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 it). And as for revenue, they’ll send you the seeds you need as part of one of three good/better/best packages so you have absolutely everything you need to plant your beautiful and delicious vegetable garden. Oh yeah, they’re a boostrap also. We’re big admirers.

Check them out at Sprout Robot.

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 the page, or that we’re just lazy. Probably a bit of both. Either way, those days are over. We now have a wordy treatise all about what you get when you hire Jackson Fish Market to do user experience design and development consulting.

If you’d just like the short version, here’s a video (which may also be fun to watch if you like seeing montages to instrumental rock music with lots of user interfaces in progress):

It’s a sampling of many of the projects we’ve built or helped to build over the last three years. If you’re interested in hiring us to help you design and build your software, feel free to get in touch.

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 of a recorded story.

The best thing of course is that the actors work pretty cheap (as they’re JFM family members)! Happy watching. And please share them with your friends.

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 is about a dog going to a new school for the first time. And the price can’t be beat – only $6.99 compared to an MSRP of $14.95. Over 50% off! Absurdity reigns when the Chickens take charge in Chicken Scratches: Poultry Poetry and Rooster Rhymes. And finally, we’re proud to announce that the Little Pea series including Little Pea, Little Hoot, and Little Oink are all available immediately on A Story Before Bed. According to the New York Times, “Corace’s illustrations are more daring, throwing a wider color spectrum into the mix and showing a slight anime influence. The book feels familiar right away without losing its sense of surprise—such a pleasure to read that even ‘they owl lived happily ever after’ can be forgiven. More!”

The books normally sell for $11.99, which is already discounted from the MSRP of $14.99. And until the end of the day on Sunday, May 2, 2010, we’re discounting the entire Little Pea series to $9.99 – 33% off! (The sale is extended from our original deadline of Friday April 30th.) Welcome Chronicle Books to the A Story Before Bed family

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 I don’t even remember. When we had enough suckage we went with MailChimp. Constant Contact seemed bigger, but MailChimp looked better. We chose it strictly based on the UI. And while it’s not perfect, it does have moments of perfection. And remember as you look at these, MailChimp is a colorful attractive thoroughly modern looking web app.

These retro loading screens are pure excellence. They were hard to capture, so the first one is mid-load, and the second is with the Strongbad option where he mumbles about how soothing green text is. Awesome.

Notice the ASCII banana.

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 high quality children’s picture books that we know you’ll love to read.

We’re especially happy to grow our library this week as this Friday marks the end of our special introductory pricing. Currently all books on the site are $6.99. That’s going to change as of tomorrow, April 23, 2010. So make sure to get in those last minute recordings.

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 as the first and (still) only service that lets parents and grandparents record videos of themselves reading children’s picture books to their kids. As enjoyable as it has been for children to watch mom or grandpa read them a story on their computer, these cherished video memories can now also be played back over and over on the iPad.

In a recent keynote speech titled “The Future of Digital Distribution and Ebook Marketing” at the Tools of Change conference, Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media described A Story Before Bed as a “fabulous product”. He went on to say that “A Story Before Bed is a specialty retailer. But it’s a specialty retailer that has figured out something really unique about social media. That social media is literally part of the product. You basically buy this product to share with someone else. And that’s a really powerful insight.”

This first of its kind app in the world is totally free and comes bundled with a pre-recorded version of the classic story “The Frog Princess” at no cost. A Story Before Bed for iPad customers can record their own stories from our library of high quality Children’s books including classics such as: The Itsy Bitsy Spider, The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Brementown Musicians, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, Hush Little Baby, The Princess and the Pea, Hansel and Gretel, The Farmer in the Dell, as well as The 12 Days of Christmas and Jingle Bells for the holidays, and many many more. There will soon be over 100 quality children’s books in our library with more being added every single week from publishers such as Charlesbridge, Immedium, Bubblegum, Gingerbread House, and Chronicle Books.

Also, customers who record and purchase a story in the first 24 hours after downloading the app will get a coupon for a free recording of their choice from our collection of classics. That’s two stories for the price of one.

