These posts were written by hillel.
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Ever gone to an author reading at the local library or children’s bookstore? Now you can see authors and illustrators reading their own creations 24 hours a day on StoryTime in the Reading Room from A Story Before Bed. Details inside.
I certainly hope so… I know I am. This updated book is dark, sparkly, and gahgeous! We’d love for you to check it out. You can get all the details in our fancy new video newsletter embedded below.
Not interested in reading our brilliant prose? How about a video version introducing all our new books. Let us know what you think!
We have some fun announcements today. We took a little break here at A Story Before Bed over the last couple of weeks. It’s been hot here in Seattle and we needed to recharge. But… we haven’t been totally devoid of progress. For some time I’ve been promising to unveil a bunch of new books [...]
I’m one of the lucky few people to have a female co-founder of a tech startup. And I have long known that working with senior women can often be a significantly more valuable experience than the traditional sausage fest. (Yes… I just said “sausage fest”.) It’s not that women are inherently better or worse… it’s [...]
Hey there fans of A Story Before Bed (and I count myself among you … Wow wow wow it is hot. Seriously hot. Taking the kids out last night for frozen yogurt only provided temporary relief. Seattle is very muggy. They say the weekend will bring relief. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. But heat does [...]
Hey everyone. Hope you’ve all had a nice week. The last two notes have rivaled a PhD thesis in terms of length so I’m going to keep it short and sweet for everyone this week. As promised, A-Z at the Earth Museum is no longer free. But, we’re not stingy here at A Story Before [...]
Hey there A Story Before Bed fans (I think we might need a shorter name for this group. Story Fans? ASBBers? My BFFs? Hmmm… I’m taking suggestions): My name is Hillel, and I’m one of the founders and owners of A Story Before Bed. Last week I talked to you about how much I enjoy [...]
Back in mid-2009 when we were building A Story Before Bed a children’s books online service for its eventual launch in the fall of 2009 we had a talk about how to support our eventual customers. I remember reading a blog post (which I can’t find now – please post in the comments if you [...]
I’ve had this blog post kicking around for awhile. And now, since I’ve been recklessly pontificating about the definition of the term “software designer” I might as well give some background on what I think in detail. If you’ve spent any time following Jackson Fish Market, you may have noticed that we’re somewhat unconventional as [...]
Of course we’ve known that for some time, but now our local startup community concurs. Nominated last year but coming away winless, this year Jenny took home the prize. We spend the bulk of our time heads down trying to make great software. Ultimately, our customers loving our products is what we cherish the most. [...]
There are only a few hours to go to vote for Jenny as the best software product designer at the Seattle 2.0 Awards. If you’ve ever appreciated any of Jenny’s work (and that means anything created or designed by Jackson Fish Market, including this website) please vote now.
We love to point out companies that we admire and the just launched Sprout Robot is certainly in that category. They have an adorable design. They have a free useful service that tells you when to plant seeds in your garden depending on your area (and even points you to instructions on how to do [...]
Well, it’s taken over three years, but we’ve finally gotten around to actually mentioning on our website that you can hire us to help you design (and develop) the user interface, brand, and overall user experience for your website, iPhone app, iPad app, etc. It’s possible we were too busy designing software to put up [...]
We’ve been busy here on the Jackson Fish Market back lot shooting some new videos to help people understand and get excited about A Story Before Bed. The first is a 60 second commercial for the site. The second is a little more in-depth look at the features of the site along with an example [...]
On the heels of adding over 25 books last week, we’re thrilled to add five more high quality children’s picture books to our growing catalog here on A Story Before Bed. Chronicle Books is well known for creating very high quality children’s picture books and the first five are no exceptions. Boomer Goes to School [...]
We love making software with incredible attention to detail. I’m not saying we always succeed, but we certainly try. And there’s nothing we love better than using software made by people with the same values. When we needed an e-mail service awhile ago we ended up with some white label piece of crap whose name [...]
We’re very excited to announce a whole slew of new books for A Story Before Bed. Many thanks to our existing publishing partners, especially Charlesbridge for contributing so many new books to keep you and your family entertained. And special thanks to two brand new publishing partners — Gingerbread House and 1889. Both are making [...]
Yesterday, March 31, 2010 at 5:53pm Cupertino time we were informed by Apple that that our brand new app – A Story Before Bed for iPad – was approved for launch and will be available for iPad customers at launch is available now! YAY! Back in November of 2009 we launched A Story Before Bed [...]
Here at Jackson Fish Market, there aren’t many things that Jenny, Walter, and I love more than shipping new software. So today makes us very happy. Last July, our own Jenny Lam got married. While there was a professional photographer, several amateur photographers, and a professional videographer (all of whom did a great job), there [...]
We love seeing pictures of you and your family using A Story Before Bed. Here’s one from Flickr user HunterJI of his kids watching a story read by his mom on A Story Before Bed. Send in your pics and we’ll post them. Also… if you record a particularly great story on A Story Before [...]
A collection of interesting letterhead (both design-wise, and in terms of who’s letterhead it was). [thx kottke]
We know the holidays are a time when family is in town. And though you’ll have lots to do, it might be a nice investment of time for family that lives far away to sit in front of the computer for a bit and record some stories to be played back after they’ve gone home. [...]
We just got notice from Apple that The 12 Days of Christmas — Picture Story Book with Sing-Along Music has been released. Yay! It’s only $0.99. A modern instrumental version of the song accompanies Honey the Hippo and Raphael the Robin as they walk through all twelve days from the classic Christmas carol. Tell your [...]
I wish I could say that careful planning led us to having all these kid-focused offerings. The truth is more ‘organic’. We’ve shipped a suite of fun educational apps for toddlers — Hippo Hooray, and we’ve shipped A Story Before Bed, a service that lets parents and grandparents who can’t be near their kids at [...]
We’ve put our demos up on YouTube which will make it easier for some folks to watch them and see how grandparents who live far away can stay in touch with their grandchildren using A Story Before Bed. Here’s my dad reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff to my kids.
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