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App developers will increasingly have to give their brands a non-digital presence, speakers at the Dust or Magic digital masterclass told attendees at Bologna Children's Book Fair on Sunday (3rd April).
Speaking on a panel about kids’ apps, Venera Pausder, c.e.o. of German app developer Fox and Sheep, said: “Offline is the new online. You can’t just have a presence on the app stores, you need to think about your brand in the offline world too.” She added that licensing would become more important to the app business, as developers sign deals to create apps for other brands: “The app store is featuring the same brands as book and toy charts; big brands are using a ‘freemium’ model because their apps are a marketing tool and not a revenue stream, making it harder for small app developers to compete.”
Nosy Crow founder Kate Wilson also stressed the importance of digital products having an offline presence, and said physical books that “introduce the digital world” were proving particularly successful for her company. “Last year, digital audiobooks downloaded via QR codes in our books really took off, so we’re going to experiment with web links to audiobooks,” she said.
The panellists all agreed that the debate over how to monetise apps would continue. Valérie Touze, founder and c.e.o. of France’s Edoki Academy, said subscription models were rolling out, albeit “not as quickly as we would have thought”. Wilson said there was increasingly a conflict between ethics and monetisation, particularly around the subscription model and “the invisibility of seeing what you’re paying for”.
Emmet O’Neill, chief product officer for Ireland’s Story Toys, said the free-to-start model (whereby users can download the first chapter or two freely) was proving successful for his company.
The fair’s Bologna Ragazzi Digital Award, for digital publishing and apps for children, administered in association with US-based Children’s Technology Review, were also awarded on Sunday. The two winners were: Wuwu & Co: A Magical Picture Book, from Danish firm Step In Books, in the Fiction category; and Attributes by Math Doodles, by US-based Carstens Studios, in Non-fiction. Nosy Crow’s Goldilocks and Little Bear received a special mention, as did Boum! by Les Inéditeurs (France), Loopimal by Yatatoy (Finland) and MoonBeeps: Gizmo by Moonbot Studios (the US).