Since we first shipped A Story Before Bed in the fall of last year we’ve always known that the experience wouldn’t be complete until you could really curl up in bed while grandma or dad read you a story as you drift off to sleep. As much as we love our laptops, the iPad is the first real bedtime computer that makes the experience of A Story Before Bed shine.

Customers of other iDevices fear not, we’re very close to releasing a version of A Story Before Bed for iPhone 3GS and iPod touches as well. Grandpa will be able to read little Timmy a story while you’re waiting in line at the supermarket.

Everyone at Jackson Fish Market is excited to help preserve the memories of parents and grandparents reading to their children as well as kids reading to their families. We hope A Story Before Bed can help make great memories in the years to come.

This past weekend we exhibited our latest product, Thrilled for You Video Guestbook, at the Tacoma Wedding Expo. We got to meet hundreds of excited couples and show them the digital alternative to a traditional wedding guestbook. Much to our surprise and delight, the attendees and vendors voted Thrilled for You Video Guestbook Best New Product at the show. Thank you! We are humbled.

Chinese New Year falls on February 14th this year and to celebrate it, we are releasing a new book on A Story Before Bed. Check out Immedium’s Year of the Tiger by Oliver Chin and Justin Roth. While you’re there, you can also record other great chinese zodiac books: Year of the Dog, Year of the Ox, Year of the Pig, and Year of the Rat for that special youngster in your life.

Goong Hai Fat Choi from Jackson Fish Market!

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 was still an opportunity for a different kind of documentation – the personal wish for the new couple spoken straight into the camera. The tradition of having a guestbook for guests to sign has been around for sometime. Jenny brought this idea into the 21st century by having guests record personal video messages instead of asking them to sign a physical book.

Today we’re taking the software created expressly for Jenny’s wedding and shipping it to the rest of the world. Thrilled For You™ — Wedding Video Guestbook is a modern take on the traditional guestbook. Instead of signing a physical book, guests walk up to a kiosk running the Thrilled for You software, and record a video congratulations to the happy couple.

Each copy of Thrilled for You is customized just for your celebration with the names of the couple tying the knot, the date, and one of 21 custom backgrounds. There are enough for everyone to find something that fits with their wedding palette. The software runs silently and automatically as guests can record an unlimited number of warm, heartfelt, and often humorous congratulations messages. The videos produced can be uploaded to video sharing services such as YouTube and Vimeo and even incorporated into the official wedding video by the videographer hired for the event. (Videographers, photographers, and other wedding professionals should get in touch about special pricing packages for multiple wedding events.)

Here are four of the over twenty custom themes:

Thrilled for You runs on MacOS only. It requires either Leopard or Snow Leopard versions to operate. Your Macintosh computer will also need a webcam (either built-in or attached) to run the Thrilled for You software.

Thrilled for You costs $99. Go to the Thrilled for You — Wedding Video Guestbook website, choose “customize“, enter the names of the two people getting married, the date of the event, and choose a theme. We’ll send you a link to download your own customized version of Thrilled for You within 24 hours.

We hope you make Thrilled for You a part of your special day. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, don’t hesitate to let us know. We’re always looking to improve the experience so that on your wedding day, the only thing you have to worry about is having wonderful time. After your wedding day, we hope that Thrilled for You – Wedding Video Guestbook played a small but important role in making your memories come to life.

And of course, if you are getting married soon, congratulations on your upcoming nuptials. We are thrilled for you.

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 Bed, and send us a link with permission to show it to the world, we’ll give you a coupon for a free recording. Think a particularly great reading, or putting one of our books to music with a ukelele, etc. (HunterJI your coupon is on its way.)

Happy New Year!

