British-Swiss mompreneur, Lizzie Crudgington, has just launched a crowdfunding campaign to help her in the final stages of producing a new story-telling app perfect for expat and multilingual families where parents travel a lot, or loved ones are absent - indeed, the closest thing you will find to story-telling in person!
Called StorySnap, the new app will allow you to create personalised children’s e-books and audiobooks with the extra-special warmth of narration by you or your loved ones.
Anyone supporting the new Kickstarter campaign, which was launched at a special breakfast event in Geneva on 6 November, will have exclusive, early access to the Beta Version of the app, which should enable them to record a selection of stories for FREE in time for Christmas (more details below).
Asked where she found the inspiration for her new story-telling app, Lizzie told knowitall.ch, “I have two kids - one three and the other seven. The idea for StorySnap came around because when I traveled with work I wanted to record stories for them, and my husband did the same. Because we live abroad, we asked family to do it too. Through a process of trial and error, we mashed up different technologies to make it happen. Having to answer lots of how-to questions, I learned a lot from the process and really enjoyed it, and when we realized there wasn’t one really straight forward way to do it, we thought - well, there’s an opportunity for an app.”
She continued, “However, it was only last year that life gave me a few nudges and the commitment to make it happen. I lost a couple of friends and my dad was very sick too. He made a remarkable recovery and has recorded more stories for my kids and for me. For those who didn’t make it, I think this is something that their spouses and their children would have loved to have existed, and so, one day it will.”
Currently working as a facilitator and learning expert at Bright Green Learning, Lizzie concluded, “It is a great gift to be able to read with your child at bedtime, but I know from personal experience that sometimes you can’t be there in person, and that is why I came up with StorySnap.”
So what makes Lizzie’s app so special compared to the thousands of other apps you see on the market today? According to Lizzie, there are many features that differentiate StorySnap from existing offerings:
- There are no distracting hotspots, bells and whistles.
- The StorySnap app helps you to easily create wonderful story recordings and offers story-specific read-aloud tips to nurture confidence reading aloud. Without any editing skills you can easily re-record each page until you are entirely happy. Tips are also provided for people playing stories back with small children to make the experience as rich and engaging as possible.
- You can record your voice narrating stories and play them back offline, meaning you really can use it anywhere anytime. As such, StorySnap has particular value when it is not possible to be physically together or online simultaneously, a requirement of many other platforms.
- You can save your recorded stories to your account and/or device so you can play them back again and again indefinitely.
- At the touch of a button, you can share recorded stories in-app with others, and enjoy others sharing their recordings with you too. All you need is someone’s email address. As the app will be free, nobody will incur any costs when receiving stories.
- You can also share the audio recording as an MP3 file / audiobook by email. That way, if someone doesn’t have the app (and doesn’t wish to install it), you can still share the audio recording with them. There is no obligation to install the app.
- A ‘kids zone’ within the app ensures security and protects against little fingers and thumbs from accidentally playing with your recordings. StorySnap enables children to freely navigate and playback stories in a ‘kids zone’, whilst requiring a pin code to access the area of the app devoted to creating and managing recordings.
- You can practice using the app with a good selection of free stories before proceeding with any in-app ebook purchases.
- The app will operate and include stories in multiple languages, thereby overcoming linguistic barriers. The app willl start in English, French and Spanish and grow from there.
- You can enjoy a library of the very best "read aloud" stories from a diversity of publishers at ebook prices. The StorySnap library will be carefully curated to include the very best read aloud stories (according to Lizzie, not all children’s books work really well). There will be no subscription service.
To support those in greatest need, Lizzie is also putting a number of charitable partnerships in place, aimed at enhancing the wellbeing of patients and their families in hospitals and hospices, as well as connecting family members in the face of long-term separation, and improving literacy levels in disadvantaged and hard-to-reach communities. Arangements are already in place for the Beta version of the StorySnap app to be tested at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital.
StorySnap will initially be marketed in the UK and Switzerland, with expansion planned for the United States, Australia and New Zealand, Canada and France a year later.
So, what will crowdfunding pay for?
Lizzie already has a ‘Minimum Viable Product’ available in Testflight for iPad and iPhone, ready and waiting for an exclusive group of Kickstarter supporters to use. She is raising funds now to finalise the production and launch of the fully-functional, polished StorySnap app. With the backing of the public, she will launch the Beta Version for iOS (iPad and iPhone) in December, followed by the general, official release for iOS in March 2017. Conditional upon the success of this crowdfunding campaign, investors will then finance development of the app for Android tablets and smartphones, which will be finalised by April 2017.
What are the rewards for supporting the crowdfunding campaign?
Anyone who supports the crowdfunding campaign will receive exclusive early-adopter access to the app, which means that they will be able to offer a Beta version of the app as a Christmas gift to their loved ones in December 2016, ahead of the official, general release launch in March 2017. Once you have the app, there should be the option to record and share Clement Clarke Moore’s ’Twas the Night Before Christmas and other classic poems and stories in the public domain, all freshly illustrated by today’s emerging talent, as well as other brand new works. In addition, backers should have the option of pre-purchasing premium titles from leading publishers in the StorySnap app at a discounted price (to be redeemed at the time of the official, general release launch in March 2017).
Crowdfunders will also have the option of choosing StorySnap Greeting Cards, including a special season’s greetings Christmas pack with illustrations from ’Twas the Night Before Christmas OR a StorySnap Mug, ideal for when you want to get comfy with a good book in your favourite chair! StorySnap artwork, ideal for a child’s bedroom or playroom, will also be offered, with the option to personalise the artwork with the child(ren)'s name(s) if desired.
Depending on how much money they are able to pledge, some backers will have the special option of sponsoring a story and dedicating it to a loved one. In this special case, the StorySnap team will then help you identify your favourite children’s poem or short story in the public domain, and then invite you to help (as much or as little as you like) their creative staff in preparing a brief for StorySnap lead illustrator, Toma Silinaite, who will bring it to life with fresh illustrations. Once illustrated, your sponsored story will the be included in the StorySnap platform, with the dedication of your choice, for all to record and share.
Full details on these and other crowdfunding rewards can be found on the StorySnap Kickstarter page.
Please note that at the time of writing this article, knowitall.ch had the opportunity to test the latest version of the new StorySnap app. Whilst the app clearly has a lot of bugs that still need to be ironed out before the Beta version goes live in December 2016, and the official version is released in April 2017, it is easy to see the huge potential of this new software, and the big attraction it will hold for many families with absent relatives. Please bear in mind that crowdfunders being offered early-adopter access to the app will have access to an app that is still very much in the developmental stages, so you are likely to encounter a variety of problems using the software. This is, after all, why Lizzie is trying to raise funds - she really needs your help to take her app to the final stages of production!
If you would like to support the StorySnap crowdfunding campaign, click here.
More info below:
Lizzie Crudgington
StorySnap
www.storysnap.org/
Introductory video
Demo video
