Building on the popularity of iPods and MP3 players among kids and teens, Audible Inc., recently acquired by Amazon.com Inc., has launched AudibleKids.com as a site offering nearly 4,000 audio book titles from more than 75 publishers.
“We see a real business opportunity in the amount of children’s books in print but never produced before now in audio form, while iPods and MP3 players have become so prevalent among young people,” says Brian Fitzgerald, vice president of education at Audible and general manager of AudibleKids.com.
Audible cites figures from C&R Research Inc. showing that more than 50% of children in the third grade have either iPods or MP3 digital content players. “We also see a high demand among parents to take part in their kids’ education and get them excited about books,” Fitzgerald says.
Audible, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com last month, developed AudibleKids.com independent of its new parent over the last 18 months, Fitzgerald says. The new site, like its sister site Audible.com, was developed in-house on Audible’s own technology, he adds.
AudibleKids offers shopping features not found on Audible.com, including the ability to search for audio book titles by appropriate age group or school grade and to share recommendations with other shoppers, educators, librarians and other experts based on the age or gender of audio book recipients. “We fully expect AudibleKids to reposition digital music players as story-tellers and learning machines, and thus build a new generation of enthusiastic readers,” says Audible founder and CEO Donald Katz.
AudioKids sells audio books at prices ranging from 99 cents for a seven-minute version of “The Little Engine that Could” to more than $80 for “War and Peace,” which runs more than 62 hours in audio form.
Audible is No. 125 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide; Amazon is No. 1.
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