red Riding Hood that's remains a favorite of children that play it.I think these game-like features are great to encourage users to return to the application, you'll see much more of this in our forthcoming titles. Wider market trend we like and think will catch on in a big way are features that complement a child's natural imagination - apps such as toca boca's tea party and disney's Appmate cars are great examples of this. EBN: How do you expect kids book apps to evolve in the next year? BO: Innovation in interactivity and the proliferation of different device types and sales channels will require increased production budgets for publishers to remain competitive. I think that the market has had a low barrier to entry with just one viable commercial platform so far, but the barrier will increase next year. I'd expect to see some consolidation amongst the companies producing books, to combine resources to address this. I think we'll see overall quality rising but probably fewer releases, and a shift towards licensed and branded content to ensure recognition and sales potential.

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Barry O'Neill Talks Children's Book Apps

Dianna Dilworth

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Dianna Dilworth