I kicked off 2010 by spending a week down in chilly (!) Atlanta, teaching a few design classes at Portfolio Center School. If you’re not familiar with Portfolio Center, you should be. It’s a school for design, art direction, photography, copywriting, illustration and digital media. (It’s also where I attended school… ages ago. )

This little school turns out some of the best design portfolios I’ve ever seen. Over the years, I’ve kept in touch by attending grad reviews, giving talks, and reviewing portfolios to get a first-hand look at new and upcoming talent. I also spend quite a bit of time chatting with Hank Richardson, the school’s department head of design, about how I want to see more/better UX work in graduating portfolios. Anyone who’s ever attempted to hire a UX designer knows that it’s really challenging to find new talent with both great graphic design skills and good understanding of what it means to design interactive user experiences. More on that in another post…

While I was in Atlanta, we were also able to put on a little A Story Before Bed event at Decatur’s Eagle Eye Book Shop (recently voted Atlanta’s best independent bookstore of 2009!) For one evening, we commandeered every flat surface in the shop to set up recording stations. Just like the Fort Lewis event , there was a lot of contagious enthusiasm and general all-around excitement as grandparents and military families used the online stories to reach out and connect with the special kids in their lives. Thanks to George Scott from Eagle Eye Bookshop, and to the Portfolio Center volunteers who helped keep everything running smoothly!

Check out some of the pictures from last week. We even managed to make it into the local paper

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. With grandparents in town who might not own a webcam, or might not be as facile with the computer, this is the perfect time to sit them down in front of A Story Before Bed and have them record several bedtime stories. The grandchildren will be able to enjoy the stories over and over again even after grandma and grandpa have gone home.

From today through the end of of December 25th, 2009, all stories on A Story Before Bed are only $4.99 per recording. This is a 28% savings per recording. This could be a nice way to commemorate family visiting. In addition to the over 60 children’s picture books in our growing library there are several holiday selections including The Little Red Elf, Jingle Bells, and The 12 Days of Christmas (which even has a separate musical edition for the iPhone and iPod Touch).

The sale ends at the end of the day on Friday the 25th so be sure to make as many recordings as you can while the discount is in effect. Hope you enjoy your holiday.

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 friends.

(And if you like the iPhone app, be sure to check out the web edition of The 12 Days of Christmas on A Story Before Bed where you can record a video of yourself reading it to a special child in your life.)

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 bedtime, record a video of themselves reading a children’s book. The kids can play the video back synchronized to the pages of the book on screen, anytime they like, as often as they like. You can see a demo here.

With the holidays coming, we decided to put out a little end-of-year treat for everyone. As of today A Story Before Bed now features the Christmas classic The 12 Days of Christmas. Since we produced this book in our in-house publishing division it only made sense to feature the characters from our Hippo Hooray series – Honey the hippo and Raphael the robin. Once the book started coming together, the next logical step was to launch it for the iPhone as well. So now you can record a video of yourself reading The 12 Days of Christmas on A Story Before Bed just in time for Christmas, and you can purchase The 12 Days of Christmas iPhone app that features all the artwork from the book and a modern instrumental soundtrack to which you can sing-along. The words appear on the page synchronized to the music so you won’t forget the lyrics.

While the book is available right now on A Story Before Bed, the iPhone app will be available as soon as the Apple apps team gives the go ahead. We submitted the app over a week ago so we’re crossing our fingers that it comes out any day.

We think this is a small first in shipping a new book on two emerging digital platforms. If folks are excited about releasing books on the iPhone and on A Story Before Bed, we’ll do more in the future. Let us know what you think.

Happy holidays from Jenny, Hillel, and Walter at Jackson Fish Market.

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.

We had a nice report from a local Seattle TV station a couple of weeks ago. Here it is in its entirety.

The library of books available for you to record on A Story Before Bed keeps growing. We just released four new books just in time for the big sale weekend and the upcoming holidays:

• The Little Red Elf by Barbara Barbieri McGrath and Rosalinde Bonnet – a retelling of the Little Red Hen story with a Christmas theme.
• Jingle Bells by Iza Trapani – a global look at how Christmas is celebrated around the world.
• Leaf Jumpers by Carole Gerber and Leslie Evans – an autumn focused book. It’s not too late, there are still a few leaves on the trees.
• Winter Trees by Carole Gerber and Leslie Evans – a boy and his dog will help you identify seven different kinds of winter trees.

And to make it an even better idea to record some stories now, personalized children’s books from A Story Before Bed are now only $4.99 all Thanksgiving weekend. What better time to record a bunch of stories than when family is in town, and the books are on sale.

Happy reading and recording, and have a lovely Thanksgiving.

