Storynory on Wall Street
Storynory hasn’t quite IPO-ed yet, but it is in the Wall Street Journal today.
For bedtime stories, just press play
By YING WU
June 16, 2007; Page P2
For families on long car trips, there’s a new boredom killer: free podcasts of children’s stories.
The tales come from London-based Storynory, which offers them on its Web site and on iTunes. Read by a drama-school graduate and aspiring actress named Natasha Gostwick, the 82 stories available range from classics like “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Alice in Wonderland” to new stories written by the Web site’s founders, who are writers. Through the podcast, they hope to generate a fan base for their unpublished tales like “Bertie the Frog” and “Jack and the Pirate School.” The stories are aimed at children up to age
Nikki Markle, a Montana mother of two, says she enjoys listening to the fairy tales together with her kids — with her eyes shut. “I still read bedtime stories to my kids, but [the podcasts] are a nice bonus to have, especially when we travel,” Mrs. Markle says.
With 140,000 downloads last month, co-founder Hugh Fraser, a former radio journalist with the BBC World Service, says he is thinking about adding advertisements to the podcasts, as long at they are not “loud and obtrusive.” For now, the podcasts are ad-free.
HOW TO FIND IT Storynory.com or search for Storynory on iTunes.
16. June 2007 at 11:54
Congratulations Hugh. You really have hit your stride in terms of generating positive press coverage for Storynory. I’m very impressed and enjoy the fact you’ve disintermediated the PR profession
19. June 2007 at 11:20
Alex,
Thanks for the compliment. I have to admit that a lot of Storynory’s publicity just comes to us, but it’s certainly true that a journalist regards talking to a PR person as a waste of time. So it’s important that the media can get hold of a ‘real person’ quickly and get full responses to their inquiries.