Personalized e-stories for kids on iPhone and Kindle

Technology has already created myriad new ways for parents to interact with their children, whether by narrating their own storybook videos or by playing an iPhone game on a shared walk through the park. A new option is Story Something, a site that generates personalized e-stories in which the kids listening are the heroes. Now in private beta, Story Something targets busy parents of kids aged three through eight with a collection of original stories that can be personalized and accessed online or via email. The company has commissioned a team of professional authors to write its stories, which currently number around 50 or so. Parents begin by choosing a theme, browsing by topic or age through choices such as dragons, pets or superheroes, according to a report in TechCrunch. Along with making their selection, they also enter their child’s name and age. Story Something then generates a personalized story that can be viewed online or emailed to parents, enabling them to read it from their iPhone or Kindle. Parents can build a virtual bookshelf of their favourites, TechCrunch reported, and they can even get a new story emailed to them every day. Using the site will be free for occasional use or USD 3 per month otherwise, it said. Currently a TechCrunch50 finalist, San Francisco-based Story Something is reportedly planning to include stories submitted by parents alongside those written by its contributing authors. We’d hope there will be some kind of a reward system for that, allowing contributing parents to share in any earnings their stories bring in, as well as community features that enable rating and sharing. And how about adding the ability to turn the best-loved stories into printed and bound books through a partnership with Blurb—or an option for grandparents, say, to narrate and record them? With fresh content that can’t be found elsewhere, the opportunities abound! (Related: iPhone app narrates stories for young kids.)