We have sparkly new versions of all our Hippo Hooray apps up on the iTunes store as of this morning. Hippo Hooray Shapes — Flashcards for Toddlers has new 3D shapes and a new mode where the child has to pick out which shape is different. Hippo Hooray Letters — Flashcards for Toddlers also has the new “which one is different” screens. And all four apps including Hippo Hooray Numbers — Flashcards for Toddlers, and Hippo Hooray Colors — Flashcards for Toddlers have some new goodness in them where the questions that come up feel more random. All in all, these updates should increase engagement which is key when you’ve got a long drive ahead of you and need to keep the kiddos occupied in the back seat.

And also, for a limited time, Hippo Hooray Shapes — Flashcards for Toddlers is FREE to download. So check it out.

Recently, A Story Before Bed became the first (and still only) service on the internet to let parents and grandparents separated from their kids, record video of themselves reading children’s stories synchronized to the pages of a book onscreen. All Thanksgiving weekend, stories on A Story Before Bed will be on sale for only $4.99 per recording.

Since launch, parents on business trips, grandparents who live far away, and military parents deployed away from their families are all recording stories for their loved ones on A Story Before Bed. Children are reading stories to their parents and grandparents too. Educators of the hearing-impaired are using A Story Before Bed to record American Sign Language videos accompanying children’s books.

Thanksgiving is a time when many families come together. With family in town, what better time to sit down and record a few stories using A Story Before Bed. Internet skills and capabilities are different in all folks. Sometimes it can help when grandparents are in town for parents to set up the computer and webcam and let grandma and grandpa record some bedtime stories for the grandkids right in the web browser. When the grandparents go home, the kids will still be able to watch grandma and grandpa read them bedtime stories over and over again.

Up until now, recordings on A Story Before Bed have been sold for $6.99 per recording. Because Thanksgiving is the perfect time to record more stories, from Thursday, November 26, 2009 – Sunday, November 29, 2009, all stories on the site are only $4.99 per recording. There are over fifty quality children’s books in the library right now with more coming all the time. Customers can preview any of the books on the site, and record any story they like for free. You only need to pay once you’re happy with your recording and want to keep it. 1-800 free live tech support will be open regular hours during the entire sale including on Saturday and Sunday if you need it. The price will go back up to $6.99 per recording on Monday, November 30, 2009.

We wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, and happy recording on A Story Before Bed.

For those of you who don’t know, 826 Seattle is a branch of the national network of 826 centers across the country. In their own words:

“826 National is a family of seven nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping students, ages 6-18, with expository and creative writing. Each chapter offers drop-in tutoring, field trips, workshops, and in-schools programs — all free of charge — for children, classes, and schools with particular interests or particular needs.”

When we were developing A Story Before Bed, we immediately recognized that our mission of connecting distant families and children through reading was complementary to the 826 mission. We were thrilled when we called the folks at 826 Seattle and they generously agreed to provide a book for our library.

The Northwest Mythical and Unknown Creatures Organization Meeting #66 written by Noah Sather and illustrated by David Lasky is the latest addition to our collection of children’s books. Get a sneak peek into a meeting of some of the colorful mythical characters from the Pacific northwest including Seattle’s bridge troll, the living tree, and rain pixies. Royalties from purchases of recordings of this new book go to 826 Seattle to help further their mission.

Check out the book and check out 826 Seattle. They’re a great organization doing important work.

Dear high quality indy children’s book publisher:

We’re a high quality indy software publisher with a new site focused on children’s books. It’s called A Story Before Bed. The site lets parents and grandparents who can’t be with their kids at bedtime, record a video of themselves reading to their child synchronized to the pages of a children’s book.

Go see our demo story to see what your lovely book might look like on the site. Of course, every time someone pays for a recording of your book, you will get a royalty. And we even provide a link for the user to buy a physical copy of your book.

We’re thrilled to have our three inaugural indy publishers already signed up: BubbleGum, Charlesbridge, and Immedium, and be talking to several more as we speak. We’d love to hear from you as soon as possible. Send us mail at publishers (at) astorybeforebed (dot